BOOM!: A Day at the Seaside | New Sea Paintings from Allan MacDonald

Allan MacDonald has the rare ability to paint what is just out of sight, what is heard and felt, but goes unseen. Boom! The earth shakes. The smell of grinding rock and the taste of element sea, felt through skin and into nose - MacDonald’s favourite sort of day at the seaside. Boom! is MacDonald’s largest collection of sea paintings for many years mostly from wild days in the Isle of Lewis. 

Boom! is a collection of paintings done on a winter trip to the island of Lewis. I’ve called it BOOM! because the outstanding moment was when I drew up at the Butt of Lewis lighthouse in a Force 8. The first thing I witnessed was an enormous plume of water blasting over the rock. Up and up and up, held in suspension, sharply outlined, a microsecond of stillness, then the heavy collapse.

I stayed for hours, mesmerised, hypnotised even, unable to drag myself away. Just one more WHAM! One more explosion bigger than the last. Repetition was never so addictive. 

It was hard initially to make much of it with paint. But I persevered and discovered that the only way to approach it was through definition, which is odd because you are dealing with a chaotic mass. The paradox is that something so devastating and overwhelming, can become a thing of such precise shape and poise.

Allan MacDonald August 2026