As one of the original "Glasgow Boys", Ally Thompson can be numbered among the many acclaimed painters Scotland has produced over the last few decades. The label "The Glaswegian Surrealist" was coined by his agent, the late Norbert Binotti, for Ally's one man show in New York in 1990, an intriguing phrase, from which this website now takes its name. From that moment Ally's career took on an international dimension, as he went on to live and work and exhibit in America, Normandy, the south of France and Spain and then to sell across the world.

With commercial success comes the danger of plowing established furrows leading into self-parody. With Ally Thompson however, his exotic imagination has safeguarded his art from this pitfall, by demanding that he explore many styles. This versatility has meant that his "oeuvre" encompasses many moods, from the brash extroversion of his "butch" figure paintings (first created in New York in 1990), through the humble poetic introspection of his landscapes, to the apocalyptic visionary intensity of his surrealist work.

Irrespective of which imagery and style he adopts, all his work bears the essential hallmark of his artistic personality: which is always restless, searching, and therefore fresh...