Mediacorp artist biography of donald urquhart

Born in in Banff, North East Scotland. Living and working in the Scottish Borders. President of Visual Arts Scotland.

E D U C A T I O N

Edinburgh College of Art &#; Master of Fine Art (M.F.A.)
&#; BA (hons), Drawing and Painting

S O L O  E X H I B I T I O N S

&#; forthcoming show with Sarah Myerscough Gallery, London

&#; The Opposite Shore, The And Gallery, Edinburgh

&#; Vertical Forms, Paul Kuhn Gallery, Calgary

&#; Temporary Structures solo exhibition with Sarah Myerscough Gallery
&#; Veined with Shadow Branches, Sarah Myerscough Gallery, London
&#; Approaching the Verge, An Talla Solais, Ulapool
&#; Silver Between the Falls, Sarah Myerscough Fine Art, London
&#; Still Surfacing, Sarah Myerscough Fine Art, London
&#; Interview with New Linear Perspectives magazine
&#; Spectator review of Still Surfacing
&#; Cross Section of a Cascade, Sarah Myerscough, London, July
&#; Delicate Ground, Amber Roome Gallery, Edinburgh
&#; Counterpart, with James Lumsden, Sarah Myerscough Fine Art, London
&#; Sunlight on Grey Painted Steel, Watching Water Rise, Round Room, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh
&#; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield
&#; New Work, Merz Gallery, Edinburgh, November
&#; Semi-detached, East Kilbride Arts Centre, East Kilbride, Scotland
&#; New work, Courthouse Gallery, Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle, Republic of Ireland
&#; Between states, Bellevue Gallery, Edinburgh
&#; Between states, Project Room, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh
&#; New Work on Paper, Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh
&#; Recent Work, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh
&#; Bytes, Patriothall Gallery, Edinburgh

S E L E C T E D  G R O U P  E X H I B I T I O N S

&#; Alight, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh

&#; Cause and Effect, Tatha Gallery, Newport-upon-Tay

&#; Process and Possibilities, 50 Anniversary – 8 printmakers selected from the archive,  Edinburgh Printmakers.
&#; Process and Possibilities, Edinburgh Printmakers
&#; Converge, Vi

A Bit About Me

I am 52 years old, married and the father of three boys. I am a career firefighter/paramedic, 31 years on the job and a Captain in the Montreal Fire Dept.

The Diagnosis

I was first diagnosed as a stage III b, with an 11cm x 10cm x 6 cm tumor with Inferior Vena Cava (IVC) involvement at the Lakeshore General Hospital in Montreal by urologist/chief of surgery Dr. Vladimir Kurgansky. Because of the complex surgery, I was referred to Dr. Simon Tanguay at the Montreal General Hospital (MGH).

From Surgery to Recurrence

On June 22, I had an open radical nephrectomy and resection of the IVC. All was good for awhile, however, in Feb. , a ct-scan showed the cancer was back and I was told “This is not good”.

My Decision to Choose HD-IL2 (High-Dose Interleukin 2)

Dr. Steven Ades, an oncologist at MGH, STRONGLY recommended HD IL 2. He said it was the only thing out there that offered a potential cure for mRCC. The way he explained it, and he did explain the other options, I realized that HD-IL2 was the best option for me. Dr. Ades thought I was a good candidate. An appointment was set up with Dr. Francois Patenaude at the Jewish General Hospital.

When you arrive at the Segal Cancer Centre, you always start with blood tests. The receptionist asked me “Who are you here to see…who’s your Dr.? I said Dr. Patenaude. She then asked, melanoma or kidney? I said kidney… to which she replied, “don’t worry he’s got a protocol for that, the man is a genius, he will save your life.” My wife Margaret and I met with Dr. Patenaude and knew right away HD IL2 was the right choice for us.

About HD-IL2

HD IL2 treatment is given in “cycles” . Each cycle involves one week in hospital receiving 1 dose every 8 hours for a maximum of doses, then a week off, followed by another week of treatment. After 2 months, we would do a ct-scan to see if there was any response. My first week was in the oncology ward, but I had some severe side effects

Introduction

     Donald Nield was born in Shanghai, China in His  birth father is believed to have been Frederick Nield from Liverpool, England, whom his mother married a year after Donald’s birth. His mother was Annie Urquhart, half Scot and half Chinese, born in Kiukiang, China to Donald Urquhart, a Scot, and “Emmy Urquhart”, nee Lai Ken Hsueh Hewett a native Chinese woman from Kiukiang. When Donald was six years old he was told that his father had died in a light airplane crash. His early education was spent in London, Canada, and China. In his mother remarried an American during the Sino-Japanese War and they  emigrated to America to live in northern Michigan. 

     At 15 he left home and drifted to Detroit. There he &#;took odd jobs and became involved in an art bohemia, looking upon himself as a neophyte poet. But as I became aware of how much I had to learn, it was devastating to me.&#; During the Depression years he worked in artists’ studios in Detroit and got his general education from museums and libraries of that city. During World War II he was exempt from military service due to weak lungs, and worked in war plants and on war posters while attending free classes at the University of Ann Arbor, Michigan. After the war he briefly married, migrated to California and divorced.

     Nield’s final move was in to New York City where he took up painting, working days, and in the evenings studied anatomy, perspective and life drawing at the Art Students League, Washington Irving adult classes, and Greenwich House.

     In the early sixties during the revival of ship construction, he was commissioned to do a series of paintings for Navy aircraft carriers, most  notably the USS Kitty Hawk and the USS Constellation.  In January of an article appeared about him in the New York Telegram and The Sun by Pulitzer prize winner William Longgood. From the sixties through