Lys Hansen is a highly regarded painter with a formidable international reputation, so how, I wonder, do her roots in Alloa form such talent?

I recently had the privilege to ask her about her life and works. I have known Lys since the beginning of my own art career, when I was a school pupil preparing my portfolio at Dollar Summer School and, like many others, owe much to her inspirational teaching.

She began by telling me about her training in education, in Clackmannanshire.

Her demanding remit included a temporary position which lasted a year visiting 10 primary schools a week, two schools a day, to teach art throughout the county.

After teacher training Lys taught for five years at the Grange Junior Secondary School whilst her first son was a baby.

Before that Lys studied Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh College of Art, winning travelling scholarships.

If that was not impressive enough, she also holds a degree in the performing arts, which she studied concurrently. She explained that this training worked in harmony with painting, for example by learning how to project her voice she could utilize presentation skills in her painting to dramatic effect.

Painting on large scale is a visceral act which demands physical effort. Lys uses striking figures and bold colours to create narratives which bear witness to the big themes of humanity.

Her exhibition ‘Daily Bread’ shown last year at the Makers Bistro, focused on her childhood experience of the war and how Alloa was a strategically dangerous place at that time. Lys is proud of her links with Alloa - not only her family’s role as bakers, which ensured the survival of the community by providing basic sustenance to the workers who kept the industries going - but of Alloa as an important trading port on the Hansa route, and it is this aspect of the town which makes her equally proud of her Danish heritage.

During that exhibition Lys gave a lecture on her work in Berlin, a city she often returns to as a practising artist. Her interest with Germany today stems in part with understanding a shared history of devastating war, and how we can work towards creating stability. War has a profound effect on children, but it is also children that hold the key to peace and security, our duty in informing the next generation by testifying to the ills of the past can have a positive effect towards change for a better future. It is, however, a continuing struggle like the very energy of nature itself.

Lys emphasised how living under the volcano is more than just a pertinent metaphor; living under Dumyat she is keen to discuss the importance of her surroundings as an artist which she describes with passion. She talks of the scars created by the fault-lines and, in doing so, describes the magnificent power of nature and how its force cannot be harnessed.

It is futile for us to attempt to tame the land by confining the view within a frame of pretty landscape. Rather, the geological form should be regarded as a living body. It is this bold interpretation of her surroundings married with strong narratives which makes the art of Lys Hansen a force to be reckoned with.