Jan Patience: Journalist & Art Lover

The Art of Wyllie Editing

2012-02-08T15:49:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot about editing recently...

As a journalist, it's part of the stock-in-trade. I can't help myself. I sub everything I read. (In ye olde newspaper land sub-editors correct, cut and mould copy on the page before putting on a suitable heading, sub-heading, caption etc.)

Menus, facebook posts, websites, signs, my husband's to do lists, my kids' homework... no word or phrase is safe from my beady eye.

Editing is a silent skill. A wily one in many ways. When I edited magazines, I remember thinking after a particularly good issue went out that no-one was likely to say, 'well edited.' And I was right. They didn't...

When howlers went into print under my watch, which they occasionally did, it was almost as if I felt a physical pain. Once, when I was editor of the Daily Record's Saturday magazine, the word 'phoenix' appeared in a headline on the front cover in 100pt +, as 'pheonix'.

My colleague Merle Brown pointed out this bloomer rather tentatively as the mag was still rolling off the presses. Once I removed my head from my hands, I called the printers and was told: 'Hen, the readers'll no' notice and we've printed 500,000 so far.'

He was right. It was just my fellow journalists who noticed.

So. Why am I thinking about editing?

Because, at the moment, I'm spending my evenings editing George Wyllie's soon-to-be-published book of poems and illustrations, Some Serious, Some Not, Some not even that!

The front cover of George Wyllie's soon-to-be-published book of poems and illustrations

Emails have been flying hither and thither between a Greek Island, Palma, Boat of Garten and Glasgow, all in the name of this splendid collection of poems from one of the most influential British artists of the late 20th century.

As my Some Serious colleague, Angela McEwan, of educational consultancy, Media Matters (http://www.mediamatters.co.uk/) said in one email: 'Editing is definitely a minefield.'

George's economy with language; an ability to draw a simple, yet pure, clean line with words, is as finely-tuned as his ability to fashion an old bit of steel and turn into a bird. Or a Paper Boat out of... well, a robust paper-like fabric which is tough enough to take a beating on the high seas.

In a beautifully-written foreword to George's work, Scots Makar, Liz Lochhead says: 'His structures are poems, just as all the poems in this book are structures.'

Liz Lochhead with George's Canary With Foot Stuck in a Girder

Like an art-work which moves you and suddenly clears the mist from your eyes, a well-edited piece of writing or a well-edited publication can stay with you for a lifetime.

That is my fervent hope for Some Serious, Some Not, Some not even that! which is being published by The Friends of George Wyllie, a group set up by his family to promote and protect his legacy.

The book will be launched at Aye Write! – Glasgow's annual book festival – on the evening of March 12. (On the way to being a sell-out, so get your ticket now!)

At the two-hour long extravaganza, George Wyllie At 90: A Celebration, a clutch of Wyllie Chums, including Murray Grigor, Pat Kane, Ian Pattison, Charles Jamieson, Tamara Kennedy, Fred MacAulay, Pauline McLean, Murdo Maconald, Richard Demarco, Neil Baxter, Stuart Hepburn and Martin McCardie, will scratch the surface of a remarkable creative career.

For more details, see:

http://www.ayewrite.com/programme/events/Pages/George-Wyllie-at-90-A-Celebration.aspx

The book will be available at The Mitchell for the duration of the festival and online from March 12 at:

www.whysman.co.uk

You will also be able to see a welter of information there about The Whysman Festival, which takes place throughout 2012.

Captain George Wyllie - The Why?sMan

Jacki Parry at Glasgow Print Studio

2012-02-06T15:33:00.000-08:00

Jacki Parry: Resonance

Glasgow Print Studio

Trongate 103, Glasgow

0141 552 0704

www.gpsart.co.uk

Until March 4

Inside Jacki Parry's studio

After I left Jacki Parry’s eyrie-like Paper Workshop studio in Glasgow’s Gallowgate last week, it occurred to me that, for the first time in a 25-year-long career in journalism, I hadn’t used paper to record the journalist’s stock-in-trade process of looking and listening.

As Parry talked about her work and showed me examples of her work, which was being bubble-wrapped in preparation for dispatch to her latest exhibition at Glasgow Print Studio (GPS), I got out my newly upgraded iPhone4, opened up the Notes app and started tapping in information and quotes. I also took photographs as a form of note-taking. All on the trusty iPhone4.

When I got home, I emailed the notes to myself to use in the writing of this article about Parry’s work, which is all about the pleasure and possibilities of paper and paper making, an art form which she has made all her own.

It seems ironic, that as the world undergoes a complete virtual shift towards a paperless planet, Parry is still passionate about pursuing the inherent possibilities of paper.

Jacki Parry loves paper, and it has been a love affair which has been more than 40 years in the making.

For most of that time, Parry’s investigations have been based on developing ideas in paper using it variously as an independent medium, and in combination with other materials, often in sculptural form.

Be it creating small ‘books’ out of ancient plants such as rush and papyrus, or making small luminous, plumped up sculptural forms out of hand made, hand-coloured paper or fashioning towering paper-thin Towers of Babel, Parry brings a quietly contemplative hand and head to the table.

Works such as the beautiful deep blue Small Ocean, in cast handmade paper, have an almost watercolour feel to them and are surprisingly robust when you touch them.

Parry is not averse to using digital mediums in her work. She has made a series of prints created by what she calls ‘memory weaving’. This technique sees her using computer paper or photocopies of old newspapers, some of which her mother, suffering from dementia, had hand written aide-mémoires over the newsprint. These bits of paper are then shredded and she weaves the strips together to make a ‘drawing’.

It is fitting that Parry’s solo exhibition, Resonance, marks the opening of GPS’s 40th year because, as a student at Glasgow School of Art (GSA) in the early 1970s, she was a founding member of the studio in its first home of St Vincent Crescent.

Parry was born in Australia and has lived in Scotland since 1970. She ‘discovered’ etching and became interested in paper as a medium while a printmaking student under Philip Reeves at GSA in 1971 and has passionately pursued an active interest in all aspects of papermaking ever since.

She has studied with the Master American papermaker Laurence Barker at his workshop in Barcelona and also with the renowned Japanese papermaker, Tadao Endō of Shiroishi City, in the north of the country.

From 1991-2001, Parry was a senior lecturer and Head of Printmaking at GSA. In 1985, she established The Paper Workshop, in the east end of Glasgow, where she continues to work full time since retiring from teaching.

During the last four decades, at the same time as she explored a breadth of approaches and applications, her most intense interest has been in the structural aspects of the pulp itself and with the development of a paper membrane, which is both strong and translucent.

Using her own paper as a vehicle for creating sculptural work, Parry presents at GPS, a selection of innovative sculptural paperworks, alongside a variety of intaglio prints and a new screen-print produced with GPS’s master screenprinter Scott Campbell.

Often, after visiting an artist in their studio, I am struck by the utter devotion which they have to their art. Most artists are not naturals at promoting their work and often work away in conditions which would have many people half their age scurrying to workplace health and safety officers.

Artists like Jacki Parry do what they do and make what they make because it’s like eating and breathing.

Her work reflects this. Go see it. It is not virtual. It is real. You may even be able to touch it.

Small Ocean, cast handmade paper, by Jacki Parry, 2011

An Arty Clanjamfrie...

2012-02-06T15:27:00.000-08:00

This is the Galleries Round-up wot I wrote for The Herald on Saturday 4 February... unedited

The Scottish Show 2012

Panter & Hall

27 Bury Street, St Jame’s, London

020 7399 9999

www.panterandhall.com

Until February 24

Near Castine by Charles Jamieson at The Stafford Gallery, Wimbledon Fine Art

Although times are hard for working artists, with sales all around the art houses sluggish, two commercial galleries on London are currently holding substantial sales of Scottish art.

Judy Stafford, who until recently worked with Thompson’s Gallery in central London, has just launched her own enterprise, The Stafford Gallery, with An Exhibition of Scottish Painters.

Her first exhibition is currently on show at Wimbledon Fine Art in SW19 and features a host of well-known, established and emerging Scottish names. There is work on show by; Craigie Aitchison, Mike Healey, Lachlan Goudie, Charles Jamieson, Robert Kelsey, Paul Kennedy, Sheila McInnes, Archibald Dunbar McIntosh, Sandy McIntosh, Jack Morrocco, Jacqueline Orr, James Orr, Jonathan Robertson, Saul Robertson, Andrew Squire, Frank To, James Tweedie, Helen Wilson and Alma Wolfson. See www.staffordgallery.co.uk for more details.

In central London, Panter & Hall’s twelfth successive Scottish Show has just opened. According to the gallery’s Tiffany Panter, this is a prime opportunity to ‘‘showcase our regular stable of Scottish painters while offering our clients an opportunity to discover artists new to the London market.’

“We always include a selection of more serious works by major twentieth century masters,” she adds. “This year's highlights include paintings by Alan Davie, John Boyd, William Crosbie, John Cunningham, Tom Hutcheson and William Russell Flint. New acquisitions of works by contemporary painters include a fine Harry Holland, a stunning still life and a moonlit beach scene both by David Martin, a Colourist inspired still life from the 1980s by Norman Edgar and a classic example of Scottish landscape art by James Morrison.

“Charles Simpson, one of Scotland’s leading landscape painters, has sent us a stunning new batch of work, the two largest pieces of which have already been snapped up by a major corporate collection.”

132nd Annual Exhibition: The Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour (RSW)

Upper Galleries, Royal Scottish Academy Building

The Mound, Edinburgh

0131 624 6550

www.rsw.org.uk

From today until March 1 (Admission free)

Another Day in Feegie II by John Byrne HRSW

There’s a raft of Royal activity going on in the title of this exhibition, which features paintings by more than 130 of Scotland’s leading artists, including John Byrne and John Bellany, both of whom are now honorary members of the RSW.

The society has enjoyed royal patronage since 1886, when Queen Victoria – a keen amateur water colourist – agreed it could adopt the prefix ‘Royal’.

Prince Charles, also a keen amateur water colour painter, is the current Royal patron and he is one of many members who have work on display at this plum venue on The Mound.

The exhibition opened last night and to give you a taster, it is on show in its virtual entirety at www.rswgallery.org.uk.

At the opening, a clutch of award winners were announced and names on the roll of honour include, Tom McKendrick, Simon Laurie, Derek Robertson (this is his third award), Christine Woodside, Kate Henderson, Chris Brook, Ronald F Smith, Sian MacQueen, James Fairgrieve, James McNaught, June Carey and Archie Dunbar McIntosh.
There is some fine work here in this most delicate of mediums. The award-winning Glasgow-based artist Tom McKendrick has produced a beautifully delicate triptych, Datum Marks on Blue, a name drawn from his years spent as a Loftsman in John Brown’s shipyard on the Clyde.

He says: “A Loftsman’s job was to draw and mark the components of a ship in full scale, make templates from drawings and transfer these to steel and the building process. Datum Marks were the essence of this work, designating for example where a deck began, seams ended, machinery was placed, curves delineated and marking and identifying thousands of components. Arrows, numbers, lines and punch marks were methods used to do this work. Datum Marks on Blue is an assemblage of these components on corroded and painted surface.”

RECORD>AGAIN! 40 YEARSVIDEOART.DE - Part 2

Centrespace, Visual Research Centre

(Part of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design)

Lower Floors, DCA

152 Nethergate, Dundee

www.rewind.ac.uk

Until March 4

For the last six years, a major art preservation project, initiated by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, in partnership with leading new media research centre, the Centre for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany, has been working with a number of arts bodies to preserve some of the earliest examples of video art.
Together with five leading German museums, the two bodies have collaborated to preserve, restore and disseminate one of the most influential art forms of the 20th century, many of which are suffering from the dreaded ‘sticky-shed syndrome’, a condition created by the deterioration of the binders in a magnetic tape which hold the iron oxide magnetisable coating to its plastic carrier.
This exhibition in Dundee concentrates on the second phase of the project and includes many works not been seen for decades, including over 40 works made between 1968 and 2008. Video art anoraks will be drawn to a rare work featuring a boxing match from 1972 in which Joseph Beuys was a participant. Other gems include the first video synthesizer collages by Walter Schröder-Limmer.
The exhibition focuses exclusively on the medium of video and the core mission of the project, which is preservation. Many works from the history of video were considered untraceable, lost or no longer playable. The project’s main concern is to save these works from deteriorating while at the same time reconstructing the history of the video movement as a whole.
Duncan of Jordanstone has been involved in this international initiative through its REWIND: Artists’ Video in the 70s & 80s research project. The REWIND project focuses particularly on video works of the 1970s and 1980s and has investigated, conserved and archived over 450 single screen and installation works from the first two decades of artists’ works in video.

Anyone here seen The Kelly?

2012-02-03T02:26:00.000-08:00

THE KELLY GALLERY 2012

Following on from Heather MacLeod's guest blog the other day about Jack Kelly, the Glasgow man about town and arts patron who gifted the Kelly Gallery to Glasgow art institution, RGI, here is a taster of what to see (and hear) now and in the next few months in the gallery...

Lyndsey Redford, Butcharts T-Bar, oil on canvas, 2011

Lyndsey Redford - Skiology
Private view: Friday 3 February, 5 - 7.30pm
31 January - 11 February

Lyndsey Redford presents a solo show of new paintings of landscapes where the human figure is often subordinate to the immensity of the geographical world in which it is depicted. The exhibition will include several large-scale oil on canvas paintings of Scottish ski slopes.

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“My paintings are of landscapes with human habitation or signs of it, they are frequently sparse and the scale of human presence small in comparison to these vast open spaces. I am interested in why landscapes solicit the emotional responses that they do, and one of the fascinating aspects of the ski slopes is the ever changing levels of visibility and deceptive emptiness that contrast with portals of
crystal clarity and high-speed activity.”
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In order to depict ethereal qualities such as the vibrations within light or the presence of moisture within air, Lyndsey restricts herself to a simple palette. The repetition of looking again and again at a particular location helps her to create the overall impression of the strange surreal atmosphere of the activities and locations.

Lyndsey was shortlisted for the Threadneedle Painting Prize 2011, was awarded The RSA Painting Prize and The Maclaine Watters medal 2011, and won The RSA New Contemporaries Award 2010

Reportage
James Gillmour
14 - 25 February
A selection of black and white images taken throughout a distinguished career in photojournalism. Over the years, James has contributed to The Independent, The Scotsman and Scottish Field to name but a few. The images in this exhibition are a combination of street photography and photojournalism, with the majority of work shot in Glasgow and the west of Scotland. “I have always been attracted to the order in society and the way we all go about our various occupations – how we keep ourselves entertained, the life cycle,” says James. The exhibition features everything from male strippers and sheep shearers, to First Minister Alex Salmond

Hannah Frank
6 -17 March
Original drawings, sketches, bronze and plaster sculptures, and reproduction prints.
Born in Glasgow in 1908, Hannah Frank studied at Glasgow University and the Glasgow School of Art, and exhibited with the RGI throughout her career. From the age of 17, Hannah became known for her black and white drawing, resonant of the Art Nouveau period and with a hint of Aubrey Beardsley and Jessie King. Between 1927 and 1932, the Glasgow University Magazine, rarely came out without a drawing by 'Al Aaraaf', her chosen pen name. Hannah took up sculpture in the 1950s, studying with Benno Schotz, and continued to produce sculpture till her early 90s. Hannah died at the age of 100 in December 2008.

The Glasgow Group
20 - 31 March
Always a must-see event since the inaugural exhibition at McLellan Galleries in 1958, The Group’s Annual Exhibition this year features works by Gregor Smith, Philip Reeves, Carol Moore, Shona Dougall, Jo Linley, Ian Cook, Peter Kleboe, Carol Dewart and Graham Govan. Founded in 1957 by three Glasgow School of Art students, The Glasgow Group is a Scottish artists’ cooperative which encompasses a variety of media, including painting, photography, printmaking, and graphic art.
It is run by Glasgow based visual artists to promote the visual arts in Glasgow and the west of Scotland, and many of the group's artists are represented in public, corporate, and private collections.

Robert McGilvrary
3 - 14 April
This exhibition stems from Robert’s close affinity with the River Tay, with paintings recording an imaginary diary of the artist’s many years of contact with this magical river. The paintings reflect journeys of memory and responses to a sense of place. Robert is a lecturer in the School of Fine Art at Duncan Jordanstone College of Art & Design and has exhibited widely throughout the UK and Europe. He is also a consultant and author on public art and design.

Relative Perspective
Kim and Lara Scouller
17 - 28 April
This is the first joint show of paintings and drawings by the sisters, focusing on recent works. Both graduated BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Duncan Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, and their father is renowned artist Glen Scouller RSW RGI.
While Lara prefers to work directly in pastels using nature as her inspiration, Kim’s work involves working in oils and water-based paints, with the human environments and interaction important elements. Despite working at opposite ends of the country, Kim in London and Lara in Dundee, the sisters are in constant communication with each other which perhaps explains why there is a strong connection in their work. Says Kim: “While choosing different subject matter, we share a sympathy with the way we process that subject and the language we use.”

Tuesday Talks

21 February - Ray Mackenzie
Sculpture in Glasgow - Precedents and Prospects

20 March - Emma Tennant
Pomegranates & Pinks - A Scottish Painter's Journey

17 April - Kim and Lara Scouller
Relative Perspective – The Scouller sisters discuss their art.

29 May - Alec Galloway
Discusses his work on Glasgow’s newest public art commission Maryhill Burgh Halls.

Talks start at 11am until noon approximately with coffee served at 10.30am.
Tickets: £6 per person, £10 for 2 people. All welcome

To book email: gallery @royalglasgowinstitute.org Tel: 0141 248 6386

Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts
Kelly Gallery
118 Douglas Street
Glasgow, Scotland G2 4ET

Heather MacLeod on JD Kelly

2012-01-30T16:51:00.000-08:00

I'm busy pursuing Question Marks at the moment. Having got involved with the Risorgimento of George Wyllie's work (as his auld pal Murray Grigor puts it) it's leading me down all sorts of whys and wonderful alleyways.

Keep checking www.whysman.co.uk for details!

George is one of 50 RGIs, an award given to artists for artistic merit and their dedication to the Royal Glasgow Institute for the Fine Arts. My friend, Heather MacLeod, does PR this august artist-led body.

This is her guest blog revealing a fascinating tale behind JD Kelly, a one-man power house of the Glasgow arts scene in the first half of the 20th century. He gifted the JD Kelly Gallery to the RGI in 1965.

If you haven't been into the gallery, it's a great wee space just off the Charing Cross end of Sauchiehall Street at 118 Douglas Street, Glasgow, G2 4ET.

John Donald (Jack) Kelly, who gifted the Kelly Gallery to RGI

CHILDHOOD excursions usually involve seaside trips and visits to the park, but for Dorothy Kirkwood, daughter of the founder of the RGI Kelly Gallery, one of her most enduring memories is accompanying her father on his search for a suitable site to house the Burrell Collection.

Given that Dorothyʼs father was John Donald (Jack) Kelly CBE, who as City Treasurer of Glasgow Corporation (1949-1952), was instrumental in bringing Daliʼs Christ of St John on the Cross to Glasgow, it is not surprising that she grew up in such an public spirited and culturally rich environment.

“My father was a chartered accountant but was always interested in promoting cultural pursuits and the arts,” explained Dorothy during a recent visit to the gallery which bears JD Kellyʼs name. “He was the son of Sir Thomas Kelly who was Lord Provost of Glasgow, and from 1935 my father represented the Kelvinside ward.

“It was in his role as city treasurer that my father persuaded Glasgow council to spend £8000 on the purchase of Dali painting. He was also convener of the corporation special committee on the housing of the Burrell Collection, and I remember as a youngster going round Dougalston in Milngavie with to find a suitable place for the Burrell.”

JD Kelly was a man whose public service was described as a combination of business leadership, coupled with a high sense of citizenship and a love of the arts. He was awarded the CBE in 1953, and five years later when he became the seventh winner of the £1000 St Mungo Prize awarded to the person doing most good for the city, he expressed a wish that the money should be used to promote art.

It was as RGI President that ʻGentleman Johnʼ spurred on the development of the Institute in 1965 with his generous gift of the JD Kelly Gallery in Douglas Street. At a time when such spaces were rare and oversubscribed, he wanted to encourage individual artists by giving them the opportunity to mount small exhibitions.

“I remember being with him at the opening of the gallery with what seemed like the entire art world in attendance,” recalls Dorothy. “My father wanted to encourage young artists and help set them on the road which he is why he particularly wanted a small gallery.

“The great thing is that it is not just for famous artists, but new graduates and emerging talent. This gallery was one of the first of its kind and inspired on a lot of people to do the same thing. My father was always very proud of the Kelly and enjoyed his visits to the gallery.”

As well as his association with various philanthropic and charitable bodies JD Kelly was also a member of the Scottish Committee of the Arts Council and director of what was then known at the SNO Ltd.

“Until they built a lovely house in Killearn in 1961, my father and mother Christina lived in the west end of Glasgow. The first painting he bought was one by Leslie Hunter for which I believe he paid £100, and that was the start of him building up a collection of the work of Scottish Colourists.

“As my fatherʼs eyesight was quite poor, it was somehow appropriate that he liked the Scottish Colourists because of their vibrant colours; he certainly passed on his love of art to me.

“He was Chairman of the governors of the Glasgow School of Art when he died at the age of 71 in 1969. I often wondered how he found any free time as he did so much, and even wrote and adapted plays for the BBC.”

JD Kelly did not live to see the fulfillment of his dream of the housing of the Burrell Collection, but it was partly to due to his vision and commitment that Glasgow has become the city of culture it is today.

With new curator Lynne MacKenzie, the Kelly Gallery continues to be a regular drop-in destination for art lovers, and it seems fitting that his only daughter should be one of the many who enjoy the regular exhibitions, talks and

events.

See Heather's blog, Scottish Interior Life, here:

http://www.heathermacleod.co.uk/

Look out!

2012-01-16T09:56:00.000-08:00

For these tasty arty treats in 2012...

I wrote this for The Herald newspaper's preview of arts highlights in Scotland in 2012. There was a lot I had to leave out due to pressure of space. I wrote way over the 750 word limit as it was (sorry subs...)

It was in the paper on January 2 - so in case you missed it (and let's face it, January 2 was a forgettable sort of day) here you have it

Nothing Without Us About Us Is For Us - Art Work on River Clyde led by Matt Baker and TS Beall as part of Glasgow International Festival. I love this title and like the cut of the Baker/Beall gib...

THE RECENT announcement that this year has been designated the official Year of Creative Scotland, complete with a £6.5m tranche of Lottery funding, surely set off a ripple of wry laughter throughout the visual arts community. After all, every year is a year of Creative Scotland, as far as they are concerned.

Whether they receive official funding or not, it never ceases to amaze me how inventive our artists, curators and independent gallery owners can be when it comes to rising to economic challenges. Thank goodness they do, because our lives are all the richer for it.

Visual arts highlights of the 2012 Year of Creative Scotland includes a celebration of Scottish printmaking at Traquair House in the Borders during the summer, with various towns competing for a Creative Place Award, to be announced in January.

The shortlist promises some interesting suggestions, including a proposal that West Kilbride become Craft Town Scotland, while the local Cultural Partnership in Perth wants to build on its Living Communities project and identify a local hero for a commissioned portrait.

Scotland has its fair share of visual arts festivals, ranging from the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art (GI) from April 20-May 7 to the Spring Fling event in Dumfries and Galloway (June 2-5), which sees around 80 arts and craft studios fling open their doors to the public.

During August and often beyond, the Edinburgh Art Festival pulls together the best of the city’s galleries, museums and art studios, while August is never a wicked month in the East Neuk village of Pitenweem, because that’s when garages, gardens, home and studios turn into exhibition spaces.

GI has already announced solo exhibitions by Glasgow-based Turner prize winner, Richard Wright at Kelvingrove Art Gallery, 2012 Turner nominee Karla Black at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), Mexican artist Teresa Margolles at Scottish Sculpture Studios and Dutch artist Folkert de Jong at Glasgow School of Art.

Graham Fagen builds on a relationship forged with the National Theatre of Scotland last year on The Missing to work at Tramway again, this time with theatre director Graham Eatough and renowned Scots cinematographer, Michael McDonough on a unique collaboration that blends art installation, promenade theatre and film-making.

Also within GI, there is Henry Coombes at House for an Art Lover and the quirky yet strangely grounded Nothing About Us Without Us Is For Us, a public art event led by Matt Baker and TS Beall, which will see (or hear) attempts to hurl language from one side of the river to the other by means of obsolescent technology.

Craig Coulthard is the only Scots recipient of an Artist Taking The Lead award from the Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival. His creation will be a full size football pitch hidden within a commercial forest in The Borders on which football matches will be played on July 21 between teams consisting of recent British citizens currently living in Scotland.

The National Galleries of Scotland and the Tate have joined forces again to present a fourth successive Artist Rooms tour. The Mapplethorpe Scottish Tour will see the work of American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe travel to Dunoon (March-June), Linlithgow (July-October) and Perth (November- April 2013).

Other Artist Rooms highlights in Scotland are August Sander at Duff House, Banff (April 1-Aug 31) and Jannis Kounellis at Tramway in Glasgow (July 13 - September 9). At Tate Liverpool, seven works donated by Martin Creed will be on show from February 24 - July 27.

The National Galleries of Scotland has another packed programme of exhibitions in Edinburgh. Van Gogh to Kandinsky: Landscapes of the Imagination (July 14 - October 14), Giovanni Battista Lusieri (June 30-October 28) and John Bellany: A Passion for Life (November 17 - January 27 2013) will all go on show at the Scottish National Gallery.

Over at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, expect a summer blockbuster in the shape of Picasso and Modern British Art (August 4-November 4). Meanwhile, Peploe will be the next artist to be featured in the Scottish Colourist Series (October 2012 – March 2013).

As always, Scotland’s independent galleries continue to punch above their weight. Glasgow-based Compass Gallery’s highly-regarded Force and Form of Memory exhibition in association with Alzheimer Scotland tours to Stirling, Wick, Thurso, Greenock and Banchory throughout the year.

One to see in Edinburgh soon is The Scottish Gallery’s survey of the work of William Johnstone, from January 11-March 3. Look out for a beautifully produced, thoroughly researched catalogue of this overlooked Scottish master.

Finally, throughout 2012, there will be a year-long celebration of the work of maverick polymath, George Wyllie, who turned 90 on Hogmanay. Best known for public art events works such as The Straw Locomotive and The Paper Boat, there is so much more to Wyllie and his work than meets the eye.

The family and friends of Wyllie, now in a care home in Greenock, have joined forces to present a cornucopia of Wylliana in 2012 under the banner The Whysman Festival (www.whysman.co.uk).

The first event of the year is George Wyllie: Treasures from the Archive at The Collins Gallery, Glasgow (March 10-April 21). Sadly, due to cultural cut-backs, this will be the last-ever exhibition, as the gallery is closing its doors when it ends, after 39 years of presenting high calibre exhibitions. The year will end with the first ever major retrospective of Wyllie’s work at The Mitchell in Glasgow.

George Wyllie at 90: Feel The Force

2012-01-04T16:14:00.000-08:00

The following is an unedited version of a feature which I wrote for The Herald Arts section on 31/12/11.

I found it quite difficult to write because I have made the fatal journalistic mistake of getting too close to my subject - or at least his family and his legacy. Just ask my husband...

In November 2010, my journalist friend, Fiona Black told me about her good friend Louise Wyllie, who was looking for help in establishing the Friends of George Wyllie. Louise's dad George, had at that point, just gone into a care home and the family were faced with the task of looking after his artwork as well as his welfare.

Of course I knew about George Wyllie - or at least I thought I did. I remember all too clearly my first glimpse of George's work. It was 1988 and, fresh out of Aberdeen University and having just passed my driving test, I was working for a business magazine in Glasgow.

The brother bosses of the company foolishly gave me one of their fancy motors - a GTi or sommat - to go out to jobs and I was driving down the Broomielaw when out of the corner of my eye I spied a Straw Locomotive dangling from a crane.

The sight almost made me crash the car. It made perfect sense. Even to a callow 24-year-old. Later that summer, the Straw Loco was transported from its elevated perched and after the birds' nests were removed, burned at a former engineering works in Springburn. Inside was a question mark which would not be consumed by the flames.

Too many people feel alienated by art, but George Wyllie never made people feel that way. George's art comes from an honest and thoughtful place. He mixes everything into his artwork. Music, word-play, philosophy and the truest line imaginable.

On Hogmanay, the day of his 90th birthday, George's artist grandson Calvin, asked him if he had any pearls of wisdom to share. "Yes," said George. "Never share your pearls of wisdom with anyone."

Amen to that. Happy Birthday George! And onwards The Risorgimento...

GEORGE WYLLIE @ 90

THE WHYSMAN FESTIVAL - THROUGHOUT 2012

www.whysman.com

©Alan Peebles

EXACTLY 90 years ago today, George Ralston Wyllie was born in Shettleston, Glasgow; the first of Andrew and Harriet Wyllie’s two sons. It would another 50 or so years before Ralston, as he was known, became the Maverick bunnet-wearing artist called George Wyllie, who would dangle a Straw Locomotive from the Finnieston Crane and launch a Paper Boat on a global journey from the Clyde via New York and back to Scotland for an ignominious end.

Wyllie’s Straw Loco and Paper Boat both had a profound influence on all who saw them. Recently, the actor Alan Cumming who lived in the city at the time said: “It [The Straw Locomotive] was an act of whimsy, bravado and passion that connected on an emotional level with the Scottish people. It changed my view of what art could be.”

Following Martin Boyce’s Turner Prize win at the beginning of this month, there has been much chattering in the art world about how Glasgow has managed to produce so many leading contemporary artists.

David Harding led the Environmental Art course at Glasgow School of Art from the late 1980s until the late 1990s, which hot-housed figures such as Turner Prize winners Douglas Gordon and Martin Boyce. He is in no doubt Wyllie exerted a profound influence on his former students approach to making art.

“George's risk-taking and commitment were the things that exerted influence,” he says. “I brought George in to the department to work for a wonderful week around 1986 with the year group of which Douglas Gordon, Louise Scullion, Roddy Buchanan, Ross Sinclair, Craig Richardson were a part.

“At the beginning of it, George came in and asked if anyone had a book. A book was produced. Then he asked one person to open it and another to find a page in the middle. The next person was to pick out a line in the middle of the book. Then someone had to find the middle to words in that line. The words were ‘and I’ and that became the theme of the week, which concluded with a big dance in the art school to raise money for our student trip to New York.

“One of the students made a Berlin Wall out of cardboard boxes. At the dance, George jumped up to it and wrote and I in huge letters on it. Recently, at a gathering at Martin Boyce’s, I asked one or two of the artists there if George had influenced them and the answer was a resounding ‘yes’, especially with the Straw Locomotive and The Paper Boat.”

For Wyllie, now living in a care home in Greenock for ex-mariners, the sound of heavy engineering formed the backdrop to his early life and forged the man he would become.

His father was a rate fixer for a machine tool engineering company on the Clyde while his mother was a housewife with a talent for drawing, painting, music and dance, who later ran her own business.

In 1922, the family moved to the Craigton district of the city. Wyllie, ‘disadvantaged by a happy childhood’, recalls making the best bogies [carts] in town, spending hours constructing Meccano cranes and model airplanes and being taught by his mother how to draw, paint, dance, and play the ukelele.

Harriet also taught her boys to dance and in the late 1930s, Wyllie and his younger brother, Banks, had an early brush with fame when they were winners on a popular radio talent show, Carroll Levis and His Discoveries, which routinely drew in 20 million listeners.

Somehow, it seems entirely appropriate that George Wyllie, given the Dadaist approach he took to all his art in later life, used to dance unseen to millions of listeners.

He started his working life early as an office boy in the docks, which led to an engineering apprenticeship. He then joined the Royal Navy. His war ended with a visit to Hiroshima two months after the H Bomb was dropped in 1945.

Back home, and married to his lifetime soul-and-help mate, Daphne, he became a customs officer, maintaining his link with all things maritime and forging the mantra, ‘Be suspicious’, a line he later used to great effect in his memorable play, A Day Down A Goldmine, which ran in various guises throughout the 1980s. John Bett, Russell Hunter and Bill Paterson all starred with Wyllie in this multi-media spectacle, which took a sideways swipe at the absurdities of the global monetarist system.

By the end of the 1980s, a sixtysomething Wyllie, who had started his ‘career’ as an artist in his 40s, was making grown men weep by torching his Straw Locomotive in a disused engineering works in Springburn. It was a Viking funeral for Glasgow’s past glories.

In 1990, the writer Naomi Mitchison launched his flagship of the Origami Line, The Paper Boat, on the Clyde as thousands looked on. It was eventually seen by millions as it went on its journey from Glasgow to Liverpool, London and New York. When it sailed into New York and berthed under the shadow of the mighty World Financial Center, it even made the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

Although George Wyllie has been creating thoughtful work during the last two decades, there is now a generational gap in terms of his audience. Next year, under the banner title, The Whysman Festival, his family and friends hope to change this by mounting a series of exhibitions and events, with the overall aim of promoting and protecting his legacy.

The Whysman Festival will include the first ever retrospective of Wyllie’s work in his home city, to be hosted by Glasgow Life at The Mitchell at the end of 2012.

Wyllie’s old friend, filmmaker Murray Grigor, who has just issued a DVD version of the 1990 Channel 4 film he made with his late wife Barbara, The Why?sMan, thinks it is about time.

“The Straw Loco was as much a potent symbol of the city’s industrial decline as a promise of Glasgow’s reawakening in the arts. ‘The context is half the work,’ as the great conceptual artist John Latham once said. Yet no gallery or museum thought it worth preserving Wyllie’s internationally acclaimed requiem for Glasgow’s lost engineering prowess.”

Turner, Cartman and Chinese New Year in January

2012-01-04T15:39:00.000-08:00

Turner in January: The Vaughan Bequest

Scottish National Gallery, The Mound, Edinburgh

0131 624 6200

www.nationalgalleries.org

January 1-31

Rome from Monte Mario, a welcome addition to Turner in January at Scottish National Gallery

Every new year, like clockwork, the National Galleries of Scotland dust down their stash of Turner watercolours and bring them out of storage for their annual public viewing. When art lover Henry Vaughan (1809-1899) bequeathed his collection of 38 Turner watercolours to the Scottish National Gallery in 1900, he specified that they should only be displayed during daylight-shy January because watercolours fade easily if over exposed to light.

Tomorrow, for the first time in 112 years, a new painting will be added to the 38 watercolours which have been shown in Edinburgh every January, in the shape of Rome from Monte Mario, a work the great English artist painted in 1820.

This stunning watercolour has recently been allocated to the Scottish National Gallery through the Acceptance in Lieu of Tax scheme and will take pride of place in the Gallery’s much-loved Turner in January exhibition.

Rome from Monte Mario illustrates an aspect of the artist’s work not previously represented. Turner was perhaps the most prolific and innovative of all British artists and he paved the way for many of the painters who followed in his wake.

Rome from Monte Mario is one of his finest watercolours and was made after his first visit to Rome, between August 1819 and February 1820. Turner was delighted and overwhelmed by the trip: the ancient remains, profusion of Renaissance and Baroque buildings, and splendour of the city’s setting fired his imagination. This delicate and sophisticated work was created as part of a set of Italian scenes for his friend and patron Walter Fawkes (1769-1825).

This addition to the stable of 38 watercolours formed part of the distinguished Turner collection created by the Scottish shipping magnate and educational benefactor Sir Donald Currie (1825-1909), who founded the Castle (later, Union Castle) Steamship Company.

Of the Land: New Work by Sam Cartman
The Meffan
20 West High Street, Forfar
January 6-February 4

Bandeath I - Sam Cartman 81 x 61cm Oil 2011

There is something about the wide open spaces of the outer reaches of Scotland’s northern climes, with the huge skies and endless swathes of land, which suits painter Sam Cartman’s work. The focus of his new work in this latest solo exhibition in Forfar is a series of voyages to the east and west coasts of Scotland, the areas around Stirling, Arbroath, and the Western Isles.

Originally from Shropshire, Cartman is now based in Glasgow and he has an instinctive feel for responding to the landscape he finds in and around the less inhabited spaces of his adopted homeland.

This new exhibition of his work, which opens next Friday, builds on his growing reputation as a landscape artist, who is at once grounded in architectural reality, while still exploring the bigger abstract picture.

“Although the inspiration for my work often comes from visiting singular architectural structures in specific rural places,” he says, “I primarily use these buildings to provide myself with a structure or form to paint within. Any illusions to representing a particular place masks what I am really interested in, which is to figuratively paint an abstract picture.”

Structure and form is clearly important to Cartman in his work, but something else seems to take over once he has laid down a framework within the confines of four sides, which takes it into a prosaic, almost poetic place.

“The structures I at first capture in drawings serve as a basis for my involvement with the paint and from then on, my interaction with the paint takes over,” he states. The end results give the viewer time to pause and reflect. This is not just about landscape, but about the atmosphere which takes over when you find yourself in certain quiet places that are stumbled upon by chance.

Takeaway China 速视中国 2012
Millennium Hotel Glasgow George Square Glasgow & other venues
0141 1332 6711
www.takeawaychina.com
January 20-April 14

Chinese New Year Eve Banquet with Shanghai Jazz & performance by Carol Kidd

The bells might be almost upon us here in Scotland, but the Chinese New Year is a still a whole three weeks away. In Glasgow, a city which has long celebrated its links with China, plans are well underway to usher in the Year of the Dragon when it starts on January 23.

During his visit, First Minister Alex Salmond, spoke of ‘doors swinging open, enabling people in both countries to discover more about our respective cultures,’ and this philosophy is writ large during a three-month long jamboree of Chinese culture, which rejoices in its cuisine, its film and its art.

The festival is programmed by Ricefield Arts and supported by the newly-opened Confucius Institute at the University of Glasgow.

A packed programme of events will take place across the city and is due to launch on January 20 at Glasgow’s Millennium Hotel with a weekend of family friendly activities and experiences straight from China.

Following the launch weekend, a programme of independent Chinese cinema will be shown at various venues and two exhibitions of contemporary Chinese photography will open to the public. Over the intervening three months, 13 Chinese films will be screened at various venues across Glasgow, including CCA, GFT and Andrew Stewart Cinema. A symposium titled, Memory and the Witness in Chinese Language Cinema will also be held at the University of Glasgow.

Another highlight will be two exhibitions of photography by Chinese artists at Street Level Photoworks in the Merchant City from March 3-April 14. The first will be Chinese on the Train, featuring the work of artist Wang Fu Chun 王福春 and Mood and Memory, featuring Chi Peng 迟鹏,

Kelvingrove Belongs To YOU!

2011-12-28T06:47:00.000-08:00

This is an unedited version of a piece which I wrote for The Herald's Arts section on Christmas Eve

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

Argyle Street, Glasgow

0141 276 9599

www.glasgowmuseums.com

Closed Dec 25 & 26, afternoon of Dec 31, Jan 1 & Jan 2

Two Children by Joan Eardley (my two children will thank me for showing it to them... when they're not children any more!)

THIS year, as a Christmas present for filing my copy in time for the past year, my editor asked me to revisit Kelvingrove’s art collection.

Even though I live near Glasgow, since Kelvingrove reopened in 2006, I have been promising myself I’ll spend a few hours taking in just the art work, so it was a timely gift.

I have had flying visits through some of the galleries, mostly in the company of young children, and though the art collection has been partly reconfigured by curators for the benefit of younger visitors, my two children now roll their eyes around in their head whenever I start to moon over an artwork.

As for watching videos about art? Forget it. Recently, I managed to hoodwink my eight-year-old daughter into seeing Dali’s Christ of St. John, now relocated in a room of its own on the South balcony, and I was literally pushed out of the door before I could take in any of the interpretation panels or the fascinating film about how the painting came to Glasgow, its near demise after a vandal ripped it, and the subsequent restoration.

Dali’s Christ of St. John

She did, on the other hand, linger lovingly over a black and white picture of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in the Mackintosh and the Glasgow Style gallery on the ground floor, as her school house name is Mackintosh. I even photographed her with Toshie... They made a lovely couple.

Like many visitors to Kelvingrove, I had my first taster of major artists in Kelvingrove. I vividly recall my first glimpse of the Dali hanging at the end of a long corridor. The image burned its way into my already overheated synapses and stayed there, ready to come out whenever I needed it.

Last week, I had a guided tour with senior curator Jean Walsh. We started off in the new Glasgow Boys Gallery on the ground floor. This gallery opened in October in response to the overwhelming success of Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys 1880-1900, the most popular exhibition ever held in Kelvingrove.

Lavery’s large luminescent oil of Anna Pavlova, painted in 1910, ushers you into this space. All the well-known Boys, Guthrie, Walton, Henry, Hornel, Lavery, are back in town.There is also work by lesser-known names such as James Nairn, Harrington Mann, Alexander Roche and the only sculptor in the camp, Pittendrigh Macgillivray.

It’s a fine addition to the Kelvingrove’s repertoire and good news that there is now a place to see the Glasgow Boys in their home turf. Also on the ground floor, is Looking At Art and the Art Discovery Centre, which have provided the curators with an chance to bring out art work from stores and add interpretation panels.

“All our paintings and sculpture have their own file, a bit like in a a doctors’ surgery,’ Jean tells me, ‘so we have been able to add to the stories behind the work. Some purists dislike this approach, but it is very popular.’

Fascinating examples in these sections include John Pringle, a Glasgow optician and amateur painter who worked around the turn of the twentieth century, an Anne Redpath painting showing both sides of the picture (she painted on back and front) and a ‘restoration in progress’ painting by Glasgow Girl Norah Neilston Gray.

In the Looking at Art section, there’s a pick n mix approach to presenting the work, from a small Jack Vettriano self-portrait, (recently loaned by owners Miles and Marina Turner), to a Stanley Spencer from his Port Glasgow war-time period, a Lesley Banks painting, 39

Weeks and Waiting, side-by-side with a Joan Eardley painting of street children, and Avril Paton’s now iconic Windows on the West, featuring a Glasgow tenement in winter, now the most viewed painting in Kelvingrove after the Dali.

Upstairs, the treasure hunt continues, via the Dali in its new ‘home’ and into the Dutch, Italian and French art rooms which all flow into one another. ‘We are lucky to have one of the finest collection of Dutch art in a municipal collection,” Jean tells me. I’m ashamed to say I had never clocked Rembrandt’s Man in Armour before, but now I’ve savoured its darkly haunting presence, I’ll be revisiting.

The collection of Impressionist and Post Impressionist work includes some beauties, including Monet’s Vetheuil, Mary Cassat’s The Young Girls and Matiise’s The Pink Tablecloth.

Every Picture Tells a Story will keep young visitors entertained, talking out as it does, the story behind a handful of the collections’ paintings, but I found Scottish Identify in Art a motley mixter-maxter of eras and styles.

Covering everything from Tartanalia to a rather fearsome collection of guns which once belonged to Glasgow architect called Charles Whitelaw, you’ll also see some fine Raeburns and a handsome marble bust of Adam Smith, carved many years after his death by Patric Park.

The corridors outside these galleries also contain some easily missed work, including Alison Watt’s 2007 painting, Phantom, and a giant stone wall work by Ian Hamilton Finlay, Clay the Life. Blink and you’ll miss perfect Peploe still lifes on these walls too.

Give yourself a present this holiday, and pay a visit to Glasgow’s Kelvingrove. After all, it belongs to you.

The Druids - Bringing in the Mistletoe by Henry and Hornel

A flurry of festive gallery happenings

2011-12-28T06:10:00.000-08:00

This is an unedited version of the Gallery Round-up I wrote for The Herald Arts section on 24/12/11

Queen Elizabeth II by Cecil Beaton: A Diamond Jubilee Celebration

The McManus
Albert Square, Meadowside, Dundee
www.themcmanus-dundee.gov.uk
01382 307200
Until January 8

Who's Queen? No, I'm just your mammie...

I was in Dundee city centre recently and, finding myself with an hour to spare after an appointment, I dropped in to The McManus gallery. This was the first time I’d ever been in this beautiful building, recently sympathetically restored to its Victorian grandeur, and I had just enough time to take a quick look around the painting galleries before heading to the Cecil Beaton exhibition.

Dundee has been the first location to host the V&A’s exhibition of portraits of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II by photographer Cecil Beaton before it takes a Jubilee-style tour around her Maj’s realm.

It is the first in a series of partnership projects between The McManus and the V&A, as part of the pre-opening programme for the V&A at Dundee.

An expanded exhibition will be hosted at the V&A in London from February 8-to April 22 next year. The exhibition will then tour around the UK to Leeds City Museum, Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, and Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle.

If you haven’t seen this beautiful and captivating exhibition, I urge you to pay a visit before it closes on January 8. Through the vehicle of Beaton’s photographs, contact sheets and film footage, this exhibition radiates a real sense of time, place, as well as glamour.

One of the things which struck me most was the maturing process as the years moved on for both Beaton – and his subject. Clearly, as a young woman, Elizabeth enjoyed the process of being photographed – she was first shot by him in 1942, at the age of 16.

As the decades pass, duty hoves into view and more than a little exasperation with the whole process of being photographed.

Beaton was even at her Coronation, taking official and unofficial photographs and this really does give you a ring-side seat of the history of a key period in the middle of the 20th century.

The perceived wisdom that Elizabeth was the workhorse and her sister Margaret, the beauty, is also challenged here. In these photographs, Elizabeth radiates Holywood-style glamour, particularly in the late 1940s and into the 1950s.

A fascinating study into a life spent in the spotlight, it also reveals Beaton as one of the 20th century’s masters of photography.

Christmas exhibitions at scotlandart.com
2 St Stephen Place, Stockbridge, Edinburgh
0131 225 6257
193 Bath Street, Glasgow
0141 221 4502
www.scotlandart.com
Edinburgh exhibition runs until January 15
Glasgow exhibition runs until January 22

Alan King 'Secret Message' (oil on panel £620)

Scotlandart.com has been flying the flag for Scottish artists since its inception in 2000, putting talented home-grown painters and makers’ work out in the ether, and in the flesh at its two city-based galleries in Glasgow and Edinburgh.A huge number of hits on its website comes from outside Scotland and staff tell tales of packing off paintings to New Zealand sheep farmers – and other far-flung locations.This year, Scotlandart.com has Christmas exhibitions running in tandem at its galleries in Bath Street, Glasgow, and Edinburgh’s Stockbridge district until into the new year. If you are too time pressed to drop into the galleries in person, you can visit the online gallery to view the extensive online catalogue.You can also lose yourself for a while in reading lively artists’ profiles. Last Christmas, as the temperature dropped, sales at the online gallery soared, with art lovers in rural areas selecting paintings from the comfort of their snowbound homes, and this continued well into the New Year. Featured work in the real life galleries includes paintings by Glasgow artist Alan King who often develops his ideas by using manikins and miniature theatre which are positioned and photographed with different lights.“The Red Hat is a major theme running through my work,” explains Alan. “Storytelling and a love of early Italian Art are the roots of the development of my work. I try to create images which are visually compelling and form a bond with the spectator.”

Kelly Gallery
118 Douglas Street, Glasgow
0141 248 6386
www.royalglasgowinstitute.org

What's New In Your Neck of the Woods by Pamela Tait

This Christmas marks not just the end of the 150th birthday celebrations for venerable Scottish art institution, The Royal Glasgow Institute for the Fine Arts (RGI), but also Lynne Mackenzie’s first anniversary as curator of the RGI Kelly Gallery in Douglas Street.
Mackenzie, together with assistant curator Amy Marletta, has injected much needed 21st century vim and vigour into the actual and virtual life of this little gallery just off Sauchiehall Street.
This year has seen a packed programme of exhibitions, talks and events and there have been several innovations to the gallery, including the Own Art scheme, as well as jewellery and prints for sale, both in the gallery and online via http://royalglasgow.culturelabel.com/
My eye was drawn to some lovely kitsch yet tender Pamela Tait originals, which can be yours to keep for just £45 a month for 10 months.

Keep an eye out on the RGI website and social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter, for more innovations and news of next year’s exhibitions and events.

Highlights for 2012 include exhibitions of paintings and drawings from uber-talented sisters Kim and Lara Scouller (April 17-28), paintings from members of The Glasgow Group (March 20-31) and mixed/glass/drawing from Alex Galloway (May 29-June 9), whose stunning Windows of Today were recently unveiled at the now refurbished Maryhill Burgh Halls in Glasgow.

Glasgow Print Studio, Tales of the City & Montrose All Lit Up

2011-12-18T07:51:00.000-08:00

This is unedited version of my gallery round-up, published in The Herald Arts section on 17/12/11

Glasgow Print Studio Christmas Exhibition

Glasgow Print Studio,

Trongate 103, Glasgow

0141 552 0704

www.gpsart.co.uk

Until Jan 29, 2012

Fiona Watson, Bird Bath, etching

Scotland’s print studios are bubbling cauldrons of creative endeavour and Glasgow Print Studio (GPS) is no exception. Take a wander within its art-festooned walls and you will stumble across work by Turner Prize winning artists such as the newly-crowned Martin Boyce and Richard Wright.

For the first time in many years Glasgow Print Studio is hosting its annual Christmas show throughout both gallery spaces, with work from young emerging artists right through to established Royal Academicians like Elizabeth Blackadder and Turner Prize guys, Boyce and Wright.

There is a lot to feel festive about, including Scott Campbell’s beguiling butterflies, Sue Mackechnie’s Art Deco-style ladies inspired by glowing Tunnock’s packaging and (if you ask the right person) Fiona Watson’s under-the-counter Swear Box series, which includes an artwork featuring a certain Scottish slang word which recently became a watchword for our own dear hurricane.

The word is that Watson was in the studios reprinting this week as there have been several enquiries about buying one. If you want to be added to the reserve list, get in quick! (They are retailing for £80 each)

Some of Scotland’s finest printmakers regularly make work at GPS and the quality is clear as you wander from room to room, taking in artwork by the likes of Philip Reeves, Elspeth Lamb, Hetty Haxworth, Ian McNicol, Helen Fay, Fiona Watson, Murray Robertson and Rosalind Lawless

GPS also participates in Creative Scotland’s interest free scheme which allows buyers to spread the cost of buying original artwork. Now that, dear reader, sounds like a Christmas blessing in disguise...

Tales of the City: Art Fund International and the GoMA collection

Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA)

Royal Exchange Square, Glasgow

0141 287 3050

www.glasgowlife.org.uk

Until Dec 1, 2012

This exhibition, which opened on Thursday (Dec 15) and will be on show until the beginning of December next year, is a timely survey of work bought by Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art in partnership with The Common Guild, with £1m of funding from the Art Fund.

The first in a series of exhibitions which, by next August, will see almost all the new additions displayed throughout GoMA alongside other works from Glasgow’s collection, the broad theme of art and the city or urban environment has been the guiding principle.

New purchases include works by major international artists such as Thomas Demand and Barbara Kruger, as well as those by lesser known artists, rising stars in the international art scene, such as Emily Jacir and David Maljkovic.

These acquisitions are shown alongside key works from the GoMA collection by Glasgow-based artists such as Toby Paterson and Turner Prize winner Martin Boyce.

Since 2007, GoMA in partnership with The Common Guild has been part of the Art Fund International collecting scheme. Supported by the Art Fund, they have spent £1m on artwork, creating what is described as an ‘exciting international context for works from the UK collection.’ This scheme has so far enabled GoMA to purchase photography, installation, film and video by artists from Croatia, Germany, Holland, Ireland, North America, Palestine and Switzerland.

Carrying on the theme of Glasgow as being at the vanguard of contemporary art practice, Common Guild director, Katrina Brown said: “The Art Fund has provided an amazing opportunity for Glasgow to develop its collection of contemporary visual art, and to bring works of international significance to the city on a permanent basis to be enjoyed by future generations. This exhibition is a wonderful moment to see the city’s growing collection of world-class work, and to appreciate the international context in which Glasgow’s own artists have thrived.”

Illumination Winter Art Salon

Wall Projects Home Gallery

17 Wellington Street, Montrose

07714 368203

www.wallprojectsltd.com

Until Jan 26, 2012

Untitled by Lisa Jane Birch

Working away on her own in the north east town of Montrose, a town which fostered such artistic talents as Christopher Grieve (Hugh MacDiarmid) and William Lamb, artist/curator Kim Canale has been a powerhouse of energy and commitment to the cause of promoting established and emerging artists in Scotland and Italy.

This winter, Canale, who recently held an exhibition in Glasgow with her friend, artist Patricia Cain, says she is living by the mantra, ‘Art is for life, not just for Christmas’.

Canale has a sure eye for picking up on emerging talent at an early stage. She was one of the first galleries to pick up on future inaugural Jolomo Award winner Anna King, when she was still at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in 2005.

Canale has homed in on the artwork of new graduate Lisa Jane Birch as one to watch. “Lisa is originally from Glasgow and studied at Duncan of Jordanstone,” she says. “She graduated this year and has been picked as one of the New Contemporaries at the RSA next year. She was in my ARSYLAND 5 exhibition earlier this summer, featuring works by graduates from Glasgow School of Art, Duncan of Jordanstone and Grays School of Art. She attracted such a lot of attention that she is now exhibiting in my winter show.

Work by over 20 artists is on show at the Illumination Winter Art Salon, including Patricia Cain, Stuart Buchanan, Fiona North, Rosslyn Oman, Michelle Roberts, Giovanni Giacoia, and many more. Canale herself has work on show, inspired by the power of the sea near her home on this dramatic corner of Scotland.

The Sculpture Show @ Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

2011-12-18T07:43:00.000-08:00

This is an unedited version of a preview piece I wrote for The Herald Arts section on 17/12/11

Poster for The Sculpture Show at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

The Sculpture Show 1900-2012

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

75 Belford Road, Edinburgh

131 624 6200www.nationalgalleries.org
Until June 24, 2012

It’s not often that I pass an art gallery and make a mental note to take my 10-yar-old son. I have a feeling though that the two jet engines currently sitting out in the middle of Charles Jencks’ distinctive landscaping project Landform in the ‘front garden’ of Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art One in Edinburgh, might just pique his interest for more than half a second.

Add into the mix the nugget that the jet engines in question are from US Air Force surveillance planes and I know for sure he’ll want to see them before The Sculpture Show closes next June.

The fact that the artist, Roger Hiorns, has packed the engines with three types of anti-psychotic drugs will probably go over his head as they are apparently ‘inaccessible to the viewer’ but it is typical of Hiorns, who was shortlisted for The Turner Prize in 2009, to create work in this vein.

One of his previous works atomised a passenger jet to fine dust, while another inserted brain matter into the engine of a Toyota people carrier. Then there was the time he filled a corridor of Milton Keynes Gallery with blue juggernauts

It’s clearly a boy-thing...

The hallucinogenic core of Hiorns’ work, Untitled, commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago last year and on show for the first time outside the US, may well fly over my son’s head, but it sets the tone for a thought-provoking exhibition which sees the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art being given over entirely to sculpture in all its many forms.

Works from the collection is on show, alongside several major works on loan to provide an overview of the depth, range and breadth of sculpture from 1900 to the present day.

After a worldwide tour, Ron Mueck’s monumental work A Girl (2006) returns to Edinburgh to form the centrepiece of the show.

Mueck’s Edinburgh exhibition in 2006 was a memorable experience for all who saw it at The Mound and the fact his giant, painfully detailed work is back in the Capital will surely drawn in the crowds.

A Girl is another artwork which will have your children asking questions. This giant baby shows in forensic detail, the creases, folds, body fluids and alien-like appearance of a a newborn baby in all it’s primordial glory.

Made of polyester resin, fibreglass, silicone, synthetic hair, synthetic polymer paint, this work was bought by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2007.

While Scottish sculpture is included in this show – there is work by Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull, and Glasgow-bred Turner Prize-ites, Douglas Gordon, Simon Starling, Martin Boyce and Karla Black – it is not an overview of sculpture in Scotland.

Displays include Impressionist sculpture, with works by Rodin and Degas; collage and relief; early twentieth century British sculpture, including Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore; Surrealist works by Alberto Giacometti and Marcel Duchamp. Contemporary sculpture displays will include works by Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas as well as the aforementioned school of Glasgow School of Art-trained artists.

Also on display will be new work by Nick Evans, a Creative Scotland Fellowship Artist, who has been undertaking a period of research within the galleries over the past six months.

Glasgow-based Evans, who works out of Glasgow Sculpture Studios, was the first ever recipient of the inaugural Artist’s Fellowship at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, and an entire room of the gallery has been given over to him for the duration of this exhibition.

This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – a joint venture between SNGMA and Creative Scotland, gave Evans financial support as well as access to the national collections. The artist, who is originally from the south west of England, says that in looking at the collection he has been drawn to the work of Scots artist Will Maclean dating back to 1973, which tracks the demise of ring-net fishing in the west coast of Scotland.

In his work, Evans, a former artist in residence at Tate St Ives, examines the power of objects and the way in which artists, such as Picasso (also represented in this exhibition) and Gauguin respond to the artwork of primitive cultures.

From jet engines to primitive art, looking at this exhibition, it will bring it home to all of us that sculpture is the real stuff of life – and death.

Art on art: Roger Hiorn's jet engine bits bring a new dimension to Charles Jencks' Landform outside the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art One
© David Grinly

Seeing Through Maryhill

2011-12-13T05:56:00.000-08:00

Pure dead cultured ... Maryhill-ites Douglas Gordon and Susan Philipsz feature in Alec Galloway's Culture window

This is an unedited version of a piece I wrote for The Herald's Arts section on 10/12/11

The rebirth of Maryhill Burgh Hall is an inspiring project. What an incredible resource for the people of Maryhill, Glasgow.

Alec Galloway's windows, which will face up to Stephen Adam's original windows (created for the hall in the Victorian era) will be hoisted into place soon.

Alec Galloway's window on the subject of education features a group of local lads

Windows of Today

Maryhill Burgh Hall

10-24 Gairbraid Avenue, Maryhill

0845 860 1878

www.maryhillburghhalls.org.uk

Preview today from 2pm-4pm

For the last few weeks, a boy from St Charles Primary School in Maryhill has been chapping on the door of the as-yet unopened Maryhill Burgh Hall in Glasgow, asking to see ‘his window’.

According to Gordon Barr, heritage development officer for the Maryhill Burgh Halls Trust, and one of the driving forces behind a £9.6m restoration of the 133-year-old community building, the lad has his whole family, including his granny, lined up to come to a preview event at the building today (Saturday 10th).

“He can’t wait to get in and is telling everyone his picture is on the new windows,” laughs Barr.

The preview, which took place last Saturday, allowed the local community and other interested parties, the chance to see ten new stained glass panels by leading Scottish glass artist, Alec Galloway. The windows have been specially created for the building, which had lain derelict for almost a decade before work began on its restoration in 2009.

Galloway’s Windows of Today panels will be hoisted into place in the main hall of the building next week to be joined in a few weeks time by the 20 original stained glass windows made for the hall by renowned Victorian glass artist, Stephen Adam.

It’s the icing on the cake everyone who has worked to make this project happen and is a prelude to the building being back in business as a community hub, complete with public hall, cafe, office space, meeting rooms, a commercial and community recording studio, a nursery and courtyard garden. The halls are due to be back in business and fully operational again in the new year.

For the last year, inspired by a series of workshop sessions with local residents, Galloway has been working on the panels to reflect life in Maryhill in the early days of the 21st century.

He explains: “The key to the project has been the close community involvement and the fact that so much has come directly from the people and imagery of Maryhill itself. The wee boy who has been chapping at the door of the hall was in a class at St Charles Primary School down the road. I went there to take photographs for the panel which focuses on education, which is a nod to Adam’s window, The Teacher.

Edinburgh-born Adam was responsible for some of the finest stained glass produced in Scotland in the late nineteenth century, with prime examples of his work in buildings such as Glasgow’s Clydeport building and Paisley Abbey.

The Victorian artist’s original windows, described by Barr as ‘the crown jewels of Maryhill’, paint a vivid picture of a hard-working municipal burgh on the outskirts of Glasgow, which at the time proudly managed its own affairs.

Adam’s glass panels reveal, in a distinctly modernist way, the huge variety trades, industries and occupations going on in Maryhill. They were removed from the building for safe keeping in the 1960s, and placed in storage in the collections of Glasgow Museums, and have rarely been seen by the public since.

When the Adam windows return to Maryhill after more than 40 years, they will be hoisted into position on a wall facing Galloway’s Windows of Today.

“For me it’s an honour to have my windows facing Stephen Adam’s,’ says Galloway. “I have know these windows since I was a student when I’d go and see them in the museum.

I wanted to create something different from the original windows, but that would sit alongside them and not be overshadowed.

“They are defined by the screenprinting technique, something I’d really only done on a few pieces before.”

Galloway’s depiction in glass of modern Maryhill, is as touchingly beautiful as it is vibrant.

Music is a recurring theme in all his work and reflects his own passion for it as a listener and a practioner. For this series, Galloway has incorporated the lyrics of a song called Voices by his friend, the Maryhill-born musician, Kevin McDermott, as a running theme throughout all ten panels.

I hadn’t realised Kevin wrote Voices about growing up in Maryhill,” he explains. “When I sent him over images of the panels, he sent me a text saying he was blubbing and texting at the same.”

In the week that saw Glasgow scoring a hat-trick of winners in the Turner Prize, one panels shows Maryhill-born Prize winner, Douglas Gordon, with his distinctive ‘Maryhill’ necklace-style tattoo. In this panel, there is also calligraphy of the lament, Lowlands Away, which won another Maryhill-ite, Susan Phillpsz, the prize last year.

Other subjects include the owner of Jaconelli’s Cafe on Maryhill Road and a locally-based space-craft maker called Clyde Space. This hi-tech firm features alongside another innovation, the first ever 2D barcode on glass.

Take out your smartphone, point it at the code and hey presto, you will be guided to

www.maryhillburghhalls.org.uk for more information about the building and the beautiful glass which is part of the fabric of the building again.

I have a feeling that Stephen Adam, always ahead of the game in terms of innovation, would have approved...

The technology window - point your smartphone at the bar code and see what happens

Round-up, Round-up

2011-12-13T05:34:00.000-08:00

This is the gallery round up which appeared in The Herald Arts section on 10/11/11

The Innocents by Rachel MacLean

The Skinny Showcase Shop

www.culturelabel.com/the-skinny

Until June 2012

Since the beginning of this month, free distribution Scottish arts magazine, The Skinny has been helping young emerging Scottish artists sell their wares via a virtual shop.

This new virtual enterprise is being promoted through a collaboration with online arts brand, CultureLabel, in partnership with Creative Scotland’s Own Art scheme, and gives buyers the opportunity to buy original artwork in 10 interest-free monthly instalments.

The organisers say this initiative, which is to run for six months in the first instance, provides the opportunity for art lovers to support new talent for less than the price of a monthly mobile phone bill.

The Skinny’s editor, Rosamund West has been selecting the magazine’s Showcase of artists-to-watch since 2007. She claims this new venture takes the platform to another level by enabling the public to buy original work by promising artists at the start of their career.

New artists will be added to the collections in the coming months but the first collection of limited edition prints presents seven diverse Scottish artists who have made works in painting, printmaking, photography, illustration, collage and graphic design.

Artists exhibiting and selling their work include, David Lemm (davidlemm.co.uk), Good Wives and Warriors (goodwivesandwarriors.co.uk), Jamie Johnson (jamie-johnson.tumblr.com/), Markus Thorsen (markusthorsen.com), Rabiya Choudhry, Rachel MacLean (rachelmaclean.com) and Ross Fraser McLean (rossfrasermclean.com).

Artist Rachel MacLean, whose memorable degree show at Edinbinburgh School of Art in 2010 attracted a lot of favourable attention, said, “The Skinny's CultureLabel project is a fantastic opportunity to exhibit and sell a collection of my prints alongside a diverse and accomplished group of artists and designers. The project not only offers great exposure but also supports the financial and practical difficulties of attempting to sell work as an emerging artist.”

The Winter Exhibition

Peacock Visual Arts

21 Castle Street (off Castlegate) Aberdeen

01224-639539

www.peacockvisualarts.com

Until December 23

David McCracken's feeling the chill...

The Peacock winter exhibition is always a seasonal highlight in the north east’s art calendar and a fine opportunity to buy original art work at reasonable prices for the art lover in your life...

This year, there’s over 500 works on show from professional artists and keen amateurs, and if you click onto their website, you can see 360 degree views of jam-packed walls.

It’s worth making a date in your diary for the Peacock Print Shop Extravaganza next Saturday and Sunday (December 17 & 18). The weekend before Christmas can be a stressful time but with mince pies and mulled wine on the menu, plus a 10% discount on all works on offer, it sounds like the ideal place to shop.

There are hundreds of prints, paintings, sculptures and photographs on sale, as well as a selection of hand printed posters and prints by Bob Batchelor, Francis Boag, Adam Bridgland, John Byrne, James Furneaux, Kenny Hunter, Barbara Rae, Claire Roberts, Willie Roger, Ralph Steadman and Frances Walker.

Peacock are also collaborating with CultureLabel in conjunction with Creative Scotland’s Own Art scheme, allows the public to take advantage of an interest-free loan on all works.

New artwork now on sale include a selection of fantastic limited edition screenprints by Kenny Hunter. His sublime text-based Then the Animals said God is literally like gold dust, as Hunter has used gold dust to achieve a glittering finish.

This work is available by paying 10 monthly instalments of £20. Hunter is mostly known for his sculptural work, including Citizen Firefighter outside Glasgow’s Central Station, but his screenprints are becoming increasingly collectable.

Alessandra Campoli: Edges
The Arches

253 Argyle Street, Glasgow

0141 565 1000

www.alessandracampoli.net or www.thearches.co.uk
Until Jan 23

The idea of getting finding our way around planet earth with assistance from a satellite in space has become commonplace in the modern world, but I can’t think of any artworks which have explored it in depth.

This recently opened exhibition by Glasgow-based Italian artist Alessandra Campoli is part of a wider project devoted to the notion of ‘edges’ in different European and Asian urban contexts. The result is what she describes as ‘a series of physical and visual explorations of Glasgow’s cityscape’ combining black and white analogue and digital photography, photomontage and what she calls GPS Art.

Using a Global Positioning System, Campoli has been tracing her way around the margins of Glasgow city.

She says: “While photography is capable of figuratively representing and documenting reality, performance art provides the possibility of materially interacting with the space, of penetrating it, of physically perceiving and expressing its meaning. GPS drawing simultaneously facilitates a physical exploration of the space and an abstract representation of it.”

According to Campoli, who is completing a practice based PhD in Media Arts at the University of the West of Scotland, edges mean not only the periphery of a horizontal space, but ‘the collocation of marginal space at some distance from the centre of security can be temporal or spatial, real or symbolic, material or conceptual.’

“They can be forgotten places in the centre of the city,” she adds. “Places where the urban space is transformed into something strange and even uncanny. Edges can extend vertically, as stratigraphic spaces lying beneath, buried in the ground; or they can be conceived as fragmentary spaces within the city, where modernity is brusquely interrupted by the presence of rejected, forgotten memories.”

The Tu-Tu-Truth About My Turner Prize TV Debut

2011-12-09T02:17:00.001-08:00

Martin Boyce and Mario testino (after the streaker was huckled off stage)

Well, it's been an arty pants sort of week. On Monday night, The Turner Prize was awarded to the third Glasgow-grown artist in three years and a man wearing no pants - just a tutu - jumped on stage at The Baltic in a bid to steal Martin Boyce's thunder.

When I watched the smartphone footage of Martin receiving the prize from suave photographer, Mario Testino on the Guardian's website yesterday I couldn't help chuckling. 'Well, I didn't expect that,' he quipped, sounding as good as a top stand-up.

See Martin Boyce's classy retort to tutu-wearing streaker here...

I have to confess, I was in a bit of a spin myself on Monday night because a producer from STV's Scotland Tonight called when I was making the kids' tea to ask if I'd go on the late night news and discussion programme to talk about Glasgow growing reputation as the place where contemporary art.

So there I was, trying to read/watch up on all things Turner as I supervised various domestic activities.

The taxi was due to pick me up at 9.30 and the programme started at 10.30. Meanwhile, my daughter and her pal sat waiting for a pick-up from Brownies in the next village because I was watching the Channel 4 live coverage and got the time muddled up. It's not all glamour.

My 10-year-old son was shaking his head as all four artists on the shortlist were profiled. 'Mum, I just don't get that modern art stuff,' he said, sounding like a Daily Mail reader from the Home Counties.

There was obviously a short delay build into the 'live' coverage because Channel 4 managed to edit out pink tutu-wearing streaker Mark Roberts lunging towards Testino (personally, I was more shocked that Roberts was a 46-yr-old grandfather than anything else...)

Anyway, the TV debut went well - according to those who know me. had a bit of interaction beforehand on Twitter, with Glasgow International festival producer, Jean Cameron, feeding me a good opening line about this being a 'goooooood news' story for Glasgow. The main thing was I didn't make a diddy of myself. Always a bonus.

The link seems to have gone offline now, so I can't regale you with it...

My red velvet dress, bought for £15 in a vintage shop, and black accessories matched the set though it felt a bit slippy on Scotland Tonight's black leather sofas... My mother would've been proud (that I matched, that is...)

My two fellow guests, Prof Roger Wilson, head of fine art at Glasgow School of Art and artist, Craig Mulholland (nice white shoes, Craig) were very charming and loquacious, so in the end I didn't say much and it was all over too quickly. We had a drink afterwards in the green room (not green) with presenter John MacKay and the team and to be honest, that would have made better telly.

The curious success story that is Jack Vettriano was discussed and the mysteries of the art world were unravelled just a fraction.

Martin Boyce winning The Turner Prize is a good news story. It was good for 'winners' Douglas Gordon, Martin Creed, Richard Wright, Susan Phillipsz and for all the other artists who have been shortlisted but didn't pick up the £25k cheque.

As Karla Black said in her Channel 4 interview, 'I just want my work to be seen and this allows it to be seen.'

The art world is the broadest church imaginable and as both Karla Black and Jack Vettriano can confirm, at the end of the day, success comes down to people seeing the work. They might not like it, they might not understand it, but it's out there and that is the main thing.

Not often you get Karla Black and Jack Vettriano mentioned in the same sentence.

Kate Downie in Beijing

2011-11-29T05:47:00.001-08:00

The Concrete Hour: Kate Downie RSA

Where Where Art Space
No 319-1, East End Art Zone A, Caochangdi Village, Beijing
www.katedownie.com

This is an edited version of a feature I wrote on Kate Downie for The Herald Arts section on 26/11/11

Someone commented on Kate's facebook page that her new work was 'so Chinese but so very Kate Downie'. So true. Wonderful work.

Kate and accomplice take the bike to new levels in the Where Where Art Space

Kate Downie in action on the streets of Beijing at her traditional felt table

It feels strange yet at the same time appropriate that I am conducting my first ever Skype interview with Kate Downie. The normally Edinburgh-based artist is talking to me from her well-appointed apartment in FeijiaCun, an artists’ village to the north of Beijing, where she is currently on a residency until the end of the year.

Webcam at the ready, the ever-energetic Downie gives me a quick laptop tour around her kitchen cum studio, even though it’s nearly 10pm and she’s had a long day, which saw her painting on the walls of the Where Where Art Space in Caochangdi Village that very morning.

She has ink drawings in progress which she is keen for me to see.

As she shows me the drawings and tells me the stories behind them, a white cat which has taken up residence in her apartment even makes an unscheduled appearance. I introduce it to my black dog.

So far, so immediate.

Downie’s trademark is the immediacy of her work, especially her drawing. Stand in front of a Kate Downie drawing and such is the deftness of her touch, you can feel and smell the air around her source material, be it in a campervan in Catterline, in a Noregian sideroad overlooking a fiord, or on a street in Cupar. Lately, she has been mostly standing at a table on a teeming street in Beijing, jammed between a hutong and a high-rise. Drawing with all her might.

Downie’s excitement at having spent the last few weeks creating ink paintings on the streets of Beijing in the traditional Chinese way of working on a felt table, is palpable, despite the shaky webcam image and the thousands of miles which divide us.

The photographs she shows me of her drawing on the streets speak for themselves. In one picture, a tiny Chinese girl stands beside her in a yellow anorak, staring in wonder as Downie works away, lost in the moment. Beside the little girl, a couple of drawing students sketch in tandem, while at the other end of the table, a mother parks her pram to have a better look while her wooly hatted baby wonders what all the fuss is about.

Downie first visited Beijing and Shanghai to study contemporary and traditional ink painting at the end of last year with assistance from the Royal Scottish Academy’s William Gillies Bequest Fund. While there, she forged links with the Red Gate Gallery in Beigao, Beijing and returned on an eight-week long international artist’s residency with them at the beginning of November this year.

It’s been a busy few weeks for Downie, who in the time she has been in China has found time to get out onto the with her felt table, to create in-situ work for a group exhibition with 15 fellow artist village residents, as well as making preparatory drawings for an exhibition she arranged not long after arriving in the city at the end of October.

This exhibition, The Concrete Hour, is based on a similar live drawing performance, Matchmaker, which Downie did last month at the Cupar Arts Festival.

It has been curated by Iona Whittaker, who studied art history in Edinburgh before moving to Beijing to work in the city’s vibrant and burgeoning arts sector. She has factored into the exhibition, two live drawing events which took place last night (Friday 25) and on Thursday night (Thursday 24).

“I have been doing the biggest, bravest drawings of my life,” says Downie. “The idea is that two large-scale drawings with opposing content are created live on the walls of the gallery. A series of my street drawings and the film we made in Cupar will also be on show.

“Think of me spending five days covering a whole white box gallery with a giant 3-D ink drawing and you get the picture!

Kate in action at the Where Where Art Space

Kate with curator Iona Whittaker in the Where Where Art Space, Beijing

As she talks, it is clear Beijing has gnawed its way into Downie’s psyche. “There is just so much crammed into a small space that it’s hard not to be drawn in. You go from one extreme to another very quickly – the vast skyscrapers on one hand and the cramped hutongs where people live and work on the other.

“It’s such a busy, interesting city. The pace of life is breakneck.”

As with all Downie’s art, she has invested in this new body of work, an excitement which is born out of the moment in which it was created. Watch out for these gems from the east heading west to Downie’s native turf. It will be worth the wait...

Guomao Bridge by Kate Downie (monoprint)

Peter Graham, Rowena Comrie & Kilmorack Gallery

2011-11-29T05:27:00.001-08:00

Gallery round up

From The Herald Arts section (26/11/11)

Peter Graham

Roger Billcliffe Gallery

134 Blythswood Street , Glasgow

0141 332 4027

www.billcliffegallery.com

From today until Dec 24

Fifth and Madison by Peter Graham (£8,500)

If anyone was looking for an escape from what the poet William Dunbar called the ‘dark and drublie’ days of a Scottish winter, then Peter Graham’s paintings offer it up by the palette-load.

There are four themes in this new exhibition of work by painter Graham at Roger Billcliffe’s Glasgow city centre gallery; the south of France, Manhattan, café interiors, and still lifes. All are rendered in his distinctive vibrant approach to depicting the world he sees around him.

Graham attended Glasgow School of Art from 1976-1980 and it was there that his fascination with colour developed. He studied the mechanics of illusion and the brainʼs response to colour and then, following a successful career in film production, he began painting full-time in1986.

From 1994–1996 he served on the now defunct Scottish Arts Council as Advisor for the Visual Arts. In 1999, when still an associate of The Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI), he won the Windsor and Newton Award for non-members. Shortly after this, he was elected to full membership of the ROI.

Graham has also written extensively on art theory and practice, an oeuvre which includes his bestselling book, Painting Still Life. Following a series of prominent exhibitions in London, Scotland and New York, Peter served for a period as Vice-President of the Royal Institute of Oil

Painters and now lives and works in Glasgow, dividing his time between painting in his Greek Thomson-designed home cum studio and travelling the world.

One of the key events which shaped him as an artist is winning a British Council Award in 1990 as the first UK painter to become Artist in Residence at The Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Singapore.

There is a beguiling fluidity to Graham’s work coupled with searing colour which at times sees it veering into abstraction. But look closely at the patterns and shapes which start to emerge and you find an almost editorial directness.

Rowena Comrie: Spring Line
Hughson Gallery, 1 Cleveden Gardens, Glasgow
0141 334 2473
www.hughsongallery.com
November 30 - December 18

Eye Splice by Rowena Comrie

Pure colour is the key ingredient of Rowena Comrie’s bold, yet subtle abstract paintings, which zing with clarity and pack a powerful, almost lyrical, punch. Comrie was trained in abstract art by Mali Morris, Clyde Hopkins and, although at the end of his teaching career, Terry Frost in the Art Department of Reading University.

Although a talented draughtswoman, through her abstract artwork, Comrie attempts to express the hidden depths of feelings that lie buried in us all and in so doing, reduces shapes and colour down to delicate life forces in their own right.

The tension between colour and shapes is always on the table in a Rowena Comrie painting, offering the viewer both an immediate spontaneous response and considered intellectual reflection.
Gallery director, Joan Hughson, who is staging this exhibition in her home gallery in Glasgow’s west end, first saw Comrie’s work when she was a finalist in the last ever Aspect Prize.

“I first encountered Rowena’s work in January at the Fleming Collection in London where she exhibited along with the other three finalists,” says Hughson, an experienced curator with a long pedigree in the scottish arts scene.

“I found the strong, emotive power of her colour very compelling,” she adds. “and before long we were in conversation.”
Comrie moved to Glasgow from Aberdeen in 2009, and now works from a studio at the WASPS complex in the Briggait.

Sailing on the Firth of Clyde has been a major source of experience which has fed into her art in recent months, and it is no accident that nautical vocabulary has supplied titles for most of the works in this exhibition. She explains: “The work is a response to the extreme weather and exhilarating conditions that occurred, in particular sailing through the night.”

Kilmorack Gallery Christmas Show
Kilmorack Gallery
by Beauly, Inverness-shire
www.kilmorackgallery.co.uk
01463 783230
Until December 23

Look dad... a lizard at the end of the rainbow... Kilmorack Gallery

If you are lost and looking for the Kilmorack Gallery (which lies 13 miles west of Inverness and three miles from Beauly) the advice from its owner, Tony Davidson is ‘look for the lizard’.

The lizard – an artwork by gallery favourite Helen Denerley – has become the Kilmorack’s trademark and has set the bar high for a feast of artastic delights.

The Christmas exhibition at Kilmorack is always an enlightening affair but this year, there are some surprises in store.

Russian born Eduard Bersudsky is new to the gallery. He is best known for the mechanical theatre Sharmanka, which tells of Bersudsky’s dark and blackly comical experiences of life in communist Russia. They are tales of sex, death and corruption, told by a mechanical raven and a series of carved wooden animals.

The well-established Aberdeen-based figurative artist, Joyce W Cairns is also new to Kilmorack. Cairns draws from her experiences of the fishing villages of Aberdeenshire as well as her father and grandfather’s experiences of war.

This show also provides a glimpse of what is to come at Kilmorack in 2012. David Cook, who lives just north of Montrose on Scotland’s east coast, is another new artist to Kilmorack and he, along with Edinburgh-based Henry Fraser, will form the first exhibition of 2012.

According to Davidson, Cook’s work is something to see. “It follows in the painterly path set by Joan Eardley,” he says. “His landscapes and flower paintings in this show are remarkable.”

In addition, there are ten new collages by Colin Brown, a series of bright horse paintings by Kirstie Cohen, painted angels by landscape artist Claire Harkess and new work by Helen Denerley.

There is also work by two of Davidson’s favourite artists; the confusingly twin-named named Alan Macdonald and Allan MacDonald. Their work, he says, is very different. “One is surreal and Rembrandt-like, while the other produces loose powerful landscapes.”

Totally Liminal: Cain & Canale Unleashed

2011-11-14T14:16:00.001-08:00

This is an unedited version of a feature which appeared in The Herald arts section on Saturday November 12, 2011

Ancient Landscapes by Patricia Cain

Liminal Spaces: New work by Kim Canale and Patricia Cain

The Royal Glasgow Institute Kelly Gallery

118 Douglas Street, Glasgow, G2 4ET

0141 248 6386

www.royalglasgowinstitute.org/kelly.html

November 14-26

I have to confess that I had to look up the word liminal prior to writing about this new exhibition of work by Patricia Cain and Kim Canale, which opens at Glasgow’s Kelly Gallery on Monday.

For those still in the dark, it’s a close cousin of the word, subliminal, and is a psychological term relating to the point – or threshold – beyond which a sensation becomes too faint to be experienced.

The creative mind often doesn’t stop to examine how it arrives at the end-point of an artwork for fear that it might break the spell but for Cain in particular, the process of getting to this end-point is something she has thought about in depth.

For Kim Canale, despite the fact excelled at drawing at art school, her predominantly abstract paintings are constantly chasing the unconscious part of her creative mind.

Her Glasgow-based friend, Patricia Cain, has examined the business of how art is made by making it the subject matter of her recently completed PhD and subsequent book, titled Drawing: The Enactive Evolution of the Practitioner.

Both studies examine in depth what happens when we draw. In a world in which the act of creating art has become heavily digitised, Cain – a former lawyer – analyses the relationship between putting old-fashioned pen to paper and thinking.

“The end product is the debris of the process, if you like,” says Cain. “As artists, Kim and I have very different processes and that is what we are exploring in this new exhibition in Glasgow.”

Cain is on a major upward trajectory with her work. She won the Aspect Prize and the Threadneedle Prize last year with work inspired by the building of Zaha Hadid’s new Riverside Museum in Glasgow, before going on to produce the epic Drawing on Riverside exhibition at Kelvingrove earlier this year (a show which attracted 45,000 visitors during its run).

This small exhibition with her good friend Kim Canale, an artist, who also promotes the work of others at her home gallery in Montrose, has offered the opportunity to regroup.

“It’s been a good journey preparing for this show,” adds Cain. “After the intense period of working on and preparing the Riverside exhibition, I needed to take stock.

“Kim and I have talked a lot to each other over the period of time we have been making the work for this show and now it’s a case of putting the two pieces together.”

Canale, who admits to being more comfortable curating and promoting other artists than talking up her own work, adds:

“We have very different approaches, but we have drawn inspiration from each other. I paint to try and capture a feeling. It is instinctual and more often than not, spontaneous’.

“We have very different processes. I look within and she looks out. Ironically, I’m trying to get away from that inward approach and I think Trish looks at my work to get inside the whole process of creating an artwork.”

The resulting exhibition makes for a remarkably good fit.

Cain, known for her intense, analytical studies of buildings under construction, has been experimenting with different styles, including creating a series of abstract monoprints at the recently-opened Kinpurnie Print Studio at Hospitalfield House in Arbroath.

In contrast to her familiar dense mark-making style which is peppered with patches of negative space, there is real freedom of colour and composition in these intuitive works.

More evidence of a change in direction comes from the large painting, Ancient Landscapes, which she describes laughingly as ‘scary’.

“It’s of an old building in France which is literally carved into ancient stones and there is so much going on there it quite literally terrifies me,” she says.

Canale’s work, while still heavily abstract and instinctive, has been increasingly influenced by her love of music and literature.

One of the strands which bind these two women together and one which has taken them both by surprise is a highly personal connection to Italy.

Both artists have worked in Italy and both have second generation Italian parents although, having been adopted, Cain only recently discovered that her natural father had Italian parentage.

Last year, Canale exhibiting in both Florence and Edinburgh with renowned Florentine painter Mauro Betti, while Cain won a RSA John Kinross scholarship to study in Florence in 2008.

“I think that for us, says Canale, “the link with Italy and the fact that we are both very interested in each other’s work and the way in which we work, has helped us develop as artists. We are both, in our own way, trying to construct a feeling.”

THE SEA THE SEA I by Kim Canale

THE SEA THE SEA II by Kim Canale

THE SEA THE SEA III by Kim Canale

Blackadder in Falkirk, Auldjo in Edinburgh and Clubbing it in Glasgow

2011-11-14T13:58:00.001-08:00

Gallery Round-up

(Published in The Herald Arts supplement on Saturday November 12)

A celebration of the work of Elizabeth Blackadder

Journeys from Home

The Park Gallery, Callendar House, Falkirk, FK1 1YR

Journeys Together

Pathfoot Building, The University of Stirling FK9 4LA

www.falkirkcommunitytrust.org

www.stir.ac.uk

From today until February 25, 2012

Venice Window by Elizabeth Blackadder

This summer’s big Edinburgh art hit (still to be seen at Scottish National Gallery until January 2) has been the Dame Elizabeth Blackadder retrospective. This critically acclaimed exhibition features the Falkirk-born artist’s much-loved still lifes as well as lesser known work.

As a bonus for Blackadder fans, the artist’s connection to her home town is now to be celebrated (as well as her 80th birthday) with two complimentary exhibitions at The Park Gallery in Falkirk and the University of Stirling.

At The Park Gallery, Journeys from Home, gives an overview of the journey that Blackadder has undertaken in developing into one of Britain’s pre-eminent artists.

The pictures and objects tell a story of the places that she has been to, from her beginnings in Falkirk and her first visits to Italy, to her subsequent journeys throughout Europe and to Japan with her late husband John Houston.

According to its curator, Annabel Macmillan, Blackadder’s paintings ‘are the sum of her experiences and it may not be too literal to identify the progression in colour key in the pictures here with her travels, as the sombre tones of her earlier works give way to a hotter key and are infused with the intensity of Mediterranean warmth and light.’

Journeys Together at University of Stirling’s Pathfoot Building aims to give us a glimpse into an extraordinary partnership, that of Blackadder and her late husband John Houston – together a powerhouse of British art.

Houston, a maverick experimenter, Elizabeth purposeful on her independent course, each is distinct, ploughing their own separate furrow. As this exhibition shows, the exchange in their partnership is evident in their mutual support; both moving in the same direction and demonstrating a shared commitment to art as a true vocation.

There will be several talks relating to these exhibitions, including one by the writer Alan Spence next Saturday (Nov 19) and an in-conversation with Elizabeth Blackadder and Annabel McMillan on November 26. Both these events take place at Callendar House.

Gone to Earth: New Paintings by Alison Auldjo

The Union Gallery, 45 Broughton Street, Edinburgh, EH1 3JU

0131 556 7707

www.uniongallery.co.uk
Until December 5

Run and Hide, oil on canvas, by Alison Auldjo

As demonstrated by artist and curator, Kim Canale, running a gallery and making work yourself is not always mutually exclusive, but for Alison Auldjo, it has been a struggle to get back to the drawing board after an intense couple of years setting up and establishing the Union Gallery in Edinburgh’s buzzing Broughton Street.

Having taken two years away from exhibiting in order to establish the gallery, Auldjo has returned to her own unique style of abstract landscape painting following an intense period of self-imposed ‘exile’ in Dumfriesshire in order to focus on the work in isolation.

The results make for interesting viewing and sees Auldjo using her landscapes as a metaphor for the need of artists and the wider public to support each other in the difficult economic and social times in which we live.

With titles such as Safety in Numbers and Run and Hide, much of this new work has a melancholy yet beautiful appeal, coupled with an edge of uncertainty. The colours are grounded and there is some lovely mark-making within the layers. There is the odd suggestion of life and hope. Human shadows or a tiny hare scamper across the vast open spaces.

Auldjo explains: “Artists are often to be found at the bottom of the heap when things go bad. Of course, there are people from all walks of life who are suffering at the moment, but being a gallery owner and an artist, it is other artists that I deal with every day.

“This pains me as I believe we should support and nurture our assets and gifts at all times and, lets face it, Scotland doesn’t produce much any more, apart from a rich tapestry of talent in all areas of the arts. It should be a source of national shame that so many great artists are struggling to survive at this time, given the pleasure they give to society at large.”

Glasgow Art Club Schools Exhibition & Glasgow Southern Art Club Exhibition

185 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 4HU

0141 248 5210

www.glasgowartclub.co.uk & www.glasgowsouthernartclub.com

Until November 26 (closed Sundays & Tuesdays)

Night Garden by Marie Stewart

It always amazes me that all over Scotland, there is so much activity in the field of visual arts at every level. From school art rooms to professional practioners’ studios, individuals are making artworks in every corner of the land which beg to be viewed.

In the Glasgow Art Club, a bastion of the old-school art establishment, the powers that be are working hard to make the club relevant and accessible to the public and this includes a rolling programme of exhibitions and events.

If you haven’t been in this historic building, getting in as easy as ringing the doorbell and asking to see the current exhibition – or exhibitions.

At the moment, there are two shows running simultaneously in the Art Club. In the main gallery on the ground floor level, Glasgow Southern Art Club has its annual selling exhibition on display.

I first heard about this club through the artist Alma Wolfson, a Glasgow-based artist whose work is much sought after in London and beyond.

Her intuitive, loosely painted landscapes and cityscapes are a visual treat for tired eyes and she told me a couple of years back that without the support of the Southern Art Club, she could not have progressed her career in the way she has done.

Founded in 1953, the club’s premise is a simple one; to help people practise their art and hold exhibitions of members’ work. They hold weekly meetings on the south side of Glasgow between September and May, and its programme is augmented by demonstrations and outings.

As well as keen amateurs, there are several professional artists who are members, and the quality of this year’s exhibition is very strong.

Upstairs in the club’s Billiard Room (no billiard table to be seen...) there is an interesting exhibition of work by young people from Scottish secondary schools including Larkhall Academy, Clydebank High School, Geilsland School, Balikinrain School and the High School of Glasgow.

The exhibition is being hosted as part of the Club’s Education Programme, which aims to provide young adults aged 14 to18 with an insight into the cultural diversity of the arts.

It’s great to see such a vibrant, well put-together array of work outside the confines of a school corridor and well worth ringing the doorbell of the Art Club to see...

As a PS, it turns out I am now an 'fishul exhibition opener (also available for birthdays, weddings etc etc) as I actually 'opened' the Glasgow Southern Art Club Exhibition a couple of weeks ago. I also had the onerous task of selecting the winner of their annual prize from among the artwork on the walls of the Art Club. On my own. Gulp. With no hand-holding..

The lighting was unusually dim owing to a problem with the light fittings in the main gallery and perhaps because of this, I had to look extra-carefully at the work in the dark corners. In one dark corner, I stumbled across Marie Stewart's Night Garden. Someone even gave me a torch to look at it more closely.

I thought it was beautiful and it turns out that it's quite a departure for Marie, who is a long-standing member of the club. Someone bought it immediately and I had a wee pang of regret. Must go back in during the day for one last look!

A Blast of Heat & Light

2011-11-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

I wrote about a lovely house called Muncaidh House in North Ayrshire a few weeks ago for Scotland on Sunday, which you can read about here:

Muncaidh House in Scotland on Sunday's At Home mag

The owner, Alison Morrissey, has a great eye for design and is also a collector of original Scottish artwork.

I first heard about the house through the artist Charles Jamieson, who is a mutual friend. She has a lovely painting of Charlie's in her kitchen above an old bureau and it jumps off the wall to greet you when you walk into the room.

She also has work by Ayrshire based Claire Harrigan and her father, James. I really loved Claire's paintings – Alison has a couple. They have a real warmth to them and a sure sense of design. Her use of colour is beautiful. (It's clearly in her DNA...)

After I wrote about the house, by coincidence, another artist Jacqueline Orr emailed to tell me that Claire Harrigan and Hazel Nagl had a show at the Open Eye in gallery in Edinburgh and had I heard about it.

I hadn't – sometimes the jungle drums don't reach my ears – which is a shame as I'd love to have seen it.

Hazel's work is always a visual feast. In person, she is great company and her paintings are full of her own personality, coupled with a just-so sense of everything being in its place.

She also has lovely big painting which is very Hazel Nagl on show and for sale at the RGI exhibition in The Mitchell, Glasgow (on for another 10 days or so...)

The Open Eye exhibition is on until next week (Tuesday Nov 8) but I don't think I'll get to see it what with the hectic schedule that is the preserve of the modern working maw who tries to be at home for the kids tumbling in the door at 3.10pm. (I don't remember having so many things after school when I was a nipper...)

If you are at a loose end in Edinburgh, take a detour to the gallery ghetto around Dundas Street in the New Town and feel the heat of these lovely paintings, which as Jacqui Orr says, 'are an antidote to a dreich Scottish October.' (Make that November...)

If you can't go in person, here's a colour fix here:

Hazel Nagl & Claire Harrigan @ The Open Eye

The Force & Form of Memory

2011-10-31T06:11:00.000-07:00

This is an unedited version of a feature I wrote for The Herald galleries section on 29/10/11

The Force and Form of Memory
Compass Gallery, 178 West Regent Street, Glasgow

0141 221 6370

www.compassgallery.co.uk

Until November 19 (then touring)

Headless Forward by Alasdair Wallace

If they are being honest, all artists build the force and form of memories into every single thing they create, be it in music, on canvas, in a structure, in print or on the stage.

We’re all made up of bundles of memories, which seem to start crowding as we grow older until there isn’t enough room for any more.

Memories are an open secret which belong to an individual yet can be interpreted in so many ways.

That they are meat and drink to all artists has been proved by the response to a call by Compass Gallery director Jill Gerber to create work for The Force and Form of Memory, a touring art exhibition which she has put together in partnership with Alzheimer Scotland, a charity that supports individuals, families and carers of those suffering from dementia.

In this exhibition, which has literally grown arms and legs since it was first envisaged nine months ago, there are now 76 participating artists at all stages of their careers, from new graduates such as Roland Fraser and Hew Morrison through to stellar names such as Alan Davie and Ken Currie. In between, there are artists working at the top of their game, drawn like moths to a flame to this inspiring brief

“I was originally approached by Alzheimer Scotland to help organise an auction to raise funds for them,” says Gerber, who now runs the gallery her father, Cyril Gerber originally started in 1969 when such ventures were as scarce as hens’ teeth.

“I suggested it would be better for everyone,” she says, “if I put together an exhibition which responded to the theme of memory and then the Compass and Alzheimer Scotland shared the commission while supporting the artists, which is what the Compass has been about since my father started it up.

“I approached artists about it and the response has been overwhelming. It’s almost as though the artists – and the gallery – have have been reinvigorated by examining such elemental subject-matter. The energy surrounding this whole project is incredible.”

On the day I drop into the gallery to have a preview of the work, much of it is still being unwrapped from boxes or bubble wrap is being peeled off eagerly to see what lies beneath. Digital images in a computer never prepare you for the real thing and there is much oo-ing and ahh-ing as the work is revealed in the flesh.

There appears to be recurring themes in much of the work, such as birds, chairs, faces, old photographs, and many, many strange and unlikely, yet fitting, materials. I particularly like the small ‘oil on hut’ paintings by Owen Boyle.

Boyle has literally used parts of an old hut from Cardross where he played as a boy, the thick green industrial paint of which can be seen on the back. In recreating these people-less childhood scenes, he has made raw, yet delicate paintings.

Recent graduate David Woods has stepped up to the challenge with a couple of interesting works, one of which is a a charred and blackened carved oak head with its gaping hole at the top. Another new graduate, Elliot Burns, has created two works on old church floorboards.

The 3d work in this exhibition, which will tour for the next year to Hampden Football Museum, Stirling, Wick, Thurso, Greenock and Banchory, is particularly strong. It’s as though the act of making memories into tangible, touchable objects has made them more real.

Frances Pelly’s Memory Sticks are beautiful creations. Long thin sticks made with gesso, paint, ink, graphite and collage on yew, they beg to be turned over in the hand, as does Cameron Ross’ Vestige/Virtus (for Thomas Behan), a found spade with a cloud-like ceramic aeroplane floating on the shovel part.

There are some bravura painting acts, including Donald Clark’s exquisite Glass of milk with Jaffa Cakes, which summons up a childhood memory of his grandparents’ house, and also in Ken Currie’s stunning self portrait, which is the polar opposite of a vanity project in its forensic painterly detail.

Alasdair Wallace has played a blinder with his Headless Forward, which brings a new meaning to the footballing cliche of a player losing his head, while Peter Thomson has moved into another strange, yet beautiful phase of his painting career.

Half of the Picture by Peter Thomson

By the very nature of the subject matter, there is work too numerous to mention here which people will be drawn to for very personal reasons.

For me, Henry Kondracki’s poignant little acrylic painting, My Mum’s Chair, brought a lump to my throat. In a short statement on this work, he says, ‘The total absence of a memory has left just this object. This has a poignancy for me but hopefully also holds meaning for the viewer.’

If the past is another country, book your passage to see this exhibition now because you won’t regret it.

'My Mum's Chair' by Henry Kondracki

RGI, Helen Flockhart & Steven Campbell event

2011-10-31T05:56:00.000-07:00

This is an unedited version of The Herald newspaper's galleries round-up from 29/10/11

RGI’s 2011 Annual Exhibition
The Mitchell, North Street, Glasgow

www.royalglasgowinstitute.org

Until 12 November 2011 (Closed Sundays)

Standing Woman by Audrey Grant, one of this year's prizewinners at RGI
(I've used this pic before but I like it so much, thought I'd post again!)

Last Saturday’s Herald Magazine told the behind-the-scenes story of how Glasgow’s oldest artist-led co-operative, the Royal Glasgow Institute for the Fine Arts (RGI), puts together its annual open exhibition.

Since the RGI was established in 1861, artists have been putting their work up for the scrutiny of their peers and crossing their collective fingers that the ‘hanging committee’ made of fellow artists will pick their work to be shown in the institute’s annual exhibition.

This year has been no different. Being selected represents a peer-led pat on the back for the 300 or so artists whose artworks were chosen from more than 1300 entries.

For the 20 winners of the cash prizes on offer, it also represents a much-needed economic boost.

There is always disappointment for those whose work is not selected and this year, thanks to social media, some of the artists in that position have been able to air their sense of rejection publicly and the RGI’s official Facebook page has even mooted the idea of a Salon des Refusees-style exhibition in its Kelly Gallery in the city at a later date.

Grievances aside, the exhibition always offers a glimpse of a fascinating cross-section of work by painters and sculptors at various stages of their careers. Most of the works here are for sale with price tags between £200 and £2950 and the show is a relaxed and informal way of buying art for the first time.

The prizewinners this year represent a healthy mix of established names, such as Philip Reeves, Helen Wilson, Christine Woodside, James McNaught and Simon Laurie, and up-and-coming artists to watch, like Claire Forsyth, Kevin Low, Ian Moir and Fran Hanley.

For young artists like Claire Forsyth, who work away at a day job trying to fit in their own practice, RGI is like a lifeline.

After hearing she’d won The David Cargill Award and £1,000 for her work The Road Home III, she says she almost fainted.

“I don’t have much time to make my own work ,” she explains. “but was determined to submit something this year for the first time. This prize will buy me some time to concentrate on my own work. Winning a prize is a boost to any working artist as it recognises and validates your work, and is such an encouragement to keep going.”

Helen Flockhart: Fire & Fauna

Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery

2a Conway Street, London

0207 436 4899

www.r-h-g.co.uk

November 3-24

The Garden by Helen Flockhart

As the art historian Bill Hare puts it succinctly, ‘nobody paints like Helen Flockhart’. This much is true. Flockhart creates a whole universe through her finely tuned, beautifully detailed and utterly beguiling paintings.

You find yourself swimming into a Helen Flockhart painting, pushing your nose up close to the canvas to see exactly what has been created in this strange, yet beautiful place. For the duration of your stay, it is yours to explore; a world of highly textured wonder.

Since graduating from Glasgow School of Art in 1984, Flockhart has refined and honed her technique, which involves the careful application of numerous layers of richly coloured oil paint to the point at which she can have no imitators.

Her more recent work is more defined, more vivid and somehow less unsettling than earlier work though the sheer virtuoso skill with which she executes her paintings has not diminished one iota.

In Fire & Fauna, the Glasgow-based artist’s seventh solo exhibition with London gallery Rebecca Hossack, she depicts both humans and animals set against strange landscapes or enclosed interiors.

The scenes often refer to myth and legend and literature. In this series of new work, there is The Nemean Lion, a vicious creature from Greek mythology, Jenny’s Seldom Dry, the drookit heroine from Burns’ poem Comin Thro The Rye and The Garden, inspired by the book of Genesis.

The exhibition starts on Thursday and is online now to view if you can’t make it to London.

TALES OF THE DISRUPTIVE GENE: A Talk and Reading-Performance from Steven Campbell's New York Years, by His Sometime Literary Collaborator

Main Lecture Theatre, Edinburgh College of Art, Main Building, Lauriston Place, Edinburgh

6pm, Thursday November 3

(Followed by a masterclass from 2-5pm on Friday Nov 4 at ECA)

Steven Campbell's Untitled IV from the 'Fantomas' Series

Helen Flockhart’s near contemporary alongside her husband at Glasgow School of Art in the early 1980s, was the late Steven Campbell.

Like both Flockhart and her husband Peter Thomson, Campbell’s work is predominantly figurative and there is always a surreal undertone to the universe created within the confines of a Campbell canvas.

Campbell, who died in August 2007 at the age of just 54, was always the author within his own unique creations on canvas or in his performance art. He lived and breathed for art, be it in the field of visual art, poetry, performance and writing. He even looked like an artist; a 19th century dandy in the mould of his heroes from that era.

Following his death, the artist’s wife Carol set up the Steven Campbell Trust, which aims to promote education and access in the fields which the artist held dear.

The Trust has held an annual lecture in Campbell’s name since 2009 and this year, his friend and collaborator, Barry Yourgrau, New York-based writer and multimedia performer, takes centre stage.

Yourgrau, a friend from the four years the couple spent in New York in the early 1980s, will speak about their various collaborations and perform some of his own work. In an essay on his friend published in the catalogue of the posthumous 2008 exhibition, “...Wretched Stars, Insatiable Heaven...” at Glasgow School of Art, Yourgrau talked about his friend’s “mad moon-touched imagination and soul,” adding that Campbell was “is the one person I’ve ever met to whom I would apply the word ‘genius’”.

The Trust is also organising a Master Class with Yourgrau from 2-5pm on Friday November 4 at Edinburgh College of Art. Places are limited, but like the lecture, the class is free and open to all.

Artists who write, students of literature, early career writers are all encouraged to apply. Places will be allocated on a first come first serve basis. Contact The Trust to apply: stevencampbelltrust@gmail.com or message on Facebook: The Steven Campbell Trust or Twitter: @SCampbellTrust

Participants in both events can look forward to a roller coaster couple of days.

The Scots-born artist and musician, David Byrne, says of Yourgrau, “I can never remember my dreams, so Barry Yourgrau’s stories are a pretty good substitute.’

Sue Timney: Queen of Cool @ Homes & Interiors Scotland Exhibition

2011-10-27T02:52:00.000-07:00

Interiors guru Sue Timney

I interviewed Sue Timney, President Elect of the British Institute of Interior Design (BIID) earlier this year for Homes & Interiors Scotland magazine. Sue has been at the vanguard of stylemaking since the early 80s. Her social circle includes the likes of Paul McCartney, Sir Paul Smith and Elton John ((I'm sure I saw her in the background of pix of Paul and Nancy McCartney's wedding!)
Sue is an artist and interior designer, whose inimitable black and white style can be seen on page 178 of issue 79 of Homes and Interiors Scotland magazine, which has just gone off sale.
Sue is one of the leading style-makers of the past three decades on the international stage and the good news for dedicated followers of interiors fashion is that she will be doing a talk at Scotland’s premier interiors event, the Homes & Interiors Scotland Exhibition at the SEEC on Sunday 30 October from 2-2.45pm, called Making Marks. You will also be able to purchase her signed books.
My friend and neighbour, interior designer Carol Yates and business partner, John Amabile (him aff the telly) are part of the prestigious Interior Design Showcase again and I'm keen to see what they come up with. They are one dynamic pair... (www.amabiledesign.com) John's doing a talk on Saturday October 29 from 4-4.30, called
Design in the right direction – using inspiration to create your perfect designer room
http://homes-exhibition.com/free-talks/
NO GREY AREAS

BOLD BLACK AND WHITE, DRAMATIC SPLASHES OF COLOUR, STRONG GRAPHIC SHAPES; DESIGN GURU SUE TIMNEY HAS AN INSTANTLY RECOGNISABLE STYLE, AND EVERY CORNER OF HER SPLENDID KENT HOME IS FILLED WITH IT
If you were a passing seagull (with an interest in interiors) who happened to land on a window ledge of the former officers’ mess in which celebrated designer Sue Timney lives with her photographer husband Justin de Villeneuve, you’d be forgiven for thinking human beings were a species with a sure sense of design and pattern, not to mention a fondness for black and white with splashes of bold colour thrown into the mix.
Sue and Justin’s home, The Clock Tower, in the seaside town of Deal in Kent is just 18 miles as the seagull flies from the coast of France. The house, which spans five levels, is suffused with a cool clear light from the sea, showing off Sue’s highly distinctive interior style to its best advantage.
Pattern and markmaking are meat and drink to Sue Timney, whose definite sense of her surroundings, coupled with a ‘restless spirit’ she credits to her early years in North Africa and then an itinerant childhood spent as the daughter of an army major.
If there is such a thing as style royalty in Britain, Sue is the real deal. A key player in the world of fashion and design since the beginning of the 1980s, her influence has permeated down the decades, seeping into the look of all our lives.
She has worked and played with everyone who is anyone in the global style business since the launch of her company Timney-Fowler in London in 1980, from Issey Miyake, to Paul and Linda (as well as daughter Stella) McCartney to Peter Blake, Ringo Starr, Sir Paul Smith, Elton John and many more besides.
Her background is a mix of strict discipline laced with touches of the exotic. She was born in Behghazi, Libya in 1950, where her Anglo-Scottish father – a talented amateur photographer – was stationed as a major with the Indian Army. Her mother came from Dumfries and Sue maintains she ‘has always felt Scottish, more than anything else’. Until recently, she had a holiday home on the island of Arran, where one of her sisters still lives.
Last year, Sue celebrated two major personal landmarks; her 60th birthday and the 30th anniversary of Timney-Fowler, the design company she started with her ex-husband Grahame Fowler in 1980.
To mark this, London’s Fashion and Textile Museum held a retrospective exhibition of her career. Leading names in the design world with whom they worked, producing fashion and fabric concepts for their labels, include Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, Betty Jackson, Ralph Lauren and Diane von Furstenberg.
Sue and Justin’s home in Kent exemplifies her personal approach to design, while also showcasing the work of Justin, who famously propelled Twiggy into the limelight as the first ever supermodel during the 1960s.
His famous images of 1960s icons such as Twiggy, Marsha Hunt and Patti Boyd, digitally remastered for the 21st century, loom large throughout the house.
This couple, who married in 2007, also have a home in London, but according to Sue, this is the place in which feel most at home. “We have seven children between us,” she says. “All of him work in the arts, and we like this to be a place where they and their familes all feel at home.
“In the four years we’ve lived here, we’ve started to view this as our first home and London as our second. I have my studio here now which means I don’t have to travel in every day. Justin’s the same. He does a lot of bird photography now and being here suits him. A lot of writers and creative people live here. It’s that kind of place.”
Sue’s early designs were mainly monochromatic and graphic, heavy with architectural references. They flew in the face of trends at the time which tended towards highly-coloured and decorative patterns, often floral or with abstract shapes.
As her style progressed, she introduced strong colour notes and the use of photographic printing; mixing ethnic with modern illustration with graphics.
Like most designers, Sue embraced the task of transforming The Clock Tower, with relish.
“I start from scratch every time I move,” she admits. “It’s hard to be a designer and not want to do that though sometimes it can be a curse!
“But here, it was a joy. The light from the sea is stunning and my desk looks out over the old parade ground with its flagpole and wrought-iron fences. “I find the architecture familiar and comforting.”
As you move through the rooms and up through the various floors, from kitchen to hallway, to bedroom and to library, Sue’s signature is everywhere. A compulsive collector, be it 20th century pots, picked up from ‘all sorts of sources’, from the Portobello Road via Italy and on to Japan, or military shields and insignia, she places these objects in a way which is always planned but never forced.
“I think there should be no holds barred when it comes to design,” she says, unconsciously employing the language of the military to describe her own style. “You should be able to mix styles but keep the authority going.”
This is displayed with panache throughout the house, but nowhere more forcibly than in the dining room, where she has several scenes set up. To the left of the wooden fireplace, a salvaged Arts and Crafts design surrounded by decorative plates, she has placed trademark horizontal black and white striped wallpaper.
Sue has two plates above a distinctive Jean Cocteau on fabric scarf made in the late 1940s by Zika Ascher, the hugely influential Czech textile artist, whom Sue got to know in his later years. Below this scarf is a red leather armchair picked up in Deal market by Sue.
The entrance hall when you walk in the front hall boasts a Timney treat in the shape of a bold diamond-patterned bureau painted in trademark black and white by Sue. It forms the centrepiece for a beautifully symmetrical vignette. Above it, hangs a large mirror while on either side it is flanked by two pedestals which Sue has also painted. She even painted the chandelier. Below the immaculate coving is a row of heraldic shields from her vast collection.
The house is full of personal touches such as little dolls, which are portraits of Sue made by her daughter, Alix Timney. Alix, who has two daughters, runs a company called Bagdoll (www.bagdoll.com), which allows people to customise their own dolls.
The hub of the house is the kitchen, says Sue. “It’s a place for family and friends to meet and greet,” she says. “In the winter, the great big black AGA makes it really cosy. In summer, the door straight out to the garden brings the outdoors inside.”
Clocks and clock faces, be they on the wall or on the floor, are a recurring feature in Sue’s designs so it is fitting that she now lives in a former clock tower. In the kitchen wall, an original old station clock hangs above an original Arts and Crafts cabinet.
On either side of the kitchen, which Sue admits, she ‘couldn’t have laid out better heself’, she has retained the existing cabintery, customising it with Hardwick White paint from Farrow & Ball, and adding black metal handles.
You could be forgiven for thinking you are being watched in this eating and meeting space, for perched above her collection of black and white mugs, Sue has placed a dramatic Piero Fornasetti wood laminate tray. “It’s very important to have an element of the surreal about you, I find,” she laughs.
Throughout the house, in the living room, in the spare rooms and the dining room, the walls are hung with scarves from the Timney-Fowler collection, which are stunning art works in themselves.
Then there are her heraldic shields, many of which are displayed in her library in custom-built cabinet by Arran-based wood carver, Dave Furze (www.kilmoryworkshop.co.uk).
No space is left untouched. In one spare room, there are three old school chairs from the 1950s which she has customised in various shades of muted greys, greens and charcoal. “I love Farrow & Ball paint for this kind of work,” says Sue. “One of the paints I used was Elephant’s Breath.”
In another guest bedroom, even the black and white bedding – which is from her own range, Timney at House of Fraser, makes a bold statement. On the other side of the room is a large military shield above a plaster torso draped with Timney-Fowler fabric.
In a half-landing, next to the original Georgian bannister and above a Tibetan prayer mat, you come across one of Justin’s most iconic images, a vivid portrait of Patti Boyd which was shot for the cover of Italian Vogue. “You get a beautiful light coming in to spaces like this,” says Sue, ever the artist. “The shelf above the portrait of Patti on which I have placed some vases is bathed in light from the nearby sea.”
In this beautiful home, no corner is left untouched by light or by the deft hand of its uber-stylish owner. If I were a passing seagull, I wouldn’t want to leave...
Making Marks: Sue Timney and the Design of Timney-Fowler by Sue Timney, Pointed Leaf Press, £40
DETAILS
What: A former officer’s mess in the clock tower of an old cavalry barracks which dates back to 1870s and spans four floors
Where: Deal, Kent
Signature Style: Bold monochrome patterns, often splashed with bright colour. graphic pattern. Fascinated by classical and architectural motifs, bold optical stripes and tartan and tribal imagery.
Favourite Bit: Definitely the kitchen from a family point of view. It’s where we all gather to meet and catch up. Our enormous AGA helps keep it cosy in winter. I also love my library because books are so important to me.
Best Buy: It’s got to be one of my vases. I have some real gems – including a rare and highly collectable one by an Italian modernist potter which I picked up in Portobello in the 1980s. There was a picture of me in Cosmopolitan magazine in the 1970s rooting around in Portobello market. I can’t help myself when it comes to vases.

Steven Campbell Events in Edinburgh

2011-10-26T03:02:00.000-07:00

When Steven Campbell died in 2007, the loss for his family and friends was immeasurable. The wider world also lost a huge artistic presence; an original thinker who fused literature, performance and visual art in one bubbling, multi-faceted, hugely colourful cauldron.

His wife Carol has since set up The Steven Campbell Trust which aims to assist artists at all stages of their careers.

The third annual lecture takes place next Thursday. It will be delivered by Barry Yourgrau, Steven's friend from his New York days. It sounds like a belter...

Steven and Carol Campbell in NYC in the early eighties

THE ANNUAL STEVEN CAMPBELL TRUST LECTURE

6PM, THURS 3 NOVEMBER 2011

MAIN LECTURE THEATRE

EDINBURGH COLLEGE OF ART

MAIN BUILDING, LAURISTON PLACE, EDINBURGH, EH3 9DF

New York writer and performer Barry Yourgrau will give a lecture titled:

TALES OF THE DISRUPTIVE GENE: A Talk and Reading-Performance from Steven Campbell's New York Years, by His Sometime Literary Collaborator

The Steven Campbell Trust are proud to announce the third in the Annual Lecture Series, Barry Yourgrau, New York-based writer and multimedia performer, collaborator and friend of Steven Campbell. He will speak about the time in the early 1980s in New York, their various collaborations and perform some of his own work.

This event is free and open to all.

The Trust is also organising a Master Class with Barry Yourgrau at 2-5pm on Friday 4 November, 2011 at Edinburgh College of Art. Places are limited but the class is free and open to all. Artists who write, students of literature, early career writers are all encouraged to apply. Places will be allocated on a first come first serve basis, please contact The Trust to apply: stevencampbelltrust@gmail.com or message us on Facebook: The Steven Campbell Trust or Twitter: @SCampbellTrust

The Childhood Bedroom of Captain Hook with Collapsible Bed, 2006-7

“I can never remember my dreams, so Barry Yourgrau’s stories are a pretty good substitute”

David Byrne

Barry Yourgrau is a writer and multimedia performer. His books Wearing Dad’s Head and A Man Jumps Out of An Airplane are considered classics of short-short fiction. As performer he starred in the indie-film version of his book The Sadness of Sex, has appeared variously on MTV, and workshopped at Sundance Theatre Lab. He is the only foreigner author to have written fiction for Japanese cellphone Internet publication (“keitai shosetsu”), and is the author as well of an infammatory children’s book NASTYbook. He is currently working on two books: Gangster Fables (fictions) and a memoir entitled MESS: A Writer's Struggle To Clean Up His Home And His Act. He blogs at Huffington Post. Born in South Africa, he lives in New York and travels widely. www.yourgrau.com

Select Press: The Independent (U.K.): Writing Cellphone Fiction http://tinyurl.com/3l8obvp New York Times: Filming The Sadness of Sex http://tinyurl.com/ykcwd47 Clip from The Sadness of Sex (Episode 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwzFTW_A6J0

Steven Campbell was best known for his large figurative paintings and is among the most well known Scottish artists of his time. Born in 1953 in Glasgow, Steven Campbell graduated from the Painting Department of Glasgow School of Art in 1982, winning the Bram Stoker Gold Medal. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and travelled to study at the Pratt Institute in New York in 1982. Campbell has exhibited extensively and his work is in numerous public collections including: the National Gallery of Scotland, the Tate Gallery, London, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Campbell died August 15 2007.Select publications: Duncan Macmillan, The Paintings of Steven Campbell: The Story so far, Mainstream, 1993

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2007/sep/03/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/steven_campbell/

About the Steven Campbell Trust

The Steven Campbell Trust was set up in 2008. The priorities of the Trust are education and access. The work of the Trust is in the arts, culture and education. It is cross-disciplinary and reflecting Steven’s interests and inspiration in music, visual art, poetry, performance and writing.

The Trust supports and organises the annual Steven Campbell ‘Hunt Medal’ for a student artist of promise and talent at The Glasgow School of Art established in 2008; an annual Steven Campbell Lecture by a leading academic, artist or commentator on the arts; a series of workshops and master classes with leading artists, writers and musicians for young people and early career artists.