Inverness Museum & Art Gallery, until 14 June 2003 then touring

Clan: The Gaels

AT FIRST GLANCE Clan is a deceptively simple exhibition. 24 prints hang suspended from a metal rectangle. 12 of the prints are monochrome portraits, while the remainder are brightly coloured collages. The portraits are the work of Fin Macrae, while the collages were made by the groups they document, working with artist Gordon Davidson.

On closer inspection, these paired images generate a suggestive interplay of ideas and meanings. On the visual level, the austerity of Macrae’s close-up faces and contrasting depth of focus provides a very effective counterpoint to the hyper-active, tightly packed collages. The relationship between the images is a very suggestive one, leaving the viewer to bring his or her own meanings and understandings to the images.

The puzzled comments in the visitor’s book at the Inverness show suggests that a perusal of the accompanying (free) booklet would be a necessary prelude to viewing the images. The project, sponsored by communications giant Orange, set out to take a searching look at what the concept of clan might mean in contemporary Highland life.

Twelve different groups were identified as potential contemporary clans, divided into categories defined by the six strands of the ultimately unsuccessful InvernessHighland 2008 bid to be named European Centre of Culture: Arts (Feisean nan Gaidheal, the Goths); Language (Bord na Gaidhlig, the Internet by way of the Clan Donald Centre); Heritage (Territorial Army, National Trust); Sport (Surfers, Highland Games), Science (Wavegen, the oil industry); and Environment (Mountain Rescue, fishing).

Each of the images is accompanied by a single word on the frame, again intended to set up a resonant sense of interconnections. The best of Macrae’s searching portraits have an allusive, almost poetic appeal, and draw the viewer deep in to the subject. His use of focus is striking, although his choice of an older man reading a Gaelic Bible may be seen as a rather stereotyped and not very forward-looking representation of the new Gaels.

While Macrae specialises in the single image, Gordon Davidson likes to work from the grass roots up, involving the subjects in taking their own pictures using disposable cameras supplied by the Highland Festival, and building the collage with old fashioned cut and paste methods from a variety of visual materials (only the Wavegen contribution used more contemporary computer-based methods). The collagists have brought both imagination and a sense of fun to their work.

‘Clan’ will be showing at the following venues:
Inverness Museum & Art Gallery, until 14 June 2003.
Seaman’s Victoria Hall, Nairn, 16 June – 2 July 2003
St Fergus Gallery, Wick Library, 5 July – 26 July 2003

Admission free.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2003