An Lanntair, Stornoway, 6 September-4 October 2003

Grinneas nan Eilean, showing at An Lanntair, Stornoway

SUMMER IS traditionally the time when local public galleries give their wall space over to local artists for the ‘annual show’, and An Lanntair in Stornoway is no exception. This year’s Grinneas nan Eilean show features over 240 objects and pictures by nearly 100 island artists and groups.

Grinneas nan Eilean is a ‘selling’ exhibition, and prices for work in the show range from £3.50 to nearly £900. The subject matter is diverse, with the usual suspects – bowls of fruit, vases of flowers – well represented alongside portraits of people, dogs, horses, etc. The competence of the artists is as varied as the subject matter, and that’s not to mention the variety of media, with everything from oils, watercolours and ceramics to textiles, sculpture and photography.

In terms of landscape there can hardly be an inch of Lewis and Harris that is not pictured in some form. However, this exhibition is not about the painterly virtuosos in our midst, it is about those who love to paint and make art, and, personally speaking, I feel that there is huge pleasure in seeing walls so crammed with art that to view the uppermost hangings requires an awkward craning of the neck.

In a show like this there is also the pleasure of seeing the familiar, the local, rendered in a medium that maybe opens the eyes anew to previously unseen qualities of light, texture or form.

The exhibition is, as one would hope, a brochan [porridge] of the good, the bad and the ugly. One favourite, which unfortunately is not for sale, is Ivor Mackay’s painting in acrylics entitled Tranquillity, Achmore Snowscene. Ivor’s work will be familiar to many islanders who have even a faint interest in local artists. His land and sea scapes are robust and finely rendered. This particular painting shows a snowy scene with a small group of houses and with the hills beyond, and the icy chill tangibly rises from the canvas.

But, for all its fine capturing of the wintry blast, the scene is also an intimate one, and obviously the work of one who knows the landscape and houses he is painting of old. It’s that quality of the intimate and knowable that not only makes this painting a hit, but the whole exhibition as well.

On a similar theme, Harris-based artist Willie Fulton, working in a more tangential and abstracted form, is a master of the difficult art of capturing the shifting qualities of light that so grace the island skies. Willie chooses those moments when natural light and the elements combine to put on a show of their own. But his work does not ponder the detail, more the mood and sweep of the scene, and sometimes this energy spreads beyond the canvas onto the frame itself.

In many ways these abstract forms are a more accurate portrayal of the natural world than the so-called realist pictures. Closer to real memory and emotion. A more delicate abstraction of light and landscape comes from Mairi Morrison who blocks and bands the landscape in subtle colours. Her Feasgair Samhraidh is the work of an accomplished artist, and at £185 is an affordable and attractive original.

Susanna Robson’s From Valasay to Traigh na Berie is a more muted landscape but has great atmosphere and again, at £145, is a good buy. Among the professional artists here are Ian Brady and Kenneth Burns, both of whom have strong and striking shows, if you like that kind of thing, of course, and many do.

On the theme of landscapes, artist Elizabeth Hayes possesses many questions with her swirling landscapes. Although not yet the finished product, Elizabeth’s work has the qualities of the north – a surprisingly colourful place – and echoes with the influence of landscapes by  Munch, Nolde and Klimt. At £25 a piece they will bring joy to any corner.

But one final question: what does this exhibition say about the state of art in the islands? Well, it is clear that painters love the light and form of our landscapes. The culture and mythology provide material as well, but pleasing is the sheer range and number of works, and it is reassuring that there are plenty who are prepared to show the islands as they are and see them everyday, being inventive rather than falling on the old cliches. Highly recommended.

© Peter Urpeth, 2003