Bonhoga Gallery, Weisdale Mill, Shetland, 2007, run finished

“That splat’s beetroot soup?”
“Beetroot and orange, yes.”

Peter Biehl's 'Steerage' (photo - Kristi Cumming)

Kristi Cumming confirms my interpretation of the hot-coloured collage of felted wool that’s attached to the gallery wall. It spreads out from its centre with smaller splashes even reaching to the ceiling. Practical splats, these – they can be used as coasters.

Kristi is one of fourteen members of the Shetland artists’ group Veer North who’ve been exhibiting collage works at the Bonhoga Gallery in Shetland. Under the heading of ‘Soup’, each took the subject in wildly different directions to create a very satisfying range of work.

Kirsti is the collective’s exhibitions co-ordinator. The thinking behind the show, she explained to me, was to present the artists with the challenge of working outside their normal field.

The most recent visitor had signed the comments book “Delicate and bold at the same time”. Her words summed up the overall impression I got from the exhibition.

One of the most striking works was a historical piece evoking the time when so many people were forced to emigrate from the islands. Peter Biehl’s installation used the materials of the period. An old ship’s timber, sea-worn, from a wreck, with a large soup spoon stamped ‘Steerage’, twined together, hung above a compass-like circle of driftwood spokes. The work was thought-provoking.

Turning from it I had to laugh at the eye-catching picture that claimed my attention next – John J. Ignatius Brennan’s sketch of ‘Makkin Da Soup’ was drawn with glue and foil on paper, shining outlines of hands chopping vegetables.

In a mother-daughter collaboration, Anne Bain and Amy Moncrieff had gone from makkin da soup to cannin da soup – their installation was a series of nine tins of fish soup celebrating recipes from round the world, the cans in sea colours, delicately decorated, and placed on a hanging shelf, as though afloat.

Howard Towll had made a paper collage, ‘The Day the Sea Turned to a Bloody Soup’, with whales being driven ashore and slaughtered, a very direct piece of art with a red gash of colour telling the story.

James Bruce Thomason’s wordplay altered Soup to ‘Opus’, and his cheerful collage, brightly coloured and crammed with detail represented his memories of soup served at the country dances in Shetland when he was a teenager.

Andrew Graham’s constructions with their crushed globes warned of the dangers of ‘Global Soup’ with a world spinning out of control.

It was clear that all the artists, not just those I’ve mentioned, had taken the subject seriously and created work very different to their usual styles. That became evident when I went downstairs to a new exhibition space which has just become available. The same artists who made pieces specifically for “Soup” were revealed in their true colours in this gallery.

Perhaps the biggest contrasts were Anne Bain’s stark winter landscapes, a world away from the soup cans, and Peter Bielh’s spacious paintings of rocks, flowers and grass so different from his ‘Steerage’ installation upstairs.

It’s also evident from Veer North’s membership that Shetland is proving attractive to artists who’re moving to the islands.

‘Soup’ has been another milestone in the development of Veer North. Their last outing was a celebration of their website launch. With potentially exciting contacts in Iceland and Denmark, there may be an international flavour to future activities.

© Mary Blance, 2007

Links

• Veer North