The Strond, St Mary’s, Orkney, until 14 September 2007

Five Sanday Artists

THE STROND gallery is occupied by a task force of five very different artists from a neighbouring island. Each brings their own skills and means of expression, very successfully planting the Sanday flag on mainland soil. In their own way, each artist captures the clear air of an outer island, either in the images or the depth of thought the unpolluted atmosphere allows.

Rosey Priestman’s mixed media collages are full of texture and detail. A delicate tracery which captures a frozen moment in time. This might be a flock of birds in flight, as in ‘Arctic Terns’, or a still life image containing fruit of the land and sea. All the images are analogous of life and death on a small island, and I particularly liked ‘Still life/bird skull’, in which both skull and pear are cut from similar deathly pale material.

Dominique Cameron’s broad strokes seem almost random at first. However, the smattering of light is always in the right place and illuminates the paper with just enough optimism to reassure us that the storm is nearly over, although in each image there is always the threat that the weather will come down again. The landscape she portrays is bruised by the elements and not a place for the weak or fainthearted. I think she matches this with a strong attack using brush and paint.

Dominique has an ally and strong fighting partner in Doug Muir. Doug’s atmospheric canvasses capture the brooding sky between her storms. There is yellow sunlight, but always seen as a reflection on the damp landscape, the source of this glow hidden behind black clouds. The triptych, ‘Cata Sands’, holds a strong presence at the end of the gallery with these colours. If this were a window, the light would prompt you to set out for a walk now, while you can.

Brendan Colvert’s sole work is a study of both torment and thoughtfulness. The layers of paint are a testimony to the intense evolution of this work. The developing scene is dominated by the dark, diabolic shape in the upper right quadrant. Everything here is charged with symbolism, from the deep pink to the broken antlers. Letters scratched into the surface convey a meaning just outwith consciousness, but this is a code just waiting to be broken.

Just when you think “Oh dear, here are more pedestrian watercolours of Orkney Life” Carolyn Dixon surprises you with work of depth. On a second look, one notices the dark shadows and rusty buoys, the signs that there has been death in these places.

This is not a working landscape but a place of ghosts. In “Barn and Peugeot 405” the objects associated with recent occupation are already reverting to dust and debris. In ‘Sunset, Lady Kirk’, light appears to shine out of the Kirk window and on to gravestones. Here are the people who helped maintain the Iand through lives of hard toil. It only highlights the fact that now they have gone, nature rules.

Once these artists have retreated, we should welcome another invasion sometime in the future. Or maybe they should expect a counter attack from the mainland!

© John Shapter, 2007