Porteous Brae Gallery, Stromness, Orkney, until 17 July 2008

Etching: 'The Heir' from A Rake's Progress

WHAT WAS once Margaret Dowie’s Fish Shop has been transformed into a spanking white gallery for promoting the work of some of Orkney’s emerging talent, be it writers or visual artists. Porteous Brae Gallery has embarked, for a second summer season, on providing a platform for new work.

The space is ideally suited to Diana Leslie’s graphic work, where a re-interpretation of Hogarth’s series of eight paintings, ‘A Rake’s Progress’ of 1733, is complemented by a pencil panorama of ‘Stromness from Brinkies Brae’ and a large scale ‘Carta Marina Hamnavoe’. There is a confidence of mark-making in both pencil works, which shows a strength of commitment and continuity.

The map (based on an Ordinance survey map of over 100 years ago) marries old with new. She includes the relatively modern marina, and at the same time quotes Alfred Wallis in the flattened boats at rest at the piers. The display of this work is also interesting in the way it is segmented by a series of frames, and by cuttings in the paper within the frames.

‘A Rake’s Progress’ gives the title to this exhibition, and rightly so. Diana Leslie’s series of eight etchings are also a work in progress. Only ‘Heir (No. 1)’ is ready to be editioned. Her series follows exactly the titles of Hogarth’s dark tale of a young man rejecting his truelove when he inherits a fortune, before embarking on a path of hedonism and corruption.

Cross hatching is common to both Hogarth’s etchings based on the painted series, and in Leslie’s approach. Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ seems to be a strong influence throughout the series in the drawing of figures and other imagery. There are other influences too, you could say Goya or even Beryl Cook, but clearly there are the early etchings of David Hockney. Hockney also produced a series of 16 etchings of ‘A Rake’s Progress’ when he returned from a trip to New York in the early 60s.

But this is not to detract from Leslie’s work, as she has delivered her own morality tale. ‘The Levée’ (or party) has a footballer, a figure of modern wealth, and the image could easily be an evening of uproarious fun in the Flattie Bar or other similar hostelry. The Rake could be one of several characters , but mainly he is the figure in the stripey trousers.

He is represented whoring; being arrested; marrying for money; gambling; as a prison inmate, and finally in the Mad-house (or Bedlam) – a complete downward spiral, where only his truelove stays constant, despite the original rejection.

Titles were the only words used by Hogarth, but an Opera of the same title by Igor Stravinsky with a libretto by W H Auden and Chester Kallman fleshed out an interpretation of the story. Diana Leslie approached a friend, Jerry Hope, a writer and musician with The Dust Collectors to write accompanying text. He unexpectedly died before this could be delivered. The Skull drawing and strange Jelly Baby sculpture, with accompanying track on CD, is in memory of him.

The images however speak for themselves. I particularly liked the chaos of (No.VI) ‘The Gaming House’, an unfinished etching, but full of promise. (No. III) ‘The Brothel’ is a well constructed symphony of dark and light. But there is much to enjoy in all the etchings. They are small in scale, but large in ideas. The nuts and bolts are there, they just need to be tweaked so that the edition can be completed.

Porteous Brae Gallery could well be the catalyst for Diana to complete such an ambitious and labour-intensive task. The target is 50 prints of the eight etching plates. They need to be delivered as fast as haddock from the back of Margaret Dowie’s Fish Shop. It is a splendid Festival exhibition.

© Erlend Brown, 2008

Links

• Porteous Brae Gallery