Kilmorack Gallery, by Beauly, until 31 October 2008

Alan McGowan's Hexenspiegel (Witches Mirror)

THIS EXHIBITION explores the relationship between image and text in a way that transcends literal illustration. Featuring work by Marj Bond, Kirstie Cohen, Brigid Collins, Helen Denerley, Michael Forbes, Henry Fraser, Lotte Glob, Kate Leiper, Gerald Laing, Jane MacNeill, Allan Macdonald, Alan McGowan, Ian Scott, Ingeborg Smith and Frank To, there are many works in this exhibition to be savoured.

The way that visual artists have responded to a wide range of texts including Milton’s Paradise Lost, Goethe’s Faust, Psalm 8, Robert Louis Stevenson and lyrics from a Japanese heavy metal band are deeply fascinating. The best works in the show grapple with the poetics of visual language and are as inspiring as their original source material.

A series of images inspired by Goethe’s Faust by Edinburgh based artist Alan McGowan are truly remarkable. McGowan’s handling of materials (compressed charcoal, turpentine, acrylic, wax and oil), fine draughtsmanship and innate understanding of chiaroscuro create a breathtaking vision. He has captured the enduring soul of the play and its central character in the most extraordinary way.

What he manages to achieve in these works engages with the subject on multiple levels. This is not just about accomplished technique, but an understanding of the light and dark of the human soul and the conflict of drawing.

‘Hexenspiegel (Witches Mirror)’ (150cm x150cm) is a magnificent example, a dark triptych-like composition that owes much in spirit to the work of Francis Bacon. On one level it is a superb life study, the face and identity hidden beneath the dark shadow of an umbrella. High tonal contrast illuminates the body, drawing our eye to the centre of the drawing, the framing of glass adding another layer of psychology to the shifting light and shadow of the image.

Even in its darkest recesses to the left and right of the figure this work is alive, animated by a head crying in anguish beneath the shimmering torso. Like the best of Bacon’s works, the image is a manifestation of beauty and disturbance. The mirror as an instrument of distortion and truth is explored beautifully by the hand of the artist but also in the act of seeing by the viewer.

The way we are led into the work is masterful and compelling, wrestling with the same elements of creation and destruction that define the battle for Faust’s mortal soul. This human and artistic conflict is the raw energy of darkness and light in McGowan’s work, which for all its power never loses sight of human vulnerability.

The discipline of life drawing is richly evident in his work. No other study teaches the kind of sensitivity of mark that is essential in depiction of the human form, regardless of whether this is used in the service of abstraction or of realism in an artist’s work. McGowan’s drawing moves beyond anatomy or illustration revealing the body itself as text.

The inner life of his figurative work is what makes it so extraordinary. ‘Nacht (Night)’ is a night of the soul, the reclining figure bearing the full weight and burden of knowledge signified by the globes above. In the study ‘Globe’, McGowan combines bold form and tone with the most delicate of marks, the image is both epic and intimate.

‘Gretchen Head’ extends this idea in figurative terms. The ghostly emergence of the head out of shadow recalls the work of Glasgow artist Ken Currie and implies human frailty and mortality. The human presence in McGowan’s work also invokes the psychological intensity characteristic of Rembrandt’s portraits. The vitality of these drawings, together with their undeniable technical skill are every bit as “unmissably powerful” as the press release claims.

Regular visitors to Kilmorack familiar with the landscape works of Kirstie Cohen will see another dimension to her work in this exhibition. Her ‘Icarus’ series is an exciting indicator of what this artist is capable of, liberated from the typecasting of misty Highland landscapes. Cohen’s accomplished technique in oils captures the shifting light, weather and atmosphere of the North, here her response to the ancient Greek myth fuses pure flesh with air.

The fallen figure is suggested in these abstracted and finely balanced compositions of light, colour and movement and their dynamism is an absolute pleasure to behold. These are some of the best works I’ve seen by Cohen because they reveal engagement with the elusive quality of paint itself, the mythical and creative conflict of aspiration with earthly gravity.

The “Icarus” series represents an absolute marriage of technique and ideas, revealing an aspect of the artist’s work previously unseen. For a commercial gallery to exhibit and encourage broad thematic interpretations rather than convenient signatures is a strength, and demonstrates a commitment to showing fresh and original work. New work by Brigid Collins and Henry Fraser further expand our parameters of expectation.

Collins’ use of mixed media is extremely effective combining a variety of techniques with found objects in her two dimensional works and three dimensional ‘Poem Houses’. ‘Seven Changes’, inspired by a Haiku by Bairyu, interprets the Japanese death poem in the enlarged form of a delicate flower. A single bloom dominates the composition, and this enlargement of form is contrasted with the handling of media as light a butterfly wings.

The way in which colours are subtly blended, ranging through aqua-green, blues and purples, the fine spatter at the centre of the flower and the bevelled edged fragility of paper add to the vulnerability of the image. It is a beautiful meditation with watermarks suggestive of tears or rain; the human condition mirrored in the transience of nature as the bloom begins to fade.

‘Down and Out in Paris and London’, inspired by Orwell, utilises collage and mixed media in a strong composition of caked materials; coffee stains, newspaper fragments and a cigarette butt on an aged edge of porcelain. It is an image lived in every sense, the bones of the fish upon the plate metaphorically picked clean.

Collins comment that “Poetry is a constant source of inspiration and the forms I create act as a place of safe keeping for words that resonate and stimulate my imagination” reveals an essential relationship with text and the value of cross-disciplinary practice. This precious quality is realised in her finely layered works. ‘Heart, Breath, Moon and You’, inspired by a poem by the artist, is a richly textured example, where the colour crimson and embossed fragmentary material are melded by the artist to create a sense of warmth, fusion and emotional gravity.

New work in the gallery by Henry Fraser reminded me a great deal of the 1940’s Australian artist Joy Hester. Fraser strips back the figure to bare lines in a deceptively naïve style. Like Hester, emotion is heightened by the starkness and childlike execution of the drawings. Fraser’s work is characterised by a raw expressionistic energy, pared down in works such as ‘Shout’ and ‘Utter’, where the lone figure’s evocation of text is a single human sound.

‘Anthem’, with its cadmium red sky bearing down on the suggested gathering below groups the human figure en masse, individual identity subsumed by the rallied response. ‘Night Prayer’ exhibits all the freshness of drawn marks, the simple lines of bed, striped pyjamas and rosary creating a devotional, ritualistic image.

The technique of acrylic on board adds to the edgy quality in his work. Working on board there is always resistance in the handling of paint. Fraser’s response to the stimulus of prayer, psalm or anthem in figurative terms is the “word made flesh”. His treatment of the figure is extremely interesting in psychological terms, and a fresh new voice joining the gallery’s regular exhibiting artists.

This is an inspiring show that one might not expect to see in a commercial gallery. It is always a pleasure to walk into such a space and be surprised. In an area devoid of public art spaces of quality, Kilmorack sets a high bar in terms of the vision of this exhibition. The quality of work on show is exceptional and the responses diverse, expanding the parameters of expectation about regular exhibiting artists and introducing new work. Allow yourself time to enjoy this show, a wonderful celebration of visual art as text in its own right.

© Georgina Coburn, 2008

Links

• Kilmorack Gallery