Castle Gallery, Inverness, until 28 March 2009

Ian McWhinnie - Circus, 50 x 50cm, oil on gesso board

INFLUENCED by the artist’s travels in Ireland, Italy, France and America, Ian McWhinnie’s latest solo show at the Castle Gallery presents a wonderfully intriguing body of new work. Characteristically, the artist stimulates the imagination with beguiling fragments of suggestion and narrative in his distinctive figurative paintings. The relationship between figures is endlessly fascinating and part of the inherent mystery typical of his work.

Like his overall approach to composition the artist’s stylisation of the human figure is beautifully controlled. A subdued palette, fine draughtsmanship and the delicacy of the painted mark contribute to the appeal of his work. These qualities, however, are coupled with a distinct edge, both in terms of the artist’s handling of materials and the acute psychological aspect of his paintings.

His technique of oil on gesso board – a surface which, unlike canvas, offers resistance and does not give – contributes to the crisp solidity of the images, curiously combined with warmth of colour and the dream-like lyricism. Applying oil paint to board is a multilayered process, an approach no doubt influenced by the artist’s earlier work in ceramics. There is a certain unforgiving quality to these materials which, when tempered by the artist’s deliberation, sensitivity and care, create compositions of harmonious balance and unexpected irony.

McWhinnie’s painterly vision of the human figure is stylistically cast like low relief sculpture with figures overlapping each other, often cropped to the edge of the frame in the manner and with the immediacy of a photograph. What is so fascinating about their frozen and intricate choreography is the sense of expectation within a given moment captured by the artist, coupled with the timelessness of the stylised human image.

The human condition in the artist’s work remains constant. Each figure is distinctly singular in spite of the dominant style which defines and delineates them. Although there are spectators and participants within a given scene they are largely disconnected from each other, staring out beyond the picture plane.

The Catcher is an excellent example from McWhinnie’s Circus series, in which the upwards gaze of anticipation is the primary focus of the work. No two figures acknowledge the presence of each other, drawn in by the spectacle. The artist skilfully echoes the curved theatricality of the performance ring in the curtain, shoulder and open hand of the central figure, a device often used by the artist to create unity of form and movement in a scene.

A larger painting, Circus, illustrates this beautifully, with the subtle repetition of gently undulating lines; the back of the horse and its flowing tail, the hairlines framing the faces of the female spectators and the curved back of the acrobat suspended in mid-air. These gentle curves are contrasted with the geometric angularity of the curtain partly opened at the centre of the scene. That which we do not see, behind the curtain, is like the void of dark space in The Catcher, with its ladder to a space above, eternally beyond our view.

The largest work on display, The Emigrants, is pervaded by a sense of expectant melancholy with a procession of three figures in the foreground carrying nondescript boxes tied with string, full of belongings or hopes in a scene of departure. In the mid-ground, groups of figures in boats stare fixedly outward while in the background a lonely island appears on the horizon. The curve of shoreline, water and boats echo each other beautifully, evoking a feeling of stillness, longing and anticipation.

Shorelines provide a potent setting for the artist and works on a more intimate scale such as Harbour Wall and Boathouse, County Mayo are particularly interesting. In Harbour Wall a man and a woman occupy the same space but remain separated by the partition, she in the light and he in shade, their gazes parallel, never meeting. The pictorial psychology of this relationship is compelling, the life ring hanging next to the male figure could perhaps save them both – or not at all. Elegantly suspended in time they are a puzzle to the viewer that can never be solved.

This lack of resolution is also played out in the arrangement of another couple in Boathouse, County Mayo, where the relationship is a mystery cast within a strongly devised composition. Foreground and background mirror each other with the angular line of the wall and landscape beyond unifying the painting and dividing the figures, facing but gazing eternally past each other. The palette of russet, ochre, greens and blues contribute to the irony and harmony of this scene of disconnection.

McWhinnie admirably demonstrates that what is pleasing to the eye is not necessarily benign. Although there is a decorative element of design operating within his work and his technique focuses attention on the paintings’ surface, this is never at the expense of the complexity of the subject.

A casual glance might discern dominant similarity between the paintings on display; however, McWhinnie is a subtle artist and one which rewards the viewer with each successive viewing. Paintings which have their origins in different locations convey subtle nuances of light, hue and shifting mood and the possible narrative fragments at work within each painting consistently provoke thoughtful daydreams.

© Georgina Coburn, 2009

Links

• Castle Gallery
• Ian McWhinnie

visualarts