Nairn Book & Arts Festival, Nairn Courthouse, until 13 June

Ruth A. Nicol - Freuchie Services, On the Way to Kilmany (1st Prize)

WITH THE profusion of open shows presenting the opportunity for artists of all abilities to participate, it is refreshing and indeed welcome to see a selected show emerge in the North as part of the annual Nairn Book and Arts Festival. Whilst inclusion is a dominant ideology in arts policy and cultural planning, what it does not represent with any consistency is professional context for working artists.

This is an important show in terms of making the work of professional artists visible within a community arts festival and setting a high bar in terms of the quality of work. Selected shows are always a contentious issue; however, they are a necessary part of a balanced spectrum of artistic activity and have been absent in the area’s cultural calendar for far too long.

What this show presents is an excellent selection of varied, well executed and accomplished work within the constraints of the exhibition space, a space which has perhaps contributed to the somewhat conservative nature of the show overall. Artist Shaun MacDonald (Blue Door Studios, Nairn) and Scott Burn (Moray Arts Centre) are to be congratulated on their hanging of the show in a challenging series of spaces.

It would be extremely difficult in this building to exhibit installation, film or very large scale work. Whilst some may find this disappointing, the exhibition is a solid beginning and a significant benchmark which I hope will continue to be built upon in subsequent years with an ever expanding frame of reference and vision.

The inaugural event attracted 550 entries with collection points locally and in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh with a third of submissions coming from over 100 miles away. The judging panel, including Inchmore Gallery owner Gwen Black, sculptor and artist Gerald Laing, Robert Livingston, director of HI-Arts, and Robin Kennedy, lecturer in Arts at UHI, selected 80 works for the Nairn Courthouse space with the emphasis on drawing, composition, paint handling, sculpture and conception of work.

These parameters are clearly in evidence throughout the exhibition. Winner of first prize (£1500 plus gallery space in 2010) was Ruth A. Nicol, a student of Edinburgh College of Art with her large scale acrylic work Freuchie Services, On The Way To Kilmany. Second prize of £500 was awarded to Sam Cartman for Hut (Oil), the Chairman’s Choice and an award of £500 went to Stormy Seas Orkney (Oil) by Hugh Kirkwood and Sue MacPherson’s Zephyrs (Oil) received the Homecoming Award of £500.

Gerald Laing described in his prize-giving speech the need for art to “feed your speculation”, to give an audience “something to hum”. Very much in that spirit Michael Agnew’s A Canvas, On A Canvas, On A Canvas, On A Canvas is a clever and engaging visual conceit in mixed media. Michael Cairncross’s sculpture in bronze and portsoy marble, Embracing The Illusion, is an equally intriguing piece of work, creating a series of refracted dialogues between its highly polished angular surfaces.

Alisdair McKay’s abstract sculpture The Pragmatists is also a satisfying combination of ideas and materials – the human figures in the work in warped timber anchored to their the cement-like arrow bases facing pointedly away from each other.

There are many highlights in the show to be enjoyed, including Patricia Cain’s dynamic mixed media drawing Fergusons No9 on a ground of antique gold/ ochre. Cain presents an unexpectedly beautiful image of an industrial structure with pastel and charcoal adding to the tonality and definition of the work.

Meg Telfer’s Stone Fence Yesnaby, Orkney (Collagraph Print) creates a wonderful interplay of textures which reflect the low relief of the actual plate. The eye is drawn beautifully into this strong composition by the arrangement of form and the fence line itself, the wire like arteries of a living landscape. Layers of sky are pressed down to the horizon creating a wonderfully evocative psychological space from an extraordinarily narrow tonal range. Here understanding of texture and composition engage our emotional response to the work in an imaginative reinterpretation of the landscape.

Another superb piece of interpretive composition is Sam Cartman’s Seascape 3 (Oil), which spills out to the outer edges of the frame, a cold grey sky contrasted with landforms of pink and brown in a beautiful arrangement of composed stillness and vigorous brushwork. The balance of colour and paint handling in this work are excellent, the broken line of the horizon maintaining all the freshness and energy of an initial response or drawn mark.

Fiona Jappy’s mixed media work Salt in My Blood combines the haunting presence of photographic memory with layers of finely drenched blue pigment, the smiling child emerging from behind the skirt of an ancestor whose form we can only just make out. A group of ghostly familial figures emerge from the ground while arrangements of drifting birds and butterflies contribute to the ethereal quality of the image in association with the fleeting quality of human memory. The red barcode-like sequence at the base of the painting anchors the work, encoding the subject with personal identity and the universal need for belonging.

Brigid Collins’s Come, See Real Flowers (Wire, tissue, gauze, gold leaf, beeswax) presents the delicate interior world of the poem house where gold embossed fragmentary text provides a gateway to interiors of the imagination. The choice of materials and construction; veins of leaves, delicate papers, precious metal and frayed edges are on an intimate scale, encouraging closer examination and contemplation of the work.

The exhibition provides an important opportunity for professional work to be shown locally within a Scotland-wide cultural context, expanding the field of reference for visual artists and raising the profile of the area in hosting the event.

The show is complimentary to a range of visual arts activities during the ten day festival, including workshops, talks and exhibitions; 4Square (Contemporary Highland Art), ThreeSixFive (Photographic portraits) and Primary Schools Tapestry at the Nairn Community Centre, Off The Peg (Art hung in High St shops), The Power Of Ten (Photography) at the Nairn Railway Station, Nairn Academy Art at the Nairn Museum and the Nairn Photographic Competition at the Nairn Library.

© Georgina Coburn, 2009

Links

• Nairn Book and Arts Festival