Review by Georgina Coburn
New Work – Brian Macbeath / Vicky Stonebridge
21 Jul 2009 in Highland, Visual Arts & Crafts
Inchmore Gallery, Inchmore, Inverness, until 15 August 2009
Brian MacBeath "Light on the Roof" (Oil on Canvas)
CURRENTLY on show at Inchmore Gallery is a varied selection of new works including abstract paintings and prints by Brian MacBeath, acrylic paintings by Vicky Stonebridge and a group exhibition by members of Visual Arts Sutherland.
Brian MacBeath’s large scale oils on canvas employ his characteristic exploration of colour and abstract form derived from printmaking. The multilayered nature of his technique, together with evolution in relation to paint handling and an expansion of the artist’s palette make this an interesting new body of work. Although typically free-floating forms and sunny pastels do make an appearance there is greater depth of colour and mark making on display, especially in the larger canvases.
Light on The Roof, for example, uses overlap of form and a variety of washes of deep alizarin crimson, orange, purple, green and blue to convey a particular mood. There is a variety of mark and paint handling within the overlap of forms and abstract composition which together with the rich warm hues of the canvas add depth to the paintings’s ambiguous surfaces. High Road is another example utilising the grain and texture of the canvas, varnish-like gloss of paint and a variety of mark in deep green, aqua and yellow to create a sense of creative development within the artist’s signature style.
Vicky Stonebridge’s latest work derived from her experience as a retained fire fighter presents a series of figurative images in acrylic on canvas and paper. Stonebridge’s illustrative style combines keen observation and sensitivity in relation to her human subject with a potentially dynamic approach to composition. While some works retain the casual cropping of a photographic snapshot others such as Hoses Ready and Going into Smoke convey a beautifully structured awareness of composition.
The way the figurative group is framed and how our eye is led into the composition in these works allows the audience to interpret the image on a variety of levels. Hoses Ready with its enlargement of the foreground and serpentine line into the image creates a heightened relationship between object and the figurative group in the distance.
In Going Into Smoke the arrangement of long dark shadows in relationship to the figures and the central light emanating from the smoke creates an ethereal image of life and death. The artist’s choice of composition offers alternative readings of what is at first glance a recognisable and realistic depiction of a particular job or sequence of training manoeuvres.
It is the human element in the works and the central focus of an image such as Checking on a Colleague or Going Into Smoke that allows us not just to observe but to feel. With further development this dynamic quality could prove definitive in terms of the artist’s style and technique.
Formed in 2004, Visual Arts Sutherland represents professional artists in the county through open studio events, exhibitions, education work and web-based promotion. This is the group’s first showing of work in the Inverness-shire area and features paintings, prints, sculpture and textiles by artists including Joan Baxter, Meg Telfer, Cyril Reed, Rachel Skene, Norman Gibson, Dorothy Dick, Jacqueline Walters, Richard Davies, Jennifer MacKenzie, Hazel Reed, Nicola Poole, Sarah Orr and Iris Wallace.
A highly accomplished textile artist, Joan Baxter’s tapestry work displays her subtle understanding of colour, rhythm and composition. Journey is a superb example, a gradual unfolding in the mind’s eye with fragments of landscape in a myriad of gentle hues. The sequence of weave beginning with a sampling of abstract squares of colour unfurls into the line of mountains then fades into nothing like a fleeting thought or dream.
The architecture of this piece is almost like a musical soundscape. In October Clothscape, Baxter blends Highland autumnal colour and light, punctuating the tapestry with loose threads in counterpoint to the rhythm of the weave. At the top of the composition she exposes the bones of its construction in the open loom. This combination of formal structure together with observation of the natural world is a compelling combination.
Rachel Skene’s work is defined by rhythmic contrast in relation to the weave in Plaid 1 and Plaid 2; two beautifully woven and appliquéd scarves worn draped around the shoulders. Stark geometry, striking contemporary design and use of metallic discs and thread reinterpret the traditional associations with the garment and its methods of construction.
In Plaid 2, Skene cleverly contrasts patterns of black, white and copper stitched and folded with deep claret satin ribbon and rich red-brown and blue-grey finely woven cloth. Animated by the addition of more random rhythmic elements such as the metallic discs towards the edges of the work Skene, like fellow textile artist Joan Baxter, ably demonstrates that the perceived division between Craft and Fine Art disciplines is a fiction.
Meg Telfer has contributed two paintings to the exhibition which clearly draw inspiration from the scale and changeability of the Sutherland landscape. Beach (gouache) is described beautifully by two great sweeping arcs of pale sand against turquoise green water and purple hills. The height of the horizon adds to the vastness of the uninhabited scene.
In Storm Passing, Lochan Hakel (acrylic, pastel), the dark image is illuminated by yellow light and a single horizontal line of white upon the solid landforms below. There is an almost biblical association of light in the glint of white upon the loch. The robust treatment of the landscape as a whole, the strength and enduring qualities of nature are beautifully contrasted with the thin blue hand-drawn lines of the mid-ground and delicately drawn marks of ochre in the foreground. This is a landscape distilled to its essence.
Cryil Reed’s treatment of landscape in work such as Gruinard Bay utilises gradations and blocks of colour together with overlapping form in steely blues, browns and greens to lead our eye convincingly into the curve of the bay. His reduction of the landscape to formal pictorial elements is further concentrated in his Bay Triptych, a beautifully balanced composition in deep ultramarine accented with peachy brown.
Norman Gibson’s wall hung sculptural works are a fascinating highlight of the show, exploring the “fleeting patterns of tides and foreshores, shifting thresholds between land and sea and traces and transformations of everyday objects in such settings.”
Pennisula is an excellent example, a wonderful interplay of formal design, spatial enquiry and natural textures. The grain of the timber is allowed to emerge from the gently curving progression of blue at the base of the sculpture, like ripples of light upon the ocean. The main geometric form of the sculpture reads in an architectural way, like a man made construct seen from an aerial perspective.
Gibson always presents the viewer with several potential levels of engagement or perspective in his work, which is as much an intellectual proposition as a visual one. Layered construction contributes to the sense of depth, shadow and potential meanings within the work.
Hopefully this exhibition will lead to further showcasing of work by VASU outside their home county. It would be great to see a larger exhibition and a more comprehensive statement of work by each artist to progressively raise awareness of the group and its unique locale.
