GEORGINA COBURN examines the new work on offer from Highland graduates

FEATURING work by Rowan Corkill, Colin Taylor, Catherine Myles, Ailsa Williamson, Eilidh Thomson, Nick Ross, Lynn Baxter, Callum Chapman, Karen Skillen, Emma Macleod, Louise Emslie and Colin Gordon, New Graduates is a varied, engaging and interesting show sadly contained within the limitations of the IMAG gallery space.

The RSA New Contemporaries show held in Edinburgh earlier this year clearly demonstrated the professional context in which the work of graduating artists from Scottish art colleges should be shown. Both the space and presentation felt equal to the aspirations and quality of the work.

Catherine Mylles - Untitled (24 boxes)

 
It is ironic that IMAG’s New Graduates introduction champions the enviable “quality of life” in the region, which does not include public access to an adequate contemporary (or historical) visual art space, long term cultural planning or infrastructure.

Having visited the selected RSA graduate show and this year’s grad shows in Elgin, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Dundee, I could not help but wonder about the larger scale work that might have been exhibited and curated as part of this exhibition if the Highland capital had a designated space in which to house work of challenging scale.

This is an issue that affects all touring shows to the region and the scope of work that can be seen by the public on an ongoing basis. How we present visual art (which is ultimately a reflection of how we value it) – not as part of isolated event funding such as Highland Homecoming but consistently, in tandem with opportunities for education, training and employment – is a key factor in whether graduating artists choose to stay in the region.

While the exhibition introduction makes reference (quite rightly) to the contribution of artists to quality of life in the Highlands, this value is not reflected in the overall presentation of their work in what continues to be an inadequate and consistently under-resourced space.

The work of 12 recent Scottish art school graduates with a Highland connection currently being showcased at IMAG would have benefited from greater publicity and some kind of catalogue or information about the artists being available in the gallery and/or on the IMAG website. The presentation of their work, including the wording of the exhibition’s introduction, seems rather parochial in comparison to the actual content, much of which is thought-provoking and demonstrates great maturity.

Highlights of the show include Ailsa Williamson’s Order & Chaos series of silver jewellery with its seemingly random pattern of elegance. Inspired by nature, her finely crafted ribbon-like rings and necklaces combine an almost discarded pattern of form with concrete structure anchored to functionality.

Karen Skillen’s unusual series of metal point on gesso pieces NM 325 351, NR 858 907 and NM 683 022 present an intriguing fusion of technique and ideas, the drawn mark encompassing a variety of associations from microscopic structures to scientific and architectural illustration. The energy, precision and finely wrought construction of these images, which float like densely clustered cells of life in the centre of each composition, lead the viewer to contemplate a wider definition of Culture.

Photography is one of the dominant elements of the show with work by Rowan Corkill, Eilidh Thomson, Colin Chapman and Emma Macleod showing great promise.

Rowan Corkill’s Untitled series of light box installations utilise found institutional photographs in a striking exploration of collective and personal identity. The way in which human memory is simultaneously held and departed within a photograph invests the celluloid image with poignancy, especially in images clearly divorced from their origins.

The rise of interest in anonymous photography and collecting in recent years, including Robert Flynn Johnson’s publications; Anonymous and Being Human Enigmatic Images of People By Unknown Photographers, return us to the essential human interest and connection with the photographic image.

Authorship and identity in relation to the found photograph presents us with a myriad of potential narratives. Corkill’s manipulation of the image, the lines of orderly figures with the eyes removed to reveal the light behind, give the human element an otherworldly quality, divorced from the time in which these people lived.

The meaning of the snapshot or institutional documentary photographic record becomes altered and we see not an image discarded but transformed in terms of its human content. This series is an interesting meditation on loss and mortality using the found photograph as an imaginative catalyst.

Callum Chapman’s series of Untitled digital photographic prints also present the viewer with a challenging dialogue between found and manipulated elements in his work. The subtle staging of his images using objects from everyday life create images of unexpected beauty, stillness and contemplation.

Ordinary or mundane objects are arranged into sets, often in close up, exploring themes such as “concealment, confinement and traps”. The viewer is given tantalising hints of narrative within the works; Untitled 1 depicting an apex of rafters lit in darkness with an expectant wire and empty light socket drawn across the space is a good example. Likewise Untitled 5, with its brown curtain mysteriously drawn and a single white thread dangling like an invitation, draws the viewer into a compelling psychological space.

Although the human element is literally absent in Chapman’s work, inanimate objects are powerfully invested with human drama and emotion. Untitled 4 is perhaps the most beautiful example, a subtle close up of a tabletop covered by a cloth of Broderie Anglaise. Chapman’s characteristic subdued lighting and colour contribute to the intimacy of the image, a gentle theatricality which is stimulating to the imagination and intellect.

The delicate cut-outs in the fabric juxtaposed with a strip of photographic negative placed parallel to each other create a strangely poetic and melancholy image. The negative spaces within the work are both physiological and physical, brought beautifully into focus by the overall composition. This is clearly an artist quietly exploring his craft and it is wonderful to see. How we frame an image in compositional terms is pivotal in how we read it, and it is gratifying to see this level of engagement with visual language and the craft of photography.

Eilidh Thomson’s meditations on abandoned interior spaces are also characterised by human action, absence and the “passage of time”. A series of untitled digital photographs on canvas (I, II and III) present a triptych of neglected interiors in which windows provide the central focus within and without.

In the first, light diffused from an opaque window settles our attention on a box discarded and littered with bird droppings in the corner of a decaying room. The smell of mould and dust is almost palpable, quietly evocative in its bleak and resolute silence. The central image of a broken window with a view to skeletal trees outside contains the chill of autumn/winter and the suggestion of a human act of violence.

Fragments of glass upon the floor, almost spilling into the viewer’s space glint in the dim light, red-rimmed with traces of blood. This scant introduction of colour is so slight that in the context of the whole image it is barely noticeable – it feels however, quite deliberately present. The third image of a cobweb veiled window of frosted glass reveals cycles of growth and decay through a single pane removed from the window frame filled with the texture of life outside. Thomson draws our attention to interior corners that we routinely overlook in daily life and encourages us to look again.

Emma Macleod’s series of digital prints Residents Only and The Steady Film in high contrast black and white are immediately unsettling. Her use of “photography, installation, projection and small scale set ups” creates a sinister and dramatic series of triggers for the viewer’s imagination, as stark and incoherent as the language of nightmares.

The presentation of multiple images of an imitate scale within each frame means that like peering into a letterbox or keyhole we must move in close to the image for it to begin to reveal itself. The urge to connect the images in a narrative sequence is particularly strong and it would be very interesting to see this artist engage with the art of cinematography and the moving image in the future.

The aim of this show is admirable in terms of celebrating “the quality and wealth of talent produced by young artists in Scotland”, and the Highland Council Exhibitions Unit is to be congratulated on staging such an exhibition. However there is a sizable gap between this aspiration and the means necessary to present work in a manner which reflects its true cultural value and professional context. Our New Graduates, the city and region deserve better.

© Georgina Coburn, 2009

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