Kilmorack Gallery, by Beauly, until 24 December 2010

THIS LATEST mixed exhibition at Kilmorack Gallery brings much needed colour and vibrancy to the depths of winter with works by artists such as Henry Fraser, James Adams, Jim Bond, Marj Bond, Eugenia Vronskaya, Kirstie Cohen, Helen Denerley, Clare Harkess, Allan MacDonald, Ingebjorg Smith, Lotte Glob, James Hawkins, Jane MacNeill, Illona Morrice, Peter White, Robert McAulay and Allison Weightman. There are some beautiful and wonderfully engaging works on display, making venturing out into the artic chill well worth the journey.

Kirstie Cohen's Horse & Rider

Kirstie Cohen’s suite of four paintings featuring human and equine figures in a luminous palette of vivid orange, blue and purple are compositions of balance, beauty and resonance. Horse & Rider (i) (Oil on Board) is an excellent example, with the central figure in alizarin crimson flanked by two horses, the light fluid brushwork and incandescent colour almost otherworldly in their intensity. The arrangement of flattened blocks of abstract colour in the background provide harmonious structure, leading the eye into the image and intensifying experience of the figurative elements of each painting. Drawing in the viewer with pure colour and form these are works which invite closer inspection.

The geometry of these colourfields of background contrasts beautifully with the curves of horse and rider, exemplified in Figure With Horses in aqua, purple and burnished orange; the monumentality of the horse defined with delicacy in scratched and drawn marks on the head and chest; a powerful and dominant form in relation to the human figure. In Horses and Rider the depiction of a female figure on horseback represents a powerful equality of form. Colour and gesture in this work are finely wrought, the heads of the horses and background streaked with sublime aqua in a painting where every colour and mark sound a clear note, contributing to the harmonious and dynamic nature of the image as a whole.

This is a suite of four paintings brimming with life and the promise of great things to come. There is an engagement with paint handling and subject matter in the Horse and Rider and in the artist’s Icarus series, a grappling with the crafting of the image, which leaves the artist’s misty landscapes in the shade; the embodiment of a new sense of energy and clarity in Cohen’s work.

Allan MacDonald's Black Cuillins, Red Cuillins, Autumn

Following on from his outstanding solo show Until The Day Break earlier this year another of Kilmorack’s regularly exhibiting artists, Allan MacDonald, has some fine work on display. Black Cuillins, Red Cuillins, Autumn (Oil On Canvas) is a magnificent example, with incredible variations of colour within the brooding turbulence of the image. MacDonald’s vigorous handling of land and sky, the immediacy of his brushwork in direct response to the landscape, communicates the raw energy and power of nature seen through human eyes. Flashes of Naples yellow and a signature patch of optimistic blue in the high left hand corner of the painting temper the image into one of transcendence. MacDonald surpasses expectations of the genre entirely in his current body of work, an achievement which demands national acknowledgement and recognition.

Claire Harkess has contributed a wonderful series of mixed media works on paper distinctive for their economy of mark and breadth of expression. Like sculptor Helen Denerley, also featured in the exhibition, Harkess captures the essence of her subject in her depiction of wildlife. The artist’s rendering of two Black Backed Jackels, hinges on abstract marks registered by the eye – a square flash of white deliberating movement beneath black inked spine and sepia limb. The obtuse and angular arrangement of the two animals within the dynamic composition yields an energy and sense of movement that is palpable. In contrast Harkess’s Lion in black watercolour conveys a definitive and stately gait, the dry brushed tail held poised in delicate counterfoil to the weight and commanding posture of the head.

The unexpected beauty of Henry Fraser’s naïve figurative works is always a delight and the paintings featured in this latest show are no exception. Fraser’s abstracted portraits reveal amazing depth in terms of emotional recognition, tempered with the knowing inclusion of fragments of text and mark that create the possibility of multiple readings of dominant human element in his work. As agent of pure expressionism he elicits an immediately visceral as well as a cerebral response.
In The Executioner (Acrylic on Canvas) the grey mask and the suggestion of a human face in pencil mark and in the bare canvas of the ground forming the mouth, eyes and nose are set against a background of hot cadmium red. Beside the mouth found text “pass away” is collaged like a memento mori while the mask and temperature of the background challenges the supremacy of death with sex.

There is nothing naïve or simple about Fraser’s edgy and ambiguous figurative abstractions which often convey great vulnerability; an empathic understanding of the human condition conveyed with delicacy and pathos. Teaching Alice To Say Her Name is a great example of Fraser’s handling of materials – the resistance of acrylic on board echoing the open mouth in the child’s attempt to form words. Standing in front of this small work the sound is immediately audible. The treatment of the figure; dry brushwork of hair swept across the white forehead and open face, the fragile spatter of paint over bold simplified form and tiny eyes whose darkness penetrates the viewer’s own gaze make the image of the child and her attempt at expression universally human and poignant.

In Stanley’s Song, a larger scale portrait dominated by the seemingly oversized whitewashed head emerging out of burnt umber brush marks, Fraser creates recognition in a mutual gaze between artist, painted subject and viewer. The small concentrated eyes and flashes of orange under-painting subtly bring the abstracted human head to life in terms of character and consciousness. In the background wash of umber the words “tattie scones” are repeated like a mantra in lead pencil, a single thought in Stanley’s mind as he stares searchingly out of the painting and into the face of the viewer.

This is an invigorating show to end Kilmorack’s 2010 exhibition programme with developments in the work of several of gallery’s regularly exhibiting artists creating a sense of excitement and anticipation in 2011.

© Georgina Coburn, 2010

Links

• Kilmorack Gallery