Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh, until Saturday 16th April 2011

IT’S A shame this capital showcase exhibition of artists connected to Ullapool’s RhueArt Gallery should only be on display for so short a while, because there’s such a wealth of work here that a relatively lengthy visit or even a repeat viewing might be deserved.

However long you have to spend, however, it comes recommended as a rewarding and varied mixture of classic and contemporary styles.

Helen Denerley's Daisy the cow, photographed in the artist's studio (the hen is not part of the exhibition!).

The most noteworthy contributor to the show, of course, is Helen Denerley, who will be familiar to Edinburgh art lovers as the creator of the eye-catching and enormous giraffe sculptures outside Leith Walk’s Omni Centre, eerie but somehow organic creatures made of reclaimed scrap metal.

Most of Denerley’s extensive contributions to Perception use the same technique, but there’s a wonderful breadth of invention to the pieces she creates, including a child-frightening crocodile on the venue floor, an imposing eagle perched in the corner, and a ‘poetry fly’ made from old brass plumbing and stopcock taps for eyes.

Most of Denerley’s works are life-sized, even the hand-sized toad fashioned from moulded brass, and strangely life-like, although they seem rather caged in these surroundings. The accompanying catalogue shows certain of the pieces outdoors, and perhaps the tension between the mechanical, even industrial nature of their construction and the organically evolved design of the creatures they represent might be better appreciated in an exterior environment.

Mary Bourne's Mountain Flower in Colorado marble

There are seven other artists showing here, and much of their work stands out. Mary Bourne, for example, creates a similar tension between the naturally fashioned and the prefabricated, with a series of slate and marble sculptures which have been polished into very precise decorative designs which somehow accentuate the lustrous natural texture of the materials.

James Hawkins's dramatic landscape Mist below A'Mhaighdean

James Hawkins, meanwhile, creates large-scale acrylic landscape paintings of mountains and valleys from around the Highlands, his thick and representative daubs of paint offset by esoteric flashes of green, orange, blue and purple in the trees and crags, these accentuated splashes of colour lending a fantastical, otherwordly feel to the locations.

Other works are distinctly more traditional, with Tobias Hodson’s almost botanical watercolour studies of leaves and flowerheads and Katy Spong’s prettily-painted and birdlife-focused water’s edge paintings being pleasing on the eye but perhaps not so challenging in conception.

Katy Spong - Geese with heads held high

Yet even in James Lunsden’s flowing, mesmerising contrasts of paired blocks of painted colour, there is an affinity with the shapes of nature which reveals the origin points of these pieces.

© David Pollock, 2011

Links

• RhueArt