Caithness Horizons, Thurso, until 29 May 2011

THE “final” in the title of this exhibition does not refer to the year’s end work of the 10 full time or 37 part time students who have completed their National Certificate in Art and Creative Studies, or the creativity of the 14 “Learning For Life” who have participated in the Exploring Visual Images module: tragically, it refers to the final exhibition from this course, which began in 1995 and for purely for financial reasons is to cease in 2011, writes George Gunn.

Some aspects of the part time art course will be retained within other departments, but what has been a life changing experience for many who have completed the NC at Thurso and who have gone on to art colleges and to a career in the visual arts will now not be available for anyone – and the participants range from school leavers to the retired – is a sad reflection on the much vaunted aspiration of the newly titled University of the Highlands and Islands. What other centre for learning and opportunity comes into the world by deleting courses and closing buildings?

Work on display in the exhibition

On the bright side – literally – the light loving gallery in Caithness Horizons is jam packed full of colour and creativity. The work, as one might expect, varies in quality and range, but there is enough ambition on display to ensure that the great tradition of visual art in Caithness is continuing on and gaining in technique and confidence. For example the concentration on drawing by those who were part time students last year is seen to bear fruit by increased quality of the paintings the students have produced this year.

It is always unfair to pick out particular works from such a ceilidh of creativity, but the flavour of this exhibition can be enjoyed in the seemingly random but hugely effective woody quality of John A Farquhar’s ‘Scribbled Life Drawing #2’.

Donald Busby - Storm

Equally confident in composition and colour is the painting ‘Leaf’ by Donald Busby, an acrylic on canvas; an arresting concentration of yellows, blues and blacks. Another artist with a fine sense of form is Kathy Manson. ‘Highland Village’, an acrylic and oil, is a semi-abstract study of a human landscape, an assured assemblage of greens and browns which gently draws the viewer in.

Kathy Manson - Highland Village

Of a different hue altogether is Emily Morris Ashton’s untitled but striking ink and water colour drawing on paper of a figure caught in mid-action – perhaps in pain, maybe being hunted – but the sense of movement is skilfully caught by this young Caithness artist.

These four works were not singled out at random but to highlight the necessary scale of the exhibition, which means that the art work is almost bursting out of the gallery, and this represents exactly the talent which is bursting out, and has done so consistently over the years of this valuable arts course.

Painting and drawing are to the fore but there are impressive displays of jewellery in glass and clay from Annie Body and Sarah Barnetson, ideas for fashion design and in textiles, and I also recommend that the visitor pick up the many artists portfolios which are available and you will see the work-in-progress, the fascinating thought processes which may or may not end up in a finished work.

Visitors admire the work on show

The two tutors, Mary Parker and Jackie Newton, can be proud of their students and of what their course has achieved. In Caithness, as elsewhere, art education and training is a chain-link activity: from primary school to secondary school; from night class to full time course work. If the chain is broken, as it has been in the decision to end the National Certificate in Art and Creative Studies at North Highland College,  then all other arts activity and the future creativity of Caithness and the North is put in jeopardy.

This exhibition proudly celebrates that significant part of human nature which is creativity, for it is creativity which makes us human. If we are denied access to our creativity, and the training to better express it, then society limits its own possibilities.

We are not truly civilised if we condone this. Go to Caithness Horizons in Thurso and enjoy the enthusiasm and ambition of the arts students’ creations. Do not be satisfied that this is the last exhibition. North Highland College and the University of the Highlands and Islands must be made to think again. Denial is not education: it is just denial.

© George Gunn 2011

Links

• Caithness Horizons