Inchmore Gallery, Inverness, until 9 July 2011

A SELECTION of work from the third annual UHI HNC Contemporary Art Practice exhibition currently on display at Inchmore Gallery presents a diverse range of paintings, photography, sculpture, installation and mixed media work from this year’s graduating students.

The HNC Contemporary Art Practice course is delivered by Inverness College and Perth College within the UHI network, and this exhibition represents an important opportunity for students from Inverness College to display their work in a wider context. There are some very promising works in the show which beg further development, and it will be interesting to see how these individual artists evolve in the future.

Work by Donna Polson

Barbara Jamison MacAskill’s single mixed media work Sam McGee displays a wonderful sense of paint handling in its flaked layers, rubbed, scraped and assembled on a ground of weathered textures. It is a portrait of age both in terms of the subject and use of materials which is extremely effective, the rich painterly surface a combination of vermillion, cadmium red, yellow and fleshy hues with the face defined primarily in disintegrating fragments of white and grey. The marriage of subject and materials shows a great deal of promise in its experimentation with the painted surface and in how the medium potentially holds and communicates visual information to the viewer.

Charlotte Wilson’s exploration of feminine beauty using found images and mixed media juxtapose the airbrushed perfection of advertising with visceral interior images of flesh. In Beauty is Skin Deep and Revealing Beauty sections of the image are torn away to reveal raw meat beneath, imagery which would benefit from further exploration and development. The treatment of collaged and stitched images such as Disguising Beauty; overlaying the face of a fashion model with a stitched mask, contain more visual irony and punch- perhaps alluding to the current preoccupation with cosmetic alteration to pursue a popular ideal, ironically obliterating the possibility of real beauty.

Work by Charlotte Wilson

Physically stitching through the image actively alters our perception of it in the artist’s work on a level that collage alone does not. The sewn element is on an intimate, personal scale which prompts contemplation of the subject in relation to the individual. Sculptural work such as Hidden Emotions is less successful, the communication of idea in three dimensions out of balance with the manner of execution. The body cast as a vessel with a darkened interior feels clumsy and obvious in relation to the more layered exploration of beauty in a work like Disguising Beauty.

Digital photography by Kaleigh-Jade Gribbins successfully combines restrained use of colour and variations of scale to create an interesting dialogue between human and natural elements in the artist’s work. Petticoat Morning recalls the work of Moira Third in its singular use of colour against dominant black and white, a garment suggesting a human presence within the image. The pink organza petticoat, hanging like a ghostly ethereal presence in the ruin of a stone cottage has a dreamy, atmospheric quality. It is an evocative image of shifting light and transitory human habitation.

Digital photography by Kaleigh Jade Gribbens

Drought , a colour image of a model house marooned at the entrance to a sea cave, juxtaposes stark white and red human architecture in miniature with a natural setting of larger scale; the pebbles and boulders creating an interesting dynamic between man-made and natural elements. Presenting the viewer with the unexpected juxtaposition of two familiar images within the photograph succeeds in triggering a set of more complex associations and this expansive sense of enquiry is a promising element in Gribbins’s work.

Jodie Kelly’s set of interactive papier-mâché sculptures encourages the viewer to playfully rearrange them into new combinations. Suggestive of forms inspired by natural flora and fauna, each individual piece made from everyday materials can be hybridised and reimagined, constructing unexpected forms. Unusually the viewer is given creative licence in this exchange, an experience not always encouraged in a gallery setting.

Jiri Krystilik’s mixed media objects A Simple Math Box and Our Society is Run by… are fascinating explorations of recent world events. A Simple Math Box is the more successful of the two, both in the quality of construction and in the less obvious juxtaposition of text and image in the service of political meaning. It is an engaging piece of work which immediately begs closer investigation.

Work by Jiri Krystlik

At first the viewer is confronted by an open box containing two rows of numbers on wooden blocks in sequence 1 to 9 and zero, followed by a middle layer of potential equation symbols for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and equals, then a repeat of the same numeric sequence of the upper layer. In the inner open lid of the game box is a partial cover of Newsweek with a sequence of images depicting celebrations on US streets following the killing of Osama Bin Laden. The headlines: “President’s Triumph, Obama Reborn, Photo Gallery The Path of Evil, Navy Seals Coolest Guys On Earth” and the partial headline “mission accompli…” “ But are we any safer?” in relation to the constructed game represent an interesting visual metaphor in an era of mass media.The game-like display of ideas in passive pink together with the inner suggestion of action and reaction, the viewer confronted by their own potential for reduction of complex events to simple child-like equations is very effective and thought provoking.

Krystilik’s paintings are less convincing and would benefit from focused observation of black and white stills photography and film and life drawing in relation to his human subject matter, improving awareness of tonality and modelling of form. Crazy Horse I and II are interesting images which feel like stills from a larger cinematic sequence, but greater development of paint handling and pictorial elements is needed to really engage the viewer and develop the potential of the artist’s visual narratives.

It is encouraging that Inchmore Gallery are continuing the tradition of supporting emerging artists began by previous owners Gwen and Fred Black, enabling the work of graduating students to be seen in a wider context. Whilst there are sometimes gaps between the concept and the technical execution of individual works in this show, this is to be expected at this early stage of development and it is exciting to see the potential of individual artist’s work, suggesting how their visual language might evolve in future. Exhibiting in an external gallery space is an extremely valuable experience for graduating students, equally making the need for Art Education at all levels as part of a healthy cultural and economic infrastructure more publicly visible.

© Georgina Coburn, 2011

Links

• Inchmore Gallery
• Inverness College UHI