Macphail Centre, Ullapool, until 31 August 2011

SOME spaces allow us to get close to what we want to see without feeling self-conscious about it, corridors making good gallery spaces by cranking up the intensity. We can sweep up and down, assimilating both sides at once.

The main corridor in the Macphail Centre is showing a collection of paintings by Celia Garbutt, who’s canvases are glow boxes, thick with stories. Horses form ancient outlines as they sniff the air, waiting on the wind, or the winter. Pale as mint.

Celia Garbutt - Horse and Rider

We can crave the isolation, perhaps splendid, in ‘North’ as the distant horse feels its world. Or sense the cave painting in ‘Fossil horse’, where the classic outline is spun in candied strands of colour.

Human and equine relationships are also explored in ‘Endeavour’ as a teal pony takes centre stage, the acrobat deferring to its intensity, and in ‘Red horseman’, where vermilion cracks against orange as it tours around a medieval rider.

These stories are interspersed with attic-sized studies of land and bay and sea. Tender lines meet clouded colours in a mesh, pushing forward the fine drawing of a building or a boat. And there are flowers, pulsing in their canvases, radiating red, yellow or pink as we decide which mood suits us best.

Celia Garbutt - North

‘Farthest North’ encapsulates many aspects of Celia’s work. There is narrative. There is mastery in the portrayal of the fleeting moment. There is the invocation of feelings of longing. And there is the intuitive use of colour that heightens all those things as a small dog looks to – or for – its master, who stands beyond a stripped back wood. There is pattern within the contours that bind the blues of winter, as gold leaf darts between the branches.

Celia Garbutt is a gifted artist unafraid to probe at her abilities, looking for new ways to engage us. Ever moving forwards.

© Mandy Henderson, 2011

Links

• Macphail Centre
• Celia Garbutt