Tore Art Gallery, Tore, Inverness, until 30 September 2011

SHARED SPACE presents new work of varied styles and abilities from three Highland-based artists sharing studio space. Collectively landscape is dominant in this body of work influenced by locations such as the Moray Firth, St Kilda and the Outer Hebrides.

Paintings such as Coastal View, Harris (Oil) and Old Croft, Rodel (Acrylic) by Margaret Cowie are well executed compositions, the former in particular reminiscent of the work of the Scottish Colourists.

Margaret Cowie - Old Croft, Rodel

In Coastal View, Harris the rolling brushwork and choice of palette infuses waves, clouds and shoreline with a combination of vibrancy and quiet deliberation. Flecks of almost iridescent orange under-painting in the sky and subtle contrasts of colour in the ocean, shifting between warm and cool green and pink, convey a sense of energy and vitality within the scene. The robust treatment of the rocky shore is tempered with more subtle brushwork and stylisation of water and sky.

Dominated by the curvature of the road and drystone wall, Old Croft, Rodel explores the palette further with contrasts of pigment in pink, red, purple and green, retaining the strong outlines of a drawn first response to place. This approach, echoing French Post Impressionism, also permeates Cowie’s still life paintings.

A collection of works in watercolour feels less assured than the artist’s handling of oil or acrylic. Greater exploration of the fluidity of the medium, together with variable density of pigment and brush mark, might infuse a work such as Garden Still Life with the same brand of energy seen in Cowie’s treatment of the Hebridean landscape. If the concept of the ground or under-painting allowed to shine through in the oil and acrylic works is applied to the handling of the watercolour medium, then it could potentially have a more distinct voice, capable of greater subtlety.

Mary Wilson - Winter Trees

Mary Wilson’s landscape works would benefit from further investigation of brush mark, tonality and form to create greater spatial and emotional depth. Although works like Summer Sea or Sunset Moray Firth are pleasing scenes, they appear rather flat, rendered in steady layers of colour. Even when presented with a sharpened perspective in Winter Trees, the artist’s choice of palette in greys and greens, pure white background and uniform paint handling flattens the scene, preventing the eye from being led convincingly into the painting. The avenue of trees with the abandoned bench in the distance has enormous potential as an image, and a reworking of this with greater attention to paint handling and tonality might result in a much stronger composition, leading the eye, heart and mind of both the artist and viewer into the work.

Linda Smith’s new works inspired by the Outer Hebrides and St Kilda are characterised by dramatic lighting and contemplative stillness. Her interpretation of landscape has an interior psychological quality, a distillation of pictorial elements in the mind’s eye. Longyearbyen (Oil on Cavas) is an excellent example, the landscape abstracted into gently undulating bands of colour and form. The foreground reads like a piece of linen over the knee, the mid-ground in darkness while the sky is aglow with gold, expertly blended out of greens and browns. This palette has an aged and melancholic feel to it which together with the single tree, the trunk subtly defined in bloody alizarin, creates a human presence in the work. The lone tree as a recurrent motif is almost figurative in its loneliness and isolation.

Icon (Oil on Canvas) depicts a knuckle-like mountain range, its contours accentuated by heightened tonality, together with a row of pylons and cottages with non-convergent perspectives within an expanse of shadowy landscape. The highlighting of these three elements by the artist causes the viewer to question what the nature of the icon actually is, singled out by illumination. Light and darkness in this work are rendered in such a way as to provoke an entry not just with the eyes into a scene but with the mind as well. There is also the suggestion of an interrogation of the icon of landscape in Highland Art which is extremely interesting, especially in the context of the surrounding work.

Linda Smith - Mullach Mor

Like the work of Canadian artist Lawren Harris, Smith’s Mullach Mor (Oil on Canvas) suggests a spiritual dimension to the landscape. Immersed in rich shadows of ultramarine and cerulean blue, the sheer face of the mountain is defined by two signature lines of light. This reduction of the mountain to a pinnacle of light and shadow immediately invests the image with a sense of reverence akin to the Northern Romantic tradition.

Harris, Blues (Oil on Canvas) is more lyrical in tone, with a beautiful interplay of delicate brushstrokes, the play of directional light spilling over into the foreground and seemingly into the viewer’s own space. Smith’s skilful arrangement of elements and objects within the landscape effectively create an imaginative space for the viewer to step into. The theatrical arrangement of the landscape is like drama, designed for illumination.

Shared Space is a varied and interesting show which prompts many questions about the nature and dominance of landscape in Highland Art and the relationships between professional and recreational art practice.

© Georgina Coburn, 2011

Links

• Tore Gallery