An Lanntair, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, until 29 January 2012

OF COURSE it’s a fine social occasion, the annual open art show in an Lanntair.

THE Grinneas nan Eilean invitation always elicits a huge response across a wide range of media. Artists with secure reputations rub frames or fabrics with those who have never shown work in public before. The gallery staff always make a superb job of making a lively collage of an arrangement, and there are some clever groupings of theme and colour.

A proud angler has presented his prize trout and the reflection of dozens of works in the glass case makes one work of all the layers of exploration and enterprise. Colour is certainly to the fore. It forms a dramatic contrast with Gordon Fox’s strange half-devoured trout or salmon, seen through gauze – the fish of wisdom over the hazelnuts of knowledge.

Trout reflections (photo Ian Stephen)

Steve Dilworth’s very pure marble work also reflects much of what’s around it. This artist seems to alternate work which has a rough, near brutal shamanistic undersong with the most finely-finished, refined shapes. This is certainly in the second category – more on the spectrum towards Brancusi than the codhooks and stories which sometimes appear in Dilworth’s oevre, suggesting shared territory with Will Maclean.

But refined work is also presented with the rough finish that suggests rocks attacked by shifts in weather or hands worn by use and scrapes. Nikolai Globbe shows three contrasting “Patera” – bowls with glass in stoneware, like pools left behind a Harris deluge.

You look out over that, in the centre of the main gallery, to a low-slung and substantial deck-chair which in one way is contemporary in feel and in another suggests a bygone era of craftsmanship and solid materials. Innes Smith is a craftsman and sailor. He has reclaimed some of that finest of timbers – pitch-pine, from a fallen roof – and made an unfussy project, excellent design and finish, matching grains­, but allowing the stains and wear of years to speak.

Tweed is used with ever-more ingenuity. Karina Murray combines a dress with a coat and its cut has flare. Sallie Avis subverts the traditional image of tweed, in fact  reveals what is normally concealed, with her tweed corset. Elsewhere scraps and salvage are put to good use in best Island style (By Rosie). All this luxuriance thrives by the expected and welcome appearance of driftwood and at least one mermaid.

Waves and skies dominate. There are always exceptional studies of waves in this show and many quality paintings take this subject. I’d give the prize for skies to Willie Fulton this year – he seems to have let go to a brooding one and come close to the more expressionist work of Jon Schueler, the American painter (1916–1992) who lived near Mallaig for many years.  Harris features strongly and we come down to a night-sea at Scarista that could also be  from a dream you’ll never recover, by Gavin Williams.

Wall of paintings (photo Ian Stephen)

But there is a host of fine painting. At first it’s difficult to see individual works in all the lively blur but Mairi Morrison’s portrait is like a Colourist responding to a festive city. Three small paintings show the same artist’s continued interest in rural landscapes. I’d say  her wonderful observation “Sheep Grazing” takes the animal prize, but it’s a close run thing with Anne Campbell’s studies of the same tireless subject –  animals in landscape. Ruth O’Dell’s blackbirds (in resin oil tempura) are strong and delicate at the same time.

Seascape paintings range from  Kenneth Burns’ gracefully drawn mixed media compositions of Stornoway harbour to Simon Rivett’s shimmering gouache and pastel open-landscape works. Draughtswomanship comes bold and strong in Catherine Maclean’s “Ceann Cropaig” and subtle and delicate in the wistful, screenprinted “Meeting Place” by Sandra Kennedy. Fine also to see an Lanntair staff submitting work, keeping in touch by making,  and  Jon Macleod’s willingness to explore the potential of different media – his own work here evokes stories of Macedonia with digital photos on acetate screenprinting, mounted on board.

Catherine Maclean's Ceann Cropaig (photo Ian Stephen)

There is a huge range of photographic work and it needs more space than we have here to compare and be fair to all. Let me just sketch the range – from the fine-art closely observed study of a single breaking wave by Beka Globbe to a colour but near-monochrome winter wave observed by Judi Hayes, to an intimate arrangement of decaying furniture speaking stories in John Maher’s non-heightened study.

But the great joy for me was coming across a tiny framed photograph, hung very low and on sale for £10 but seeming to show everything that’s needed. David Kraal spotted the very point when the brushstroke of a house-painter is just as graceful as anything we’ll see on display. We can hardly say why the everyday has the power to move us, but this photographer has indeed caught the moment.

© Ian Stephen, 2011

Links

• An Lanntair
• Ian Stephen