Kilmorack Gallery, until 22 December 2012

CHRISTMAS 2012 at Kilomorack Gallery combines the work of established and emerging new artists.

EXHIBITING artists include Gerald Laing, Eugenia Vronskaya, Helen Denerley, Peter White, Christine Woodside, Illona Morrice, Laurence Broderick, Jane MacNeill, Kirstie Cohen, Patricia Cain, Sarah Carrington, Sam Cartman, Helen Fay, Lotte Glob, Helen Glassford, Allan MacDonald, Alan MacDonald, Henry Fraser and Madeline MacKay, with the range of work spanning the decorative to the transcendental.

Allan MacDonald - Scots Pine and Winter Squall

Allan MacDonald’s Scots Pine and Winter Squall (Oil on Board) is a wonderful example of the artist’s understanding of northern light and fluid handling of oils. The beautifully nuanced tonality and luminosity of snow is balanced with the warmth and wild movement of russet branches, swept by winter gales. An intensely subtle palette, together with patterns of light on the bark, foreground and breaking light in the animated sky, create an image of beauty and power in nature. The lone figure of the Scot’s Pine as an image of resilience at one with the environment is potently human and characteristic of the way that MacDonald’s landscape works embody a human mind perceiving the landscape rather than a scenic view.

The artist’s physical engagement with the natural world together with his exploration of the art of painting defines his technique, further distilled by contemplation of the divine in nature. MacDonald’s brush work directs the viewer into the rhythm at the core of the image; his considered use of colour in accents of yellow and red is more intensely felt because used sparingly, in vibrant contrast to the prevailing atmosphere of the season. This insistence on the presence of light in darkness and its elusive quality is the challenge and joy of painting, consistently present in MacDonald’s work. Featured as part of the Kilmorack Northern Exposure showcase at the Caledonian Club, London and exhibiting last month at the 2012 Discerning Eye exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London, where he was awarded the DE Chairman’s Purchase Prize and the Scotland Regional Prize, Allan MacDonald continues to be one of the foremost exponents of landscape painting in the UK precisely because he transcends the limitations of the genre.

Madeleine McKay - Caol

Madeline MacKay’s original prints are a striking addition to the gallery. Selected for the RSA New Contemporaries Exhibition (April/May 2013) and a recent graduate in BA (Hons) Fine Art from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee, MacKay’s technical skill and treatment of subject present a fascinating investigation of the relationships between her ornithological subjects, human kind and environment. Caol (Collograph) exemplifies the artist’s layered treatment of the subject in the figure of a cormorant, its finely drawn articulated neck, akin to the calligraphic spontaneity of the artist’s ink drawings, tempered with shifting elements from the landscape itself.

Born in Northern Ireland and growing up in Caithness, MacKay’s approach to her subject feels further distilled in the more abstract Shale (Etching), possessing and expansive presence drawn directly from the Northern landscape. The artist’s land works display an affinity with the earliest cave paintings in the immediacy of drawn marks on stone and allude to indigenous understanding and interaction with the natural world. The delicacy of these images, the artist’s care and deliberation are very promising indeed.

Henry Fraser - Portrait of an Artist

Henry Fraser’s Portrait of an Artist (Acrylic on Board) presents an intriguing universal portrait emerging from a textured, earthy ground, scarred with drawn marks. Hands are clasped expectantly in front of the figure, collaged newsprint with the word “mapping” defining the arm, the printed cheek and face bisected by brilliant red in contrast to fine splatter and softer tones of pink, turquoise, yellow, peach and blue within the outline of the body. The strong linear definition of the face in naïve black together with intense shining eyes create a child-like presence with a depth of consciousness conveyed in the pupils like wells of experience. The individuality of the figure as inspiration also creates a universal dynamic of innocence and experience with collaged elements and variation of paint handling creating layers of potential interpretation within the work.

The larger scale work Tribe, a bold procession of figures on a vivid ground of blue alludes to conformity in its use of chalkboard black and white to define the human figure; identification and belonging seemingly taught. The rendering of the figure is deceptively simple and like all of Fraser’s work, abstraction serves a psychologically complex and expressive purpose.

Eugenie Vronskaya - Inverness Light

A work of suitable scale befitting the artist’s talent, Eugenia Vronskaya’s Inverness Light (Oil on Canvas) displays her adept handling of the medium in a play of light, form and colour that make an adjacent suite of Edinburgh city scenes seem pale by comparison. This is an image of a city that feels more like a safe harbour in great curvature of the bridge in the foreground, echoing the organic form of shadowy mountains and shifting cloud in blues, greens, yellow and ochre. It is an image of nature and burgeoning urbanity, a lone figure on the bridge the only human presence to be seen amongst a townscape of church spires infused with light, the River Ness brought to life in areas of white ground animated by Vronskaya’s confidently vibrant brushstrokes.

This painterly, energetic response is in sharp contrast to the Edinburgh scenes which by their nature exhibit none of the essential energy manifest in Inverness Light: a dynamic between man-made structures and nature’s elements. The element of light in Vronskaya’s best work arguably presents itself as an agent of contemplation whether in still life, portraiture, landscape or cityscape works; as much an investment in the art of painting as it is a compelling investigation of the chosen subject.

Alan MacDonald’s A Song to the Sea (Oil on Board) display’s the artist’s wit and precision in a finely executed painting of a woman in profile painted in the manner of an Old Master, open mouthed with a packet of Fisherman’s Friend lozenges beneath. This juxtaposition of popular culture and visual literacy characterises the artist’s work presenting, particularly in larger scale works, a labyrinth of references and internal connections; intuitive, cerebral, insightful, poignant and humorous.

Alan MacDonald - The Carriage of Figaro

The Carriage of Figaro (Oil on Board) is a fine example, as much a proposition as it is a painting, a delightfully ambiguous arrangement of truth and contradiction. The elongated landscape composition with golden popular song lyric text beneath inform the visual narrative, defining the relationship between a man and a woman; he in a ruff collar and black robe, she naked, apart from pearls in her hair and around her ankles. The “carriage” a play on the operatic marriage title is a lowly wooden palette, theatrically adorned with drapery, rapidly spinning wheels adding a dimension of surreality to an eternally fixed scene. The female figure is coquettishly arranged for visual display, hand on hip, toying with her hair, her leg extended with a golden rope tied to her toe, pulled in tension beyond the picture plane and counterbalanced by a ballast of weight behind the carriage, tethering it like the viewer’s gaze. The landscape beyond is steeped in shadow, fluidly painted trees and semi industrial buildings, out of time with the dress of the central protagonists.

The mysterious complexity of visual and written text contains a myriad of clues to the game and simultaneously universal identification with the human element within the work; conventions, behaviours and constraints. It is this tension and the clarity of MacDonald’s paint handling that are so completely beguiling, an invitation to unravel the riddle of the image and of ourselves in the process. MacDonald’s work is a dance, a negotiation and a theatrical play on text and image, uniquely reformed, visually potent and invigoratingly fresh.

Arguably the strongest works in the exhibition give the audience the gift of expanded perception sharing a commitment to the artist’s chosen medium and a desire to initiate a world of thought and imagination in the act of seeing.

© Georgina Coburn, 2012

Links

• Kilmorack Gallery