Caithness Horizons, Thurso, until 22 February 2013

AT A time when our civic authorities, both local and national, are embracing the possibility of change and attempting to plan for and to facilitate a new future then it is to events such as this exhibition that they should look for inspiration, writes George Gunn.

ON THE preview night around 100 people filled the gallery and there was a real sense that here was a project which united the community in common cause with the artists who produced the work.

Detail from work by Aimee Begg

On the walls of the Caithness Horizons gallery hang works of great imagination and colour, and the energy of youth – literally in the case of Aimee Begg’s Moulin Rouge/Madonna-esque theatre designs – leaps off the wall. Here is a fine example of the wit and confidence with materials, colour and form which runs through this exhibition.

There are other, perhaps less successfully realised, designs for restaurant fronts and CD covers, yet there is contained within them the indication of a talent for draughtsmanship most specifically in the conceptualisation of the Japanese pagoda-style designs by Jack Dunnett. It is these glimpses of what is to come from these artists which is the tantalising and exciting element of this exhibition.

Work by Jack Dunnett

The confidence in colour and form and the ability to express it is highlighted in the series of self portraits most notably in the strange feather headed self-vision of Terri McCallum which has an expressive flair and a sure use of colour – all blood splattered and rag doll cheeky confidence.

This is in marked contrast with the haunting work of Charlotte Gordon, where the artist stares wistfully out from a green canvas where the sky is filled with doomed atmospheric gliders. In mood and exposition these two pieces demonstrate that these young artists follow their own path.

Work by Charlotte Gordon

The still life work also displays an ease in the use of colour and technique. Often these are not mere representations and as in the case of the work of Georgia Clyne, where a steel cooking pot and couple of yellow peppers appear to melt before the eye. This is a different vision of reality from the beautifully drawn and mature set of compositions by Nicola Gray where the bottle and onion are most definitely what they appear. There is a certainty to the work which promises much for the future.

Work by Nicola Gray

One has to constantly remind oneself that these artists are, technically, children, and yet it was Picasso who said that all his life he tried to get back to painting as he did when he was a child. On the other hand there are artists here who seem to have skipped childhood. Chloe Marks painting of two boats on a Caithness shore is a vibrant and colourful study of time and place with ominous surging waves and a threatening florescent sky. This is an accomplished piece of work.

Similarly successfully realised but more gently coloured is Ian McPherson’s headland-focused rendering of a beach with an assemblage of stones, rope and blocks – all pale blues and fading yellows. Both these paintings show artists who are at the beginning of an artistic journey which anyone who is interested in the future of painting will follow with interest.

Hat design by Sarah Douglas

There are also fantastic hat creations by Sarah Douglas and Kerri Sim, and the theme of time and clocks is apparent in many of the works on show but most eye-catchingly in the two pieces of assemblage by Rochelle Peat of a fish and a boat, both exquisite, both clocks.

Work by Rochelle Peat

Much emanates, mostly in hot air and policy documents, from central government and the local authority about community art and education and community interface. The Scottish Government and Highland Council should study the work of these young artists and admire and learn from their creativity, flair, imagination and talent.

Their skills are learned. We are fortunate to have teachers who can pass it on. This young artistic energy is the real alternative to the reducing monetarism of the modern state. These young visionaries will, by necessity, design the future so we had better make sure they are properly resourced to do so in the present. They are the future.

Come to Caithness Horizons and see an exhibition which will illuminate for you what exactly alternative energy means.

© George Gunn, 2013

Links

• Caithness Horizons