Perception: artists working with RhueArt, Ullapool

Helen Denerley James Hawkins Katy Spong Mhairi Killin
James Lumsden Peter White Mary Bourne Tobias Hodson

RhueArt’s first Edinburgh show features paintings, textiles, film and sculpture influenced by the landscape and culture of Scotland’s far north.

Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh
5 – 16 April, 2011
Tuesday to Saturday 10:30 to 17:30
Free
Dovecot Studios, Infirmary Street, Edinburgh EH1 1LT
Tel 0131 550 3660
http://www.dovecotstudios.com
http://www.rhueart.co.uk

RhueArt goes wild at Dovecot. The artists we represent predominantly live and work in northern Scotland’s emptier quarters. The exhibition is all about how they perceive the landscape, culture, environment, wildlife and the changing seasons.

It reflects RhueArt’s determination to bring their work to a wider audience, and challenges the common perception of art from the north.

While each artist exhibits independently, Perception offers the first opportunity to assess their new work – painting, film, textiles and sculpture in metal and in stone – collectively.

RhueArt has been associated with sculptor Helen Denerley and landscape painter James Hawkins for more than 20 years. Denerley’s Dreaming Spires – the giraffes fronting Edinburgh’s Omni building – is among the capital’s most popular landmarks, while Hawkins’s landscapes are held by Edinburgh City Council, Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art and other public collections.

Perception highlights Hawkins’s most recent, and revolutionary, mark making processes – which constantly expand his pictorial language – and Denerley’s skill in giving vitality to inert scrap metal. Neither artist has staged a major exhibition in Edinburgh for some years.

James and Flick Hawkins’s films about Denerley’s Dreaming Spires and Rahoy Stag, and their micro landform videos, will also be screened.

More recent additions to the RhueArt group include Katy Spong (shortlisted Wildlife Artist of the Year, 2010), James Lumsden (exhibited RSA New Works, 2010), textile artist Mhairi Killin (SAC Creative Development award, 2007) and Mary Bourne (Carpet of Leaves, Scottish Poetry Library Edinburgh).

Tobias Hodson’s large-scale botanical watercolours have never before been exhibited in Edinburgh and Peter White – works in oil, acrylic and wax on board – has not shown here since 2008 (invited artist, Visual Arts Scotland exhibition).

RhueArt is based at Rhue, near Ullapool, on the north-west coast of Scotland, and will open a new gallery space this summer.

http://www.rhueart.co.uk
Flick Hawkins, RhueArt, Ullapool IV26 2TJ
Tel 01854 612460 e-mail flick@rhueart.co.uk