Caroline Hewat - Lain Fallow. (photo - Caroline Hewat)

WITH A CURRENT membership of 99, Highland Open Studios (HOS) is one of the largest organisations of its kind in the country. A pan-Highland collective of artists, makers and galleries, HOS held its first event in 2007 to promote, showcase and raise public awareness about the work of Visual Artists in the region.

In addition to their annual Open Studios event last month, the current show in the Limetree An Ealdhain Gallery provides a snapshot of the organisation featuring over 225 works by 60 of its members. A wide range of media are represented including work in ceramics, wood, glass, textiles, bronze and stone sculpture, printmaking, painting, drawing, collage and mixed media.

Artists such as Daniel Kavanagh, Mari French, Jenny McLaren, Michael Stuart Green, Clare Blois, Gwen Black, Cyril Reed, Christine O’Keefe, David Wilson, Ingebjorg Smith, Andrew Sinclair, David Body, Gillian Pattinson, Joan Baxter, Patricia Shone, Caroline Hewat and Phil Gorton provide a vibrant and varied picture of Visual Art in the Highlands.

With each new body of work there is sustained focus and progression in Caroline Hewat’s mixed media technique. A graduate of Moray College her latest series of large canvases are no exception. “Lain Fallow” (Acrylic & Pencil) is the finest example with energy and spontaneity of mark retained in translucent layers, a finely balanced composition and an equally strong but controlled palette of black, white and orange/red.

The treatment of urban subject matter defined by blocks of buildings and resonant lines of energy are beautiful and stark. “Standing in the Sky” provides a contrast of form with organic mountainous curves derived from the same palette.

Sutherland artist Joan Baxter reveals the light and subtlety of colour of the Highland landscape in her tapestries which are defined by rhythm rather than literal subject matter. “Smeorail”, with its contrast of open weave, harmonic colours and shimmer of light is an excellent example.

“October Clothscape” where both sky and water reflected from part of the composition merging into the rippling centre section is an equally wonderful evocation of nature.

Ruth Black’s abstract textile work “Felted Weave” allows contemplation of texture in its use of felt and iris leaves displayed on a striking red ground. There is something almost Eastern and calligraphic in the way that natural materials are arranged that, like the work of Joan Baxter, invites contemplation.

Skye-based ceramic artist Patricia Shone has contributed a series of stunning Raku “Smoke Jars” to the exhibition that read like a rising spiral of smoke emerging from grey ash. “Smoke Jar 2”, displayed on a bronze stand, and the slightly larger Smoke Jar 1” with its ashen base and rising white form were a highlight of the exhibition.

Veronica Newman’s “Cut and Folded Vase” in delicate floral and paper white and Alice Buttress’s “Raku Bowl” with a green metallic interior are also good examples of the range of ceramic art in the region.

John Hodgson’s “Black Elm Flask” contrasts a flash of inner grain with a black outer rimmed surface in a fine and elegant example of craftsmanship in wood. The rough plinth of wood that supported Daniel Kavanagh’s superb “Bronze Orb” served beautifully to heighten the highly polished bronze surface and coppery green patina between sharply coned spikes.

Kavanagh’s work exudes quality of design combined with fine craftsmanship and his work in both ceramics and bronze (sometimes a combination of both) is distinctive, robust and thoroughly contemporary.

Durness-based artist and printmaker Ishbell MacDonald’s charcoal drawing “The Dark Horse” is an exquisitely poetic and beautiful work. The muscular equine body dominates the picture with the ghostly image of a swan contained in the form of the horse. Held within an otherworldly space, a landscape of high horizon in the background gives an ethereal quality to the drawing.

Phil Gorton’s “Shellshocked 1” and “Shellshocked 2” are both carefully observed studies of nature through close up photography but equally vibrant abstract studies of colour. The effects of water, light and unbelievable colour at close range contain such an intensity that you are forced to look again at the brilliance and concentration of life in a small section of sea shore.

Isobel Dickson’s “Splash Down” has water tumbling at the spectator’s feet in a wonderful study of water in motion. The red/orange vegetation of the mid-ground gives way to cool blue grey rock echoed in the distant mountains. There is a great deal of life in this work both observed and felt and the cool/warm complimentary palette works extremely well.

David Wilson’s “Lyngor Fjord-Artic I Norway” is an unexpected work of intense, thick watercolour superbly deep framed in black. The emergence of light and colour in this work is heightened by its presentation. Wilson built the Limetree Gallery as a state of the art purpose built venue and public gallery space for Lochaber and has shown an impressive range of local, national and international work to date.

A satisfyingly interpretative piece in terms of land based subject matter is Carol Cocks’ “Inspirations Eilean Shona”. Her work seems to have developed strongly over the last twelve months in a dynamic mix of paint, charcoal and ink that is a great stride forward.

The opportunity for artists to be part of a catalogue of work, exhibit together in venues such as the Limetree and take part in open studios can be a significant factor in the development of new work, the evolution of technique, maintaining high standards of presentation and creating a culture of support for Visual Arts.

I hope that an annual showing of member’s work will emerge from this exhibition, perhaps with a greater degree of selection as it is sometimes hard to appreciate work fully when hung three or four deep!

Seeing the Visual Arts being made visible by artists’ groups in our year of Highland Culture has been one of the most positive developments of the year. It sets a higher expectation for 2008 and every year thereafter and places the Visual Arts visibly at the heart of Highland life.

© Georgina Coburn, 2007

Links

• Lime Tree Gallery
• Highland Open Studios
• More images from the HOS 2007 Members’ Exhibition

Men in Sacks by Goya

SEEING THE opening show at artist David Wilson’s new Lime Tree Gallery you could be forgiven for thinking that you had wandered into a city gallery anywhere in the world.

It is a sign of maturity in the West Highland area that such a venture should be a reality. This custom built gallery is an individual response to a ground zero situation in access to public gallery space.

With accommodation, a restaurant/café and inner enclosed courtyard featuring stained glass by artist/owner David Wilson, this is both an international space and a uniquely local one. The large stained glass design incorporates elements from the natural environment outside, one which draws visitors from all over the world.

The main gallery space is open with natural slate floors, articulated with timber pillars that create a promenade effect to frame and focus upon each piece. It is a modern, state of the art space designed for showing local, national and international art with scope for projection and musical performance. Visual art, however, remains its main function.

Local “Friends of the Lime Tree Gallery” are instrumental in programming shows such as the forthcoming David Hockney exhibition, and there is an emphasis on outreach education and involvement with local schools. This is a public space for the community but the brainchild of an artist with the determination and commitment to bring such a private enterprise to fruition.

Great art encourages us to be conscious and to face certain universal truths

Goya’s brilliance was (and still is) his ability to bring us face to face with human behaviour, folly and morality. These works in etching, aquatint and drypoint are as potent and relevant today as the day they were created. Given current world events it is extremely apt that we re-examine these images of human cruelty, folly and absurdity.

Drawing links between the state of invasion witnessed by Goya during his lifetime and current theatres of war such as Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, this exhibition demonstrates the value of art as social commentary and the universal, timeless nature of human behaviour.

‘Old Man Confronting Demons’ seems to sum up the act of viewing a Goya etching. This dark print where the face emerges from a body either asleep or dead invites the viewer to come closer, peering into layers of etched darkness and your own inevitable end.

Works such as ‘Woman Carried off by a Horse’ , ‘Way of Flying’ and ‘Carnival Folly’ exhibit the grotesque and fantastical qualities of the artist’s Black Paintings. Seen together this collection of etchings read as a parade of human frailty and monstrous capability. ‘Indecision’ is positively nightmarish while ‘Fearful Folly’ with its hooded spectre looms above a pile of humanity underneath, the consequence of inaction.

Goya’s biting satire of the clergy and Spanish aristocracy find expression in ‘Ridiculous Folly’ and ‘Men in Sacks’.

Scottish artists have responded to Goya’s vision and current affairs with a range of work that could easily be viewed on an international stage. Mohammed Sardo’s ‘How do we Mourn the Death of a Child?’ is a poignant and contemplative work in ink and charcoal reminiscent of the work of Kathe Kollwitz.

Below a high horizon of distant explosions a mass of figures encircle the central image of a faceless child. The artist encourages the viewer to “put any face you love” onto the lifeless body and suggests that amongst all people “the ability to die” is universal.

A direct response to the war in Lebanon, seen daily on our televisions, this drawing humanises events which seem to be desensitized by media coverage. It makes us see this and all conflicts anew because it makes us feel them. Regardless of ethnicity or background it is an image that we must respond to as human beings.

James McCallum’s figurative works in oil on canvas and prints such as ‘Dinnae spik a word Davie!’ or ‘See no Evil’ are also potent reminders of human nature. Graphically stark with the directness of woodcut a print such as ‘Bang Yer Dead!’ reads colour wise like a modern fashion design logo.

The graphic image of youth orientated design coupled in casualness with the image of a standing figure shooting the faceless, masked kneeling figure before him is not without irony. A grotesque game of soldiers, the title reads no emotion into the image.

Peter Brown from Westray has contributed an oil on paper to the exhibition which too reveals elements of the grotesque. His bloated and distorted representation of a human body, attended by dogs recalls in its garish colour and form the work of Australian artist Albert Tucker.

A response to wartime Melbourne during the blackouts, Tucker’s nightmarish ‘Images of Modern Evil’ series are uniquely of their time, but like Goya’s etchings, are also a statement of human consciousness for all time. Great art encourages us to be conscious and to face certain universal truths.

Is Fort William ready for this space? Time will tell. But as I have seen many times in my current research, growth in visual arts in the Highlands and Islands exceeds local provision or infrastructure that should exist to support it.

There is a distinct energy and autonomy in creating something out of adversity and in this spirit are the seeds of the Lime Tree Gallery’s success.

With the capacity to exhibit touring exhibitions from anywhere in the world it is a remarkable resource for Lochaber and for the whole Highland region.

© Georgina Coburn, 2006