THIS IS a landmark exhibition by one of Scotland’s most respected and influential artists.This selection of works spanning the last sixty years represents an extraordinary artistic vision which has led the artist to remote locations throughout the Highlands and Islands and beyond. Although not a comprehensive retrospective, evolution and consistency within the artist’s work is richly in evidence from the earliest works in the show dating from the 1950’s to the present day.

Aberdeen Window, 1990, by Frances Walker (photo - Mike Davidson, Positive Image).

In 2007, as recipient of the James McBey Travel Award, the artist journeyed to Antarctica, fulfilling a lifelong ambition and producing a body of work exploring a wilderness “observed and absorbed”. These current works from the world’s edge signify the artist’s ongoing engagement with landscape “not isolated from the human spirit”.

Central to Walker’s work is the hidden territory of geographically isolated places, what she describes as “the endeavor of the human spirit to live in those remote places”. The human relationship to the environment, “a pair of human eyes”, is ever-present in her compositions, together with the human mark upon the landscape.

Many of Walker’s compositions bring us to the edge of a scene; the viewer stands resolutely in the foreground, our human scale dwarfed by a high horizon line, suggestive of an expanse of sky and sea infinitely beyond the confines of the canvas or board. The artist encourages us to imagine a scale of life beyond our mortal view.

Staffa Visit (Oil on wood panels, 2003) takes us to the edge of a steep path and descent to the boats waiting below. Even with day trippers populating the cliff tops, the viewer feels isolated, seemingly standing on the world’s edge due to the global curve of the horizon. The tiny island is placed within a wider sphere of reference; it is both edge and centre.

The mindscape of Walker’s art is consistently expansive with the human scale of activity depicted in relation to the immensity and endurance of the natural world. The act of painting draws us into a state of solitude akin to the contemplation of nature. Antarctic Waters (Oil on wood panel, 2008) contains the wake of a ship moving slowly through water, the only visible sign of a human journey through the image.

Oransay Shore (Oil on canvas, 1970) is a fascinating work in terms of the crafting of an image and implied human presence. This beautifully balanced composition is almost a tonal abstract study – the texture of grasses, green-yellow algae on rock, distant blue ocean and black seaweed drawn marks on white sand form a complex pattern of nature. The subtle tonal variations in the foreground create barely discernable impressions of footprints in the sand. This succession of marks, suggestive of the passage of time and change, are tinged with poignancy and the fleeting nature of human existence.

In Foreshore at Footdee (Oil on board,1980-1983), the complex pattern of rocks, flotsam and jetsam are intricately bound together with meticulous draughtsmanship, framed by the industrial and residential buildings on either side of the high horizon line. Human presence is depicted as debris, with the scale of buildings dwarfed by the timeless cycles of waves, wind and erosion on the shore. Built structures are peripheral to the scene and we are led by contours of form and the soft palette of pinks and greys into a site of contemplation.

At the Edge of the Glacier (Oil on wood panel, 2008) is another superb piece of work, a small fraction of a vast landscape we experience through layers of perception. The viewer becomes submerged in the scene, the absorption and refraction of light and hue through the varying densities of the ice flow conveyed by masterful paint handling. The feeling of suspension within a moment in time combined with the perceptible movement of the frozen ocean creates a feeling of unease, of bearing witness to vanishing beauty.

Andvord Bay, Antarctica (Oil on wood panel, 2009) with its great serpentine swathe of reflected sky in water, a snapshot of a vast scene we imagine in our mind’s eye, conveys the awe and wonder of nature in sublime triptych form. The progression of colour from white through aqua and cerulean into ultramarine isolated in reflection heightens the sense of revelation in the work.

In spirit it is evocative of the reverence, austerity and profound sense of inner stillness seen in the more stylistically abstract work of Canadian artist Lawren Harris.

Frances Walker’s consummate skill as a printmaker is well represented in the exhibition in works such as Tiree Shore Evening (Collagraph and watercolour, 2007), Hynish Rocks (Screenprint, 1985) and Winter in Achnasoul Wood (Collagraph and watercolour, 2007).

Tiree Shore Evening, cut by channels of water erosion through pink tinged stone, greenish algae and cobalt contours of rock, creates a pattern of beautiful textures, given depth by the printmaking process. The application of materials in collagraph, akin to low relief sculpture presents a myriad of textural possibilities. In this shoreline scene, form and texture lead the eye convincingly into the work.

Hynish Rocks (Screenprint, 1985) with its cluster of gigantic boulders creates an almost figurative presence in stone, defined by the artist’s characteristic contour lines and layers of registration. Though drawings do not feature predominantly in this exhibition, the element of design and draughtsmanship is strongly represented in the artist’s prints.

Winter in Achnasoul Wood (Collagraph and watercolour, 2007) is an excellent example, a strong composition of black and white tempered with the subdued ochre glow of winter light. The impressions of twigs dusted in snow just penetrating the surface retain the quality and freshness of drawn marks. Light through the distant verticals of trees and reflected in the water give warmth to the image, while the block-like division of the composition, reminiscent of Japanese prints, conveys the hard-edged crispness of winter. Walker renders the image with clarity and skill, distilling her experience of the landscape into visual poetry.

Two short films especially commissioned for the exhibition from Adam Proctor, Antarctica and Tiree, featuring interviews with the artist, together with the exhibition catalogue, which includes essays by Griffin Co, Peter Davidson, Murdo MacDonald and Arthur Watson, give valuable insight into the artist’s life and work.

Now in her 80th year, Frances Walker RSA, RSW, Dlitt, continues to be an inspiration to subsequent generations of artists. This is a celebration long overdue. Complimenting this exhibition at Aberdeen Art Gallery, an exhibition of prints and drawings: Frances Walker A Path Along The Edge, will run at Peacock Visual Arts from 13 March to 24 April,with a demonstration by the artist on 18 March and an artist’s talk and tour of the exhibition on 20 March. In addition, The Royal Scottish Academy Sir William Gillies Bequest Lecture by Duncan Macmillan HRSA, FRANCES WALKER in the wider context, will take place at Aberdeen Art Gallery on 17 March.

© Georgina Coburn, 2010

Links

• Aberdeen Art Gallery
• Peacock Visual Arts
• Extended versions of Adam Proctor’s films for the exhibition
• Frances Walker image gallery

ALISTAIR PEEBLES reports on the making of a short film by visual artist Colin Kirkpatrick on Orkney

ARTIST COLIN KIRKPATRICK, in collaboration with Peacock Visual Arts of Aberdeen, has now completed the first stage of an ambitious new film project in Orkney. It meant taking ten days off work last month as a wholesale supplier of “beans and bananas” to the local public, as well as no end of trouble getting the right kit for the spaceman part and a hectic schedule of “guerrilla tactics” against the weather, but it’s done and he’s glad that the two years of planning have at last paid off. So far, anyway…

Filmed on location in the West Mainland (a landscape often used by Pukka – as he is more often known – as a parallel for Montana and the Plains generally) the ten-minute short will be edited at Peacock over the coming months by Adam Proctor, their Digital Coordinator, who shot the film with him. It will be premiered at the Aberdeen gallery early next year as part of a one-man show of the artist’s recent work.

‘The Cowboy and the Spaceman’ will be his second work for screen. Its predecessor – in some ways its sequel – ‘Machair Cowboy’, was shot in North Uist over twenty minutes in 2003 with the assistance of Bangalore artist Raghu Rao. Pukka knew at the time that he wanted to make the longer film, but the swiftness of that simple project gave him, he admits, “a false sense of security” about tackling things on a larger scale.

Featuring Gaelic subtitles, ‘Machair Cowboy’ was, like the new project, driven more by ideas and visual reference than plot, and Pukka remembers that it seemed to go down well with many local residents. No doubt the universal appeal of the cowboy figure, and one in trouble at that, makes for a ready identification – perhaps especially in these flat rural places.

In addition to the new film, which is conceived as a piece of art rather than cinema, the Peacock exhibition will include photographic works, prints and sculptural totems: material of a kind familiar to those who saw ‘Cow Town’ (Pier Arts Centre, 1999) either in Orkney or at art.tm in Inverness, or who have followed the development of Kirkpatrick’s career since he graduated from Gray’s School of Art in the 1980s.

But the period since then has shown what effect the more or less uncontrolled exploitation of resources that Boulding identified as the “cowboy” outlook can have on the environment.

Though this will be his first solo exhibition since 1999, he has not been idle. He participated in the project section of Zenomap, new work supporting the first Scottish pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2003, and made that filmic breakthrough trip to the Triangle Arts Workshop in North Uist the same year.

He is also one of the artists shortlisted for the commission to produce a piece of public art for the New Shetland Museum and Archives development – so there’s all that as well as the beans and bananas, and not least of all a son, Daniel, now one year old.

And importantly too, a lot of his time has been spent doing his bit to try and lessen the damaging effects he has observed from the pressures that more intensive forms of agriculture and in particular salmon farming have imposed on his native environment. Though he has felt this as an obligation, nevertheless it’s one he is glad to have been able to ease himself away from lately. Those concerns continue to feature strongly in his art, however, not least in ‘The Cowboy and the Spaceman’.

“One of the reasons I was determined to make this film,” he says, “which is about our outlook on the planet and attitudes towards the sustainability of life, is that during some of my potentially most creative years as an artist I was fighting industrial expansion of the aquaculture industry here in Orkney. I’ve slowly withdrawn from that arena, partly because the Scottish Executive has been forced to adopt a more responsible attitude to many of the issues, but it’s something that drives me as an artist still.”

The working title of the film, he says, is taken from a seminal essay by land economist Kenneth E Boulding, ‘The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth’ (1966). Boulding was writing during Pukka’s infant years, a period when the latter’s young imagination was being imprinted by Westerns on TV and the apparent “cowhand” self-image of his older male relatives. It’s beef country here too, after all, and he grew up among farmers.

But the period since then has shown what effect the more or less uncontrolled exploitation of resources that Boulding identified as the “cowboy” outlook can have on the environment. Kirkpatrick says he has seen “huge changes in local marine ecology” in his lifetime, identifying in particular the effects of large-scale salmon farming on wild fish populations.

In the film, the cowboy falls from his horse and has to go searching for it. Many classic tales begin just as straightforwardly, and respect for convention bids me keep silent about whether this quest is in any way successful, though as I noted above, the plot’s not the most important thing here.

A major character unnamed in the title is the landscape through which they travel

However I can reveal that the cowboy is joined in his tent that evening by the spaceman. He in his turn has landed in the sea, paddled ashore in a liferaft and come looking for civilization. Once again, I cannot reveal whether this character (or archetype) finds what he is looking for, but the two play cards as night comes down.

By contrast with the “cowboy” outlook on the environment – gazing and travelling over a landscape limitless in space and resources – Boulding described the world we live in or might have to live in eventually, from the point of view of the “spaceman”. Held in a tight fragile bubble and having to recycle virtually everything (or die), he is conscious as never before in human history of how small and fragile the bubble truly is.

As well as those two, nine “real people” make appearances in the film. Each having been told the story by the artist, he or she must choose either the stetson or the space helmet as the better indication of their relationship with the future of the planet. An interesting choice, and often only made with some difficulty. Many other people were involved in helping to make the film happen – like any film, no doubt – from costume-making to wrangling, props to moral support, and he’s grateful for the all the help freely given.

A major character unnamed in the title is the landscape through which they travel. The film locations are among the most scenic in Orkney, though not chosen for their tourist-picturesque qualities alone. Viewers will be as much aware of the symbolism in that aspect of the film, as they will doubtless pick up in relation to the human figures lost and wandering there.

In addition to Boulding’s essay, there’s obviously a wealth of reference here – literary and cinematic perhaps most of all. But perhaps we should wait till the film is out before saying much more. By that time Adam’s digital ingenuity will have worked its magic on colour and format, not to mention the addition of a suitable soundtrack and all the usual complexities of editing.

Adam has a long job ahead of him in that area, then, but he’s clearly committed: “I can honestly say that I would have long walked away from the project had Puck not been able to so passionately express his vision. I love the humour, iconography, nostalgia and strangeness of his current output and just hope I can get as excited about future artists’ projects my department will be involved with.

“The thing that most excites me about Pukka’s work is that while being so focused, there are also multiple layers at work which while seemingly disparate somehow complement one another. You find western iconography sitting alongside anthropological comment, humour with environmentalism… and it works!”

© Alistair Peebles, 2005