Landscapes Exhibition Guide by Horsecross Arts

Threshold artspace

Bold contemporary art by Scottish and international artists in Perth since 2005

Open Mon to Sat admission free

10am-5pm or late on performance evenings

artspace

LANDSCAPES

Richard Ashrown | Henna Asikainen | Theresa Pickles and Jasmin Hannah Sutherland

New Horsecross Arts’ commissions and acquisitions by four UK-based artists all challenging our perception of the landscape tradition in art

Curated by Iliyana Nedkova

22 April- 29 June 2013

FREE exhibition guide

Back in the 1850s when landscape was first in vogue, painters used to scout the far reaches of Scotland for the best view worthy of their framing. Almost two and a half centuries later contemporary artists followed in the footsteps of their Victorian counterparts traversing the country in search of their ideal kind of landscape. Their destination took them from remote Phenzhopehaugh to Perthshire – perhaps some of the most scenic of rural Scotland. Instead of heavy load of measuring, photographic and paint equipment, for which their Victorian counterparts often needed assistants, the artists carried their tools with ease – digital cameras. Their choice of landscape however was not in the name of beautification and celebration. Instead, they explored different aspects of our engagement with nature from botanical indexing to contemporary myth-making; from tape drawing in public space to playing games with our immediate environment. Their landscape imagery leans towards the tradition of constructing ‘emotional’ landscapes or ‘mindscapes’, essentially an area of the imagination and the mind’s eye. Experience all the new works fresh in the five ‘project rooms’ of the Threshold artspace. With our current exhibition we are proudly embarking on a new series of Horsecross Arts’ commissions and acquisions by four international UK-based artists. Richard Ashrowan and Henna Asikainen have worked with us in 2005 and have developed yet another set of thoughful artworks for our collection. Jasmin Hannah Sutherland and Theresa Pickles are both new to Threhsold artspace as exibiting artists with two visually-arresting works each and not without a hint of humour. Iliyana Nedkova

Wave = a long canvas of 22 flat screens in a row under the copper-clad dome showing 3 short artists’ films and videos back-to-back as a continuous multiple channel installation

Orange Ribbon (2013) Jasmin Hannah Sutherland Born in Melbourne. Lives and works in Edinburgh.

This ongoing artwork is the result of a diary of images taken between November 2011 and February 2013 in which the same object – a piece of bright orange industrial tape – was taken for a walk, choreographed and photographed in a variety of contexts and world cities, including Perth. The metaphor of the tape in this piece goes beyond art and property removals to the journeys we undertake to draw us closer to a particular place or each other. The shiny industrial ribbon is like a line connecting me to the daily process of art making and my own creativity. I have taken hundreds of images and self-curated them into sets of 22 in response to the ‘landscapy canvas’ of the Threshold Wave. I continue to play with the ribbon during my travels and marvel at the patterns, sites and opportunities emerging. Jasmin Hannah Sutherland

Icarus and Other Fallen Angels (2013) Henna Asikainen Born in Helsinki. Lives and works in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

An artist’s contemporary twist on the well known Greek myth through the use of a common fashion accessory – the feather boa. Suspended in flight, Icarus is soaring through the sky, exhilarated by his own magnificence and the beauty of flight, whilst other screens show the boa falling, feathers scattered around anticipating inevitable destruction. This myth, often depicted in art, is usually presented as a tragic example of a failed ambition, while the feather boa also leads the mind to more sombre thoughts of worldwide tragedies such as oil disasters and other ecological catastrophes – of birds covered in oil, their feathers stuck together awaiting death and destruction.

Pac-Man Landmarks (2013) Theresa Pickles Born in Stirling, lives in Clackmannanshire and works in Perth.

Released in 1980, Pac-Man is often credited with being a landmark in video game history. It is part of the collection of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. and New York’s Museum of Modern Art while an artist’s contemporary take on this iconic game is now in our own. Using the Pac-Man strategy of eating his way around the game, Pickles substitutes the classic dotted maze with her detailed photographed studies of our natural and man-built environment. If the popular Pac-Man represents ‘the unquenchable search for knowledge’, Pickles’ artwork represents the unforeseen distractions that may occur in this pursuit of learning.

“Perth’s Threshold artspace shows no signs of watering down its bold remit in programming stunning and inspiring artwork”

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Threshold Lounge = a micro-cinema drop-in projection zone on upper left of mezzanine

Mutus Floris (2011) 3:41 min Richard Ashrowan Born in England. Lives and works in the Scottish Borders and Italy.

Mutus Floris (mute or silent flowers) is composed of over 5000 individual photographs of wild flowers taken over three seasons, at Phenzhopehaugh in Scotland. The work explores our perceptual relationship to natural things - flowers as objects of attention, the fixing of dynamic life in symbolic thought. The soundtrack consists of the botanical Latin names of the plants found, read by Crinan Alexander, a leading expert in plant taxonomy. We hear the fixing of perceptual experience in naming, a process of sampling and classifying which nonetheless goes beyond its own conventions in evoking the poetic.

Threshold Lounge = a semi-white cube area for artist’s wall installations Icarus and Other Fallen Angels (2013) Henna Asikainen Born in Helsinki. Lives and works in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

This is a triptych of monoprints on Somerset Satin paper (760mm x 560mm each) which accompany the artist’s multi-channel installation under the same name as seen on the Threshold Wave. Together the images create flow and movement, following one another like the frames of the film on the Wave. ‘My interest in addressing issues relating to the natural world derives from a two-fold motivation. I have personal and political concerns and a desire to contribute to the debates on the complex, urgent ecological issues surrounding nature and the environment and also to explore the poetics of the fundamental human relationship with nature, the aesthetic value of nature and the experience from which these arise.’ Henna Asikainen Monoprinting is a form of printmaking that has images which can only be made once, unlike most printmaking, where there are multiple originals. Icarus monoprints were proudly acquired as part of the Horsecross Arts’ collection of contemporary art.

Threshold Stage = a small wall-mounted framed screen for single-channel artists’ works Pac-Man Landmarks (2013) Theresa Pickles Born in Stirling, lives in Clackmannanshire and works in Perth.

This is a single channel iteration of the large-scale Pac-Man Landmarks artwork as seen on the 22 screens of the Threshold Wave. How does the domestic scale and cherry-veneer frame worthy of any Victorian artist’s oil on canvas landscapes influence our perception of Pickles’ work? Contemporary landscape art may as well be tongue-in-cheek while employing the powers of Pac-Man and popular digital culture.

Threshold Flush = a trail of eight small screens tucked away in the public toilets Orange Ribbon (2013) Jasmin Hannah Sutherland Born in Melbourne. Lives and works in Edinburgh.

Follow the magic ribbon as it ‘wraps’ around the Threshold artspace and ‘migrates’ from the Wave to the Flush. Through careful selection, the artist has managed to condense the essence of her exploration of drawing using the ribbon for mark-making the public space. While subverting the traditional life drawing technique, Sutherland bids a cheery nod to the public private location siting the extension of her work.

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Press Preview with exhibiting artists Henna Asikainen, Jasmin Hannah Sutherland and Theresa Pickles | Monday 22 April 2013, 2-4pm Book a free guided tour with curator Iliyana Nedkova: Individual or group bookings by e-mailing inedkova@horescross.co.uk in advance Download all Read More back issues for free: Our journal for critical writing and in-depth analysis of contemporary art at www.horsecross.co.uk/about/threshold-artspace Currently: Collect + Support: Collectible artists’ limited edition works at affordable prices at the artspace, Perth Theatre Currently: exclusively online: Works by five more artists from our collection at www.horsecross.co.uk/about/threshold-artspace/threshold-current Currently: Join-in. Perth Youth Theatre over the years: Selected scenes from the youth theatre archive for the artspace at Perth Theatre extended by popular demand. Horsecross Arts Collection view on demand by e-mailing inedkova@horescross.co.uk in advance Since we officially unveiled Threshold artspace in September 2005, we have exhibited the works of over 210 Scottish and 115 international artists. 92 of these artists from 25 countries are now represented in our permanent public collection of contemporary art, which boasts some 119 newly commissioned works.

Pioneered and managed by Horsecross Arts Core funded by the Scottish Arts Council and Perth & Kinross Council