2016 exhibitions and artists
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2016 exhibitions and artists KILMORACK SPRING/SUMMER SHOW 2016 work by gallery artists and invited artists. If you are interested in seeing a range of work by some of Scotland’s most interesting and collected artists, then this is the place. 19th MARCH - 30th JULY
KIRSTIE COHEN SOLO SHOW
a solo exhibition by one of Scotland’s most loved landscape artist. 12th AUGUST - 10th SEPTEMBER 2016
THE SEA
work inspired by the sea. 16th SEPTEMBER - 31st OCTOBER 2016
JAMES NEWTON ADAMS Avenging Angels steel - 51cm x 31cm
Liz Knox Stepping Stones oil on canvas - 213cm x 137m
Fuelled with a love of work by Scottish artists, Tony Davidson established Kilmorack Gallery twenty years ago in an old church in rural Inverness-shire. Since then the gallery has worked with many of Scotland’s most interesting and collectable artists. Our 2016 exhibitions reflect this passion and experience. We hope you enjoy browsing this catalogue. If you would like updates on coming shows and new artists, please contact us.
SPRING/SUMMER 2016
16th MARCH - 30th JULY
PAUL BLOOMER Fish Farm woodcut - 61.5cm x 74cm
JAMES NEWTON ADAMS PAUL BLOOMER RUTH BROWNLEE EOGHAN BRIDGE COLIN BROWN PATRICIA CAIN SARAH CARRINGTON SAM CARTMAN PETER DAVIS HELEN DENERLEY LOTTE GLOB GAIL HARVEY CAROLINE HUNTER JANETTE KERR LIZ KNOX GERALD LAING KATE LEIPER JANET MELROSE
ALAN MACDONALD ALLAN MACDONALD CAROLYNDA MACDONAD JANE MACNEILL CHARLES MACQUEEN SIAN MACQUEEN ROBERT MCAULAY ALAN MCGOWAN JANET MELROSE ILLONA MORRICE ANN ORAM ROBERT POWELL BETH ROBERTSON FIDDES WENDY SUTHERLAND PETER WHITE IAN WESTACOTT CHRISTINE WOODSIDE
A mixed exhibition at Kilmorack Gallery is always spectacular. Scottish artists, like Scotland, are a broad but powerful bunch, and for some time they have been punching above their weight. In Scotland it is hard to avoid landscape – the wild, romantic and sublime. In Shetland which is far enough north to be self-declared Scandinavian, artists like RUTH BROWNLEE, GAIL HARVEY, PETER DAVIS and JANETTE KERR paint the elements in all their nakedness. Much of their work is vast in scale and powerful in application. It connects us to an eternal force. This is not Impressionism-light or the trope of a previous century, it is darkly powerful, sometimes scary and showing forces that will outlive everything, man and mountain alike. Landscape inspires artists in other ways too. SAM CARTMAN sees geometry in fields, abandoned buildings and roads going-nowhere-in-particular, and balances this with blocks of well-placed colour. In a SARAH CARRINGTON painting the sea has a magnetic light, it pulls you in and we are energised by catalysing marks. Other Scottish artists look at the
landscape through symbolism. Glasgow based ROBERT MCAULAY’s paintings are peopled with shadowy characters and monoliths. Stories are inferred in his painted parables and he is not the only Scottish artist with a love of the yarn. Our Spring/Summer exhibition sees the return of KATE LEIPER’s work after commissions for books. She takes words and paints them into a magical other-world. Other artists seen in Kilmorack’s Spring/ summer exhibition explore what it is like to be human. ALAN MCGOWAN shares with us his unique understanding of our bodies, an anatomical and emotional vessel – and he does this with incredibly expressive paint. ALAN MACDONALD presents the world as playful theatre, creating characters and moments with a Shakespearian virtuosity that draws from the old masters. JAMES NEWTON ADAMS with his faux-naïve paintings (and sculpture) uses apparent simplicity and rule breaking to challenge us, like a zen-coan, to see more freely. Sculpture in Scotland has always been vibrant, but it is somewhat underrepresented in commercial galleries.
ALLAN MACDONALD Aligin vista oil on board - 122cm x 153cm
His [ALLAN MACDOALD’S] canvases refuse to settle down: they retain their urgency, their sense of being an excited dispatch from remote places. Let me try to show you the amazing things I have just seen, they seem to say. Michel Faber writer
At Kilmorack, however, we love it and have been specialising in sculpture for nearly twenty years. Our spring/summer exhibition will show the work of HELEN DENERLEY, famed for her giraffe sculptures at the top of Leith Walk in Edinburgh. STEVE DILWORTH who is possibly the UK’s best-known sculptor to have rejected urban-life for Island-inspiration on Harris. He is an object and myth-maker, from vast carved and cast forms to intimate hand-held pieces. We also have the work of EOGHAN BRIDGE, GERALD LAING, ILLONA MORRICE and WILL MACLEAN. There are more artists worthy of individual mention too. PETER WHITE with his heavily textured paintings of objects that are empty, but yet brim-full of a spiritual fire, ALLAN
MACDONALD with his painterly ecstatic landscapes, PATRICIA CAIN who is a master of the large drawing and pastel, CHARLES MACQUEEN and CHRISTINE WOODSIDE, IAN WESTACOTT, WENDY SUTHERLAND.
There are many wonderful things in our spring/summer exhibition, which runs from March until August 2016 - a mustsee for those interested in Scottish contemporary art.
GAIL HARVEY Winter Light watercolour and gouache 66cm x 77cm
Nature is not static. There is always movement and wonder, especially in the exposed Shetland Islands where GAIL HARVEY has lived and worked for over twenty-five years. Harvey’s work brings together the changing elemental powers of nature - the distant point on the horison, the sudden storm and the calm - with the expressive world of paint. And this is done with a dynamism that few artists achieve. They are abstract paintings that pack a huge punch.
‘The acrylic paintings and steel sculptures of James Newton Adams are naively drawn, often humorous and insightful observations of humanity. The artist’s use of stark black and white with expressionistic accents of colour captures everyday life with refreshing economy and joie de vivre.’ Georgina Coburn, 2015
JAMES NEWTON ADAMS Pier Pressure acrylic on board - 100cm x 60cm
COLIN BROWN’s superbly balanced compositions combine painterly, accidental marks with elements of formal design drawn from mass media advertising and popular culture. He creates beautifully layered compositions of seduction and interrogation; exploring tensions between human drives of fluid creativity and control by design. Georgina Coburn, February 2016
COLIN BROWN Butterfly mixed media - 80cm x 50cm
ROBERT MCAULAY On the Border acrylic - 51cm x 112cm
ROBERT McAULAY is a master of colour, texture and composition. His work is inspired by thoughts and images from his life: the surrounds of Glasgow, books, memories and journeys to other countries. These are brought together, but his love and mastery of colour, texture and composition are always there, elevating each painting into an intuitive poem.
ALAN MACDONALD Brave Heart oil on board - 61cm x 51cm
ALAN MACDONALD Love Machine oil on board - 61cm x 71cm
Few artists’ work absorbs us as much as the painting of ALAN MACDONALD. It is not just the many objects brought together that make us stare; half-forgotten things taken from Classics and Caravaggio combined with the mundane ephemera of sweetshops and childhood. It is the humanity of the man, women or God looking out that grips us. They say ‘I am here and the world is wondrous.’ These great paintings remain with you even after you look away.
JANETTE KERR Catching my Breath oil on canvas - 50cm x 50cm
JANETTE KERR is new to Kilmorack Gallery but is well-established both in the far north and the south. Her time is spent between her studios in Somerset and the Shetland Isles. KERR’s inspiration is the energetic (and occasional calm) weather of the far north. Looking into her paintings - with their bold, painterly brushwork – is to be absorbed into the tumultuous world of KERR’s inspiration.
STEVE DILWORTH Heat, Maraketch oil on canvas - 122cm x 152cm
STEVE DILWORTH’s work unsurprisingly has an international following. His sculpture creates myths and reveals truths that can only be felt when looking at them or touching then. Human life is fleeting, and even stone degrades but there is beauty everywhere. DILWORTH is also a skilled craftsman, finding a transformational truth in his materials. For Dilworth the act of making can produce magic.
CHARLES MACQUEEN (rsw) is Scotland’s master of colour and composition. His work, often based on travels abroad as well as the Fife coast is much sought after in the south. Using textured levels of paint and gesso MacQueen depicts the sensation or experience of a place creating an evocation beyond representation.
CHARLES MACQUEEN RSW Venitian Memories mixed media - 71cm x 61cm
CHRISTINE WOODSIDE RSW Moonlit Walk , Fife mixed media - 61cm x 71m
ANN ORAM Hill Village Ostuni acrylic on paper - 102cm x 129cm
HELEN DENERLEY hound 99cm x 133cm x 26cm
HELEN DENERLEY is one of the UK’s leading wildlife artists and is best known for her scrap metal animals. She has had many major exhibitions (including four solo shows at Kilmorack) and has large work in many public spaces, including Edinburgh’s ‘Dreaming Spires’ Giraffes at the top of Leith Walk.
EOGHAN BRIDGE’s sculpture brings the representation of horse and rider to a new poetic place. Bridge’s horses are strong, beautiful and loving; the rider is vulnerable and trusting and when combined a powerful artistic chemistry happens. Geometry, humour and emotion are all there in a language Bridge makes his own.
EOGHAN BRIDGE Sacred ceramic - 68cm high
GERALD LAING Belshazzar’s Feast screenprint - 85cm x 122cm
GERALD LAING (1936 - 2012)
Gerald Laing’s career took him from International success in the avant-garde world of 1960s pop art, through minimalist sculpture, followed by representational sculpture and back full circle to his pop art roots. Laing was a key 20th century icon maker in a career that was a unique looking glass to wider social changes. He proved to be an even more acute observer in the 21st century with his timely depictions of Kate Moss, Amy Winehouse and the Gulf War. Tony Davidson, gallery director
SARAH CARRINGTON Storm Island from Iona mixed media with gold leaf - 59cm x 84cm
CARRINGTON’s paintings are always of the highest quality: achieving precision and painterliness, and magnificence with intimacy.
SIAN MACQUEEN rsw Waiting Room acrylic on gesso - 38cm x 36cm
SIAN MACQUEEN rsw Island Marker acrylic on gesso - 46cm x 41cm
JANET MELROSE Bullfinch acrylic on gesso panel 97cm x 78cm
WILL MACLEAN Navigator’s Box/ Stormfinder found objects, wood and bone 13cm x 38cm x 64cm
WILL MACLEAN’s work is about man and the sea, and this embattled but beautiful relationship. Fishing, people, flotsam, boats and memories – there are so many stories to be told. His work is also about poetry, written using beachcombed objects or whatever medium comes to his skilled hands. These tactile poems grip, tease and endure as well as any verse. Will MacLean has a well-deserved reputation internationally as well as within Scotland.
RUTH BROWNLEE Sky Clearing mixed media on board - 17.5cm x 17.5cm
ILLONA MORRICE A Spot of Yoga ceramic - 33cm x 25cm x 33cm
ILLONA MORRICE was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her parents were both artists, which allowed her to work and exhibit professionally from the age of seventeen. Since then she has always sculpted. The discovery of new forms, fresh glazes and life experiences never stop for Morrice. This spirit of discovery is what makes her oftenhumorous work always elegant.
CAROLINE HUNTER Edge of the Sea acrylic on board - 122cm x 152cm
CAROLINE HUNTER Tiger and Beans acrylic on canvas - 76cm x 76cm
KIRSTIE COHEN’s work stands out in Scottish landscape painting. Technically it is different from others as it is created by the laborious process of layering and manipulating thin glazes of slow-drying oil-paint. The result is a rarely seen richness. The hills, lochs, seas and skies are intentionally in a state of flux; light and dark move around, tides rise and fall and the flatness of a moor can also be the rolling of the sea‌ the land is alive, her paintings are alive. Catalogue available
KIRSTIE COHEN Remote Horizons a solo exhibition of new work
12th August - 10th September 2016
PATRICIA CAIN Shinnel Glen mixed media - 59cm x 75cm
Few Scottish artists have won as many prizes and gained recognition as quickly as PATRICIA CAIN. Her work is always about seeing, about the point where a mass of abstract marks come together like a scientist’s data to reveal previously unseen truths. Cain was drawn back to the art world in 2000 after running her own legal practice. She completed a PHD on drawing (2006) and has a solo exhibition in Kelvingrove Gallery (Glasgow, 2011.)
BETH ROBERTSON FIDDES Falls, Skye mixed media - 92cm x 122cm
ROBERT POWELL Twin’d: Born on the same morn, married the same noon and brought to bed the same eve.
IAN WESTACOTT Quex Park Wedding chine-colle etching
Intelligent, mocking, fun and much more; ROBERT POWELL has a unique artistic voice. His work occupies a place where art meets science and history. With his eye for minute detail, composition and his head for arcane learning, Powell forces us to explore our past and understand our present. His work sits within a European tradition of dark humour carried out with incredible flair and expression.
SAM CARTMAN Yellow Skye oil - 58cm x 71cm
PETER DAVIS Autumn Equinox watercolour on paper - 50cm x 70cm
Sometimes very little is needed to capture everything. In PETER DAVIS’s hands watercolour takes on a new power to capture the beautiful and sublime northern landscapes.
CAROLYNDA MACDONALD Soul Mates oil on canvas - 56cm x 46cm
PETER WHITE boat mixed media - 120cm x 160cm
THE SEA artists inspired by the sea 10th September - 31st October 2016
JAMES NEWTON ADAMS PAUL BLOOMER MARY BOURNE JOYCE W CAIRNS RUTH BROWNLEE HELEN DENERLEY
STEVE DILWORTH LOTTE GLOB GAIL HARVEY JANETTE KERR MARION LEVEN ALLAN MACDONALD
WILL MACLEAN ILLONA MORRICE BETH ROBERTSON FIDDES
THE SEA: artists inspired by the sea
Scottish artists have always been drawn to the sea, pulled along by instinct, like salmon, to the coast. It was a powerful draw to twentieth century artists – Eardley, Houston and Bellany - and it is equally powerful now. Kilmorack Gallery’s exhibition ‘the SEA’ looks at its influence on Scottish artists in 2016 and includes work from Will MacLean, Helen Denerley, Janette Kerr and Lotte Glob. The sea is not just a powerful force, a sublime monster worthy of Turner, but it is a giver of wealth, knowledge and industry. These gifts invariably come at a cost. Hard and dangerous work, a salty-friction, toughens the bond
between man and sea. This is the inspiration for WILL MACLEAN’s work. He uses found objects within his constructed sculpture to conjure feelings not just about our times but of what has been lost… as there is to the sea, always. JAMES NEWTON ADAMS, lives on the remote Elgol peninsula on Skye, where he paints and sculpts islanders working and living from the Atlantic. His work is faux-naïve in style but adult in knowledge. In his paintings an old wisdomof-the-sea colours dream-like characters that inhabit a hard but real world. JOYCE W CAIRNS is a significant artist who also paints the maritime world, but with her own highly developed language and unsurpassed compositions.
The sea is a place of myth. From it, a seal can emerge from the water, remove its skin and become a woman. Giant leviathans rise and Davy Jones waits. To LOTTE GLOB it is a place JAMES NEWTON ADAMS of sea-creatures and cliff-birds, a secret world The Kyle only seen by those who look with youthful eyes. acrylic To KATE LEIPER the sea is a place of stories. 100cm x 100cm
Imagination is at its most free: Poseidon is a walrus and seals really do turn into women. To the Sculptor STEVE DILWORTH the sea is a place of unknown depth and geological time. Our existence, humankind’s existence, is just a flash and the sea is unfathomable. Dilworth uses the materials he finds around the shore to make work that contextualises our lives by placing it within this deep oceanic-time. More than anything the sea is energy: abstract and real, quiet and violent, instant and slow. These are qualities that work well on canvas. JANETTE KERR and GAIL HARVEY paint from the Shetland Isles, a place where you are surrounded by stormy water. It is everywhere, in the salty air and the seaweed-splattered
windows of Shetland’s treeless houses. So much latent energy shocks the newly arrived, but provides endless fascination to the isle’s artists and an inspiration for canvases that are as large, and brilliant as can be found anywhere. The power of the sea is also challenge to ALLAN MACDONALD. In ‘Rock of Ages’ the sea wrestles with a giant stack. Ultimately, even the stack will wear down. Sometimes the sea rests producing reflections and new patterns, a quietening. Its character changes from random and angry to something more geometric, reflective and benign, a new world of quiet sublime. PETER DAVIS captures this perfectly with his stunningly original watercolours, as does LYNN MACGREGOR with her abstracted west coast landscapes.
Kilmorack Gallery’s exhibition ‘the Sea’ runs from 10th September to the 31st October 2016.
HELEN DENERLEY Whale (in SOUTH GEORGIA)
Kilmorack Gallery the Old Kilmorack Church Inverness-shire IV4 7AL art@kilmorackgallery.co.uk by Beauly, www.kilmorackgallery.co.uk tel +44 (0)gallery, 1463 783 230 www.kilmorackgallery.co.uk email230 art@kilmorackgallery.co.uk kilmorack inverness-shire IV4 7AL tel 01463 783