KATE DOWNIE ANATOMY OF HASTE
Kate Downie Anatomy of Haste 3 August – 2 September 2017
16 Dundas Street · Edinburgh EH3 6HZ
+44 (0) 131 558 1200 mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk www.scottish-gallery.co.uk
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KATE DOWNIE ANATOMY OF HASTE
The Scottish Gallery · 2017 3
K AT E D OW N I E believes in the transformational character of art. She applies her boundless energy to the project of making art in the certain belief that it matters. This optimism is part of her character sure, but goes beyond the personal: the work is made in an open, effusive, generous spirit; it is hers but it is not for her, it is for all of us. She has always sought collaborations, acknowledged her kindred spirits in art, travelled to learn new techniques in new materials, shared ideas (when some would keep them close to the chest like a poker hand) and enriched her practice. So an exhibition of new work, significantly here at The Scottish Gallery for the Edinburgh Festival when we look outward with pride, is always going to be in narrative form, an internal and real journey, always hers but shared, its destination not wholly known at the outset. Anatomy of Haste is an important contribution to visual art for the Festival, 2017, the artist’s invitation to pause, the antithesis of her apparent subject. We must thank Kate but also Sue Hubbard and Kapka Kassabova for their insightful texts and consider perhaps dozens more who have contributed in small but significant ways to the project, catalogue and exhibition. GUY PEPLOE  Director, The Scottish Gallery
opposite: Painting the Queensferry Crossing (photo: Susan Wilson)
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W H E N I LO OK at Cumbria Floods, Cross Country (Moving) and (Still), and the porthole glimpses of Horingen and Trondheim, I am reminded of an encounter earlier this summer. I was in a wood in the western Balkans looking for the springs to a lake, when I saw a bulky rucksack moving ahead of me. We stopped, both of us startled to see another person in this wilderness. The young woman told me she was walking from the Adriatic to the Black Sea. We shared a sandwich. To my question – why are you walking such a long way? – she simply said ‘Because I have time’. And also, she added, because I like to wake up in the morning, unzip the flap of my tent, smell the grass, and see the world afresh. Are you an artist or a writer, I asked. No, she shrugged, I just … have time. I watched her disappear into the woods, without haste. Why is it that more of us don’t have time to walk, to see, to smell the grass – yet we are often in a haste to get somewhere, then return, only to resume the cycle of activity – activity, not action – our bodies full of stress and striving? Because to have time, you must make time. Kate Downie’s compelling framed views of a natural or man-made world in unstoppable flux capture stages in her own journey towards stillness. The great task of every artist is to make time. It is in the stillness of the artist’s eye that the anatomy of human haste can be stripped to its bare bones. To achieve this level of perception, the artist in turn strips herself of her ego, of her haste. Like the woman with the rucksack, she unzips the fabric of the human world – its noises and its schedules – to reveal the true outline of a mountain, the feel of rain on a moving window, the flash of northern sky, the flooded river, the last lighthouse, and the welcoming emptiness beyond. These exquisite fragments from our shared, precarious time on earth remind us to continue on our way with more care. Kapka Kassabova Kapka Kassabova is the author of Border: a journey to the edge of Europe (Granta, 2017).
opposite: Detail from Cross Country (Still) [cat.14]
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H U M A N S . T H E Y G E T E V E RY W H E R E . We think we are going places but actually it is the substance of our journeys, within which we spend so much of our lives, that have created the most indelible monuments to our existence. This exhibition explores what I call the Anatomy of Haste. I am inspired by the ingenious and the ubiquitous acts of engineering amidst the seas, mountains and the envelope of air: concrete, asphalt, steel, glass and plastic, the modern stuff which humans have constructed, to my mind, in the image of their own bodies: that which carries our movement and migration across planet Earth. Thus our body parts and our complex bodily functions become both poetic metaphor and handy travel guide around this collection of paintings, drawings and prints. At the turn of the last century, a new geological epoch was tentatively proposed as the Anthropocene Age. Its naming referred to the first period of geological time shaped by a single species. These new works plot that species’ random journeying but also, hopefully, find new expression for the infrastructure of human movement, reflecting that constant paradox − both a fascination with, and deep concern for, our extravagant swarming of this planet. kate downie
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1 YTHAN ESTUARY (SKIN) Oil on birch panel · 48 x 64 cm 9
2 TUCSON III (ARTERIAL SYSTEM) Oil on birch panel · 48 x 64 cm 10
3 TUCSON I (ARTERIAL SYSTEM) Oil on birch panel · 48 x 64 cm 11
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4 ROUTE 66 (ARTERIAL SYSTEM)
5 ROUTE 66 (CIRCULATION)
Oil and mixed media on birch panel · 48 x 64 cm
Oil on canvas · 120 x 150 cm
6 ROUTE SKETCH I Pen on tracing paper · 21 x 30 cm
7 ROUTE SKETCH II Pen on tracing paper · 21 x 30 cm
8 ROUTE SKETCH III Pen and pastel on tracing paper · 21 x 30 cm
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9 ROUTE SKETCH IV Gouache on photocopy · 21 x 30 cm 16
10 TUCSON II (ARTERIAL SYSTEM) Oil on birch panel · 48 x 64 cm 17
12 PUDONG PACIFIC (BRAIN) Acrylic on canvas · 48 x 90 cm
11 PUDONG (BRAIN) 18
Acrylic on canvas · 110 x 200 cm
13 CROSS COUNTRY (MOVING) Pen and watercolour on paper · 39 x 58 cm 20
14 CROSS COUNTRY (STILL) Pen and watercolour on paper · 39 x 58 cm 21
15 CUMBRIA FLOODS (TEAR DUCTS) Oil on canvas · 40 x 90 cm
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16 HORINGEN PORTHOLE Ink and watercolour on monotype · 28 x 28 cm
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17 TRONDHEIM PORTHOLE Ink and watercolour on monotype · 28 x 28 cm
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18 FALL LIGHT ON THE LINE TO THE NORTH (EYE) Screenprint · variable edition · 54 x 80 cm 26
19 WINTER CROSSING ON THE CLYDE LINE (EYE) Screenprint · variable edition · 54 x 80 cm 27
20 HYDROPONICUM STUDY (WOMB) Ink and insulating tape on paper · 25 x 25 cm 28
21 AVRO ANSON ’47 (HEART SURGERY) Ink, pastel and watercolour · 72 x 51 cm 29
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22 CHINA (ERECTIONS) Oil on canvas · 110 x 200 cm
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Sue Hubbard
ANATOMY OF HASTE Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation.
Ever since living in Paris in the 1980s and her first solo show
from Burnt Norton, T. S. Eliot
has visited the Thames and the Forth Estuaries where land and
in Aberdeen, through to her Coast Road Diaries of 2007–9, the residencies in Beijing and visits to America and Japan, Kate Downie has investigated the spaces in-between structures and worlds. She has climbed bridges in her native Scotland to draw the underside of The Fife Cantilever, recorded the sound of lorries as they cross the steel surface of the Forth Bridge. She sea meet, and seabirds and gantries inhabit the same watery
spaces. It is this interest in the liminal, in the gaps and interstices between things and places, often between what is manmade and natural that feeds her work. Whether she is peering at distant cranes and scaffolding through the arch of a bridge across the bend in a busy road, creating the muscular charcoal, pastel and blood lines in The Art of Crossing (FRBI) 2013–14 from The Road Bridge Diaries, or mapping the busy street scene in Feijiacun Walk II, China, where bicycles, cars and people criss-cross beneath a web of pylons and cables. Although Downie sees herself primarily as a landscape painter she is not, in essence, a romantic. For her the line is a metaphor for human movement and migration, which she uses to explore the effect people have on the environment through the processes of building and industrialisation. Activities that she perceives as an extension of the human body
opposite: Detail of A90 (Throat) [cat.23]
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superimposed on the physical world. The speed of our post-industrial society, with its super highways and cables, its complex road structures and rail networks – what she calls the hubris of modernity – acts as a metaphor for the anatomy of the body: the respiratory and circulatory systems, the hands, limbs and spine. Prior to the ‘new’ geography of early modern Europe, the tie between the body and geography (the earth) was elemental and intimate. Things were measured in hands and feet, in the length of a forearm or the span of a stride. Modern phenomenology perceives space as made manifest through the sentient body. Bodies not only distinguish space and things-in-space through a combination of the five senses but our very bifurcatedness orientates us to manoeuvre ourselves within that dimension. The line and the human body are, thus, the dominant motifs in Kate Downie’s new work. To draw a line is, literally, to take a physical journey from A to B. From one point to another. All journeys are linear, whether along a road, a highway, a river or a drawing board. Things happen and are discovered along the way. When we arrive we are not the same person as the one who started out. To draw or paint a line is to embark on a voyage of discovery. It is an investigation. A question in search of an answer. A thought made visible. The movement of the artist’s hand indicates the distance across a space and the passing of time. Intuition and imagination are communicated through the physical dynamic, the push and pull of charcoal or pen, brush and paint. To draw a line is always to take a risk. One that forms a connection between a fixed point in the past and a less certain location in the future. As with Heraclitus and his famous river, the artist can never revisit the same place twice. Each mark made is unique, an expression of that moment. As Kate Downie has said when speaking of her work: ‘there is nothing as invisible as the recent past and that which is just behind us’. It is this subtle understanding that provides her with the impetus to move on, the catalyst to explore what is up ahead and make new art.
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opposite: Detail of Fall Light on the Line to the North [cat.18]
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The line also acts as a bridge – a recurring motif within her work – which yokes together a number of binaries: the public and the private, history and the future, east and west. A bridge is a man-made structure imposed on a physical space. A highway that connects two opposing perimeters, a border that delineates geographical difference and cultural variance. Thus the artist becomes a cartographer and the map created a chart of her psychological and creative thought processes. Downie’s considerable drawing skills enable her to investigate the negative spaces between objects and places with particular insight and awareness. The open ‘fingers’ of a ‘hand’ fan out into a series of small streets from the central red ‘palm’ in Shimbashi (Hand) 2016 [cat.26]. The train station and overhead railway lines, the density of the modern buildings with their neon signs, the street furniture, wires and lamps, open up into multiple, complex perspectives in this bustling Japanese hub. Superimposed on this postmodern stage-set are the bright outlines of pink, green and purple umbrellas that evoke the continuous flow of human presence to leave undocumented traces of those who pass through this urban landscape. The junction functions as a core, a point of stillness in a turning world. For, as the French philosopher poet Gaston Bachelard attests, inhabited space transcends geometrical space and Downie attempts, in this era of rapid change, when so many old verities appear uncertain and unstable, to find ways of interpreting not just the natural world but the manmade landscape of office blocks, highways, and super-speed railways. Her cross-cultural focus emphasises that the setting of a particular artwork is much more than simply a ‘scene’ but forms the very armature around which a painting revolves. Many of Downie’s paintings are dominated by curves but travelling by high speed train she noticed that she was unable to focus on the landscape outside as it flashed by the windows. Her painting Kyoto Shinkansen (Spinal Cord) 2016 [cat.35] begun by saturating the canvas with soft liquid acrylic built up in layers and then completed in oils, is full
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of tension. Everything appears to be hurtling in the same direction. The rigid train line connects disparate, far flung locations just as the anatomical spine transfers information through the spinal cord and nervous system. Divided by vertical poles into sections the track might be read as vertebrae. Her love of train travel also produced a highly evocative series of prints ‘Train Eyes and the Scotrail Philosopher’, which grew out of an exercise she gave to her students. Placing an acetate sheet on a train window she traced what was passing before her eye, grabbing at objects as they slipped by to create a series of filmic marks. The blurring and lack of focus graphically juxtaposes the present moment with the nostalgia of the immediate past and offers a side-on perspective, as if glanced out of the corner of the eye. Whilst travelling through Arizona on Route 66, Downie experienced what the French theorist, Jean Baudrillard, described as astral America; the social geology of intersecting highways that seems to lead somewhere and appears to go nowhere in a dystopian flow that suggests the circulatory system. Interconnecting slipways branch from the central roads like capillaries and veins from the main arteries. While the tide of trucks and cars mimics the movement of cells and platelets in the blood. There’s also the wry acknowledgement that she’s appropriating the trope of the American road movie and novel with their references to Kerouac and Easy Rider style heroes and their love of the open road. Shanghai’s Pudong Airport sits on the edge of the Pacific. From the runway the observant viewer can see great cargo ships coming and going in the distance. In Downie’s painting of 2016–17 [cat.12] a grounded plane sits on the tarmac in the foreground of the canvas, in front of a purple haze of dust and pollution. The aircraft is generic and does not seem to belong to any particular airline. There is an airbridge attached to the side, and we can just make out the figures of tiny service men in their yellow jackets. Thus the airport becomes a metaphor for the brain. For abstract thoughts taking flight, for ideas and concepts lifting off into the ether of the imagination. It’s the very impersonality and ubiquity
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of airports that appeals. The details of its mundane infrastructure. The trucks, the luggage trailers and subsistence systems that feed the possibility and idea of flight and become a seminal symbol for a modern mechanised system of thinking. Kate Downie makes a strong case for the visual poetry of our mediated and constructed world. A plein-air artist she’s sat in rain at the mouths of rivers, climbed scaffolding and gantries, breathed in exhaust fumes on the edge of motorways and in underpasses to imbue her work, like J.M.W Turner lashed to the mast of a frigate better to experience the storm, with a sense of immediacy and authenticity. It is almost as if she were a performance artist who documents for the viewer an, often, risky enactment. Embracing an array of traditions from the paintings of her compatriot Joan Eardley, to the negative sculptural spaces of Rachel Whiteread and the traditions of Chinese ink paintings – a craft she mastered on her several visits to China – her work expands comfortably across the disciplines of drawing, painting and printmaking, bringing to each a high level of skill and technical knowledge. The Scots are, among many other things, a nation of great engineers and bridge builders, of scientists and rational thinkers. It is this analytically incisive vision, coupled with her voracious curiosity and artistic dexterity that has led to a significant body of work which not only deals with time, myth and memory but attempts to chart how man’s ego has made itself concrete across the world. Sue Hubbard is a freelance art critic, award-winning poet and novelist. Her third novel, Raingsongs is due from Cinnamon Press in autumn 2017.
opposite: Engravings of Human arterial (left) and nervous systems (right) by Benard, late 18th century, after an engraving by M. Vandergucht after W. Cowper, for Drake, 1707.
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23 A90 (THROAT) Oil on birch panel · 84 x 92 cm
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24 ESTUARY SPRING & THE GARE LOCH LINE (EYE) I Screenprint · variable edition · 54 x 80 cm 42
25 ESTUARY SPRING & THE GLASGOW LINE (EYE) II Screenprint · variable edition · 54 x 80 cm 43
26 SHIMBASHI (HAND) Acrylic and oil on canvas · 110 x 200 cm
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27 LOFOTEN ISLAND I (MUSCLE) Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
28 LOFOTEN ISLAND II (MUSCLE) Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
29 LOFOTEN ISLAND III (MUSCLE) Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
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30 LOFOTEN ISLAND IV (MUSCLE) Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
31 LOFOTEN ISLAND V (MUSCLE) Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
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32 LOFOTEN ISLAND VI (MUSCLE) Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
33 LOFOTEN ISLAND VII (MUSCLE) Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
34 LOFOTEN ISLAND VIII (MUSCLE) Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
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35 KYOTO SHINKANSEN (SPINAL CORD) Acrylic and oil on canvas · 110 x 200 cm
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36 QUEENSFERRY CROSSING I (LEG) Inks on birch panel · 48 x 32 cm
37 THREE BRIDGES FROM THE WEST (LEG) Inks on birch panel · 48 x 32 cm
38 QUEENSFERRY CROSSING II (LEG) Inks on birch panel · 48 x 32 cm
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KATE DOWNIE RSA Born in North Carolina, USA
Studied Fine Art at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen
2014 Zero to Fifty: The Road Bridge Diaries, Hopetoun House, Queensferry, West Lothian
President of the Society of Scottish Artists, 2004–06
Scotland Outside, China Within, Rendezvous Gallery, Aberdeen
Member of the Royal Scottish Academy
Trustee of the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2017 175th Anniversary, Festival Exhibition, Anatomy of Haste, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
2016–17 Span – A Tale of Three Bridges, drawings and prints, Kirkcaldy Art Gallery, Fife
2016 Gaps, Deceptions and Downright Lies, drawing installation, invited artist at Cupar International Art Festival, Cupar, Fife
2015–16 Shared Vision: works inspired by ink painting traditions of China, Pathfoot Building, Stirling University, touring to Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Academicians Gallery, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
2015 Estuary, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh opposite: Kate Downie in her studio (photo: Breeshey Gray)
2013 A Walk Through Resonant Landscape, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
The Royal Glasgow Institute, Kelly Gallery
2011 The Concrete Hour, Drawing installation, Where Where Art Space, Beijing, China
New Paintings, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh Bridging the Gap, invited guest artist, Pittenweem Arts Festival Dialogue with the Land, Linlithgow Burgh Halls
2010 Printworks, 21 years of Printmaking, The Watermill, Aberfeldy
2009 / 10 The Coast Road Diaries, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh; touring to Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries; Duff House, Aberdeenshire
2008 The Sea Room, The Watermill Gallery, Aberfeldy
2007 The Red Coast, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 57
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2006 The Watermill Gallery, Aberfeldy
2005 Lazaret Ollandini Foundation, Corsica
2003 Routes des Travaux, Festival of Scottish Culture, Gallerie La Marge, Ajaccio, Corsica
Titanic Shores, Gracefield Studios, Dumfries
2002 The Vanished Road, Rendezvous Gallery, Aberdeen
2001 East, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh
1999 The Bridge, The Project Room, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh
2016 Ghostlands Kate Downie, Robbie Bush & Ronald Plowman Tatha Gallery, Newport, Fife
2015 Scottish Drawing, Royal Scottish Academy Galleries, Edinburgh
Visual Arts Scotland. Royal Scottish Academy Galleries, Edinburgh
Intaglio Paintings and Prints, Patriothall Gallery, Edinburgh
2014 A Capital View, The Art of Edinburgh, City Arts Centre, Edinburgh
1997 Dusk Electric: Thornton-Bevan Arts, London
2013 Marked – Drawing Now, Cessnock Regional Art Gallery, Hunter Valley, Austrailia
New Landscapes, Patriothall Gallery, Edinburgh
1995 Deviant Taxis, Colour Monoprints, Strathfest ’95. Cogarth Castle, Aberdeenshire
Patriothall Gallery, Edinburgh Festival 1993–96 The Mother Pool, The People’s Palace, Glasgow and a major UK tour of Museums and Galleries 1990–91 Urban Circus, touring to Collins Gallery, Glasgow; Cleveland Gallery, Middlesbrough; McManus Gallery, Dundee and Artspace Gallery, Aberdeen
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2016–17 Academicians IV: Kate Downie RSA, Christopher le Brun RA, Stephen Chambers RA & Annie Cattrell RSA, Glasgow Print Studio Gallery, Trongate, Glasgow
1987 New Paintings, Galleri Grijsdalen, Denmark and Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh
Postcards to Japan, International House of Japan, Tokyo (touring) The Scottish Show, Lemon Street Gallery, Truro, Cornwall, England 4+ Exhibition, Plockton Gallery, West Highlands, Scotland 2nd XU CUN Arts Festival Exhibition, Shangxi Province, China
2011 Intersection, Chinese & International Red Gate Residency Artists exhibition, Nova Art Coordinates, Beijing
Monotypes, Glasgow Print Studio Gallery, Glasgow
2010 The Haymarket Pibroch Drawing Installation
SSA Select, The Park Gallery, Falkirk
Invited artist at 184th RSA annual exhibition 2009–10 The Wych Elm Project, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 2008–09 The North Sea Project, SSA / Attic Salt Gallery, Edinburgh
2003 Moving Solutions – SSA, Bonhoga Gallery, Shetland 2000 Living Proof, Joyce Gunn-Cairns & Kate Downie: Patriothall Gallery, Edinburgh
Printmaking Present, Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries 1 999 / 2000 Cleveland Drawing Biennial (European tour)
1999 A Sense of Identity, Department of International Development, East Kilbride
Sand Kulturhus, Kopervik Kulturhus,Rogaland, Kunstsenter Stavanger, Norway
Girl Power, Rendezvous Gallery, Aberdeen
Coast Festival, Banff and Portsoy Boat Festival, Aberdeenshire
The Fine Art of Medicine, Hunterian Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
2007 40 Years of Printmaking from Edinburgh Printmakers 1987 to 2007
Modern Print Masters, Watermill Gallery Aberfeldy
2006 The Royal Scottish Academy / The Society of Scottish Artists, Edinburgh
1998 Twin Images II, The Fine Art Society, London
1997 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
1996 / 7 The Motor Show – Powered Vehicles in British Painting. UK tour Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry; Plymouth City Museum & Gallery;
Contemporary Scottish Artists, Chambers Gallery, London
Stockport Art Gallery; Wrexham Arts Centre; Turnpike Gallery, Leigh
2005 / 06 The Jerwood Drawing Prize 2005, Jerwood Space, London; Pittville Gallery, Cheltenham;
Rennie Mackintosh Gallery, Glasgow
2005 WASPS Exchange, ARC Gallery, Chicago
1995 The Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London
Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling; Lillie Art Gallery, Milngavie
1993 Scottish Painting, Flowers East Gallery, London 59
COLLECTIONS Through Women’s Eyes, Contemporary Scottish Women Artists, City Arts Centre, Edinburgh
Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums
1992 / 93 Figure in the City – Urban Themes in new Scottish Painting, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh; touring to Mia Joosten Gallery, Amsterdam; Musiekatelier Kunstactivieten, Maastricht; Y’art & P Gallery, Utrecht; BP Gallery, Brussels; Artspace, Aberdeen & Oriel Gallery, Cardiff
Aberdeenshire Farming Museum, Peterhead
1992 Adam & Co / Spectator National Art Exhibition, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (major Prize-winner)
The Edinburgh Suite – a Portfolio of Prints, Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop; Scottish tour
Aberdeen Royal Infirmary Adam & Company Allied Breweries Art in Healthcare, Scotland British Broadcasting Corporation, London Cleveland Art Gallery, Middlesbrough City of Edinburgh Council Creative Scotland Creswell Maternity Hospital, Dumfries East and Midlothian NHS Trust
1991 SSA Centenary Exhibition, RSA Galleries, Edinburgh; Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries
Edinburgh City Art Centre
1990 Painting the Forth Bridge, 369 Gallery, Edinburgh; Scottish tour
Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries
1989 Soft Machine, Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop
Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen
57 Degrees 10 Minutes North, Aberdeen Art Gallery; 369 Gallery, Edinburgh
Glasgow Museums Resource Centre Grampian Hospitals Art Trust HM The Queen Inverurie Town Hall Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow Kirkcaldy Galleries Moray House College of Education, Edinburgh
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AWARDS Museum of London
Creative Scotland Quality Production Award 2013
New Hall Art Collection, Cambridge
The Hope Scott Trust Artists Award 2000 / 2013
Rietveld Kunst Academie, Amsterdam Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen
William Gilles Bequest, Royal Scottish Academy 2010
Royal Bank of Scotland, Edinburgh
Friends of the RSA Research Award 2007
Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
Short-listed for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2005
Scottish Provident, Glasgow
Riverside Gallery Award, RSW 131st Annual Exhibition 2011
Scottish Maritime Museum, Irvine Scottish Trades Union Congress, Glasgow University of Aberdeen University of Edinburgh University of Stirling
Scottish Arts Council Bursary Award, SAC Amsterdam Studio Major Painting Prize, RSA Student Exhibition / Latimer Award RSA Winner of A & I Magazine Prize, The Discerning Eye Exhibition, Mall Gallery, London 1995 1st Prize Spectator / Adams & Co National Art Exhibition / Competition Greenshield Foundation Scholarship (twice) Aberdeen Artists Exhibition, Major prize Winner 1987
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LIST OF WORKS 1 YTHAN ESTUARY (SKIN), 2016–17 Oil on birch panel · 48 x 64 cm
2 TUCSON III (ARTERIAL SYSTEM), 2017 Oil on birch panel · 48 x 64 cm
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12 PUDONG (BRAIN), 2016–17 Acrylic on canvas · 110 x 200 cm
13 CROSS COUNTRY ( MOVING), 2016 Pen and watercolour on paper · 39 x 58 cm
3 TUCSON I (ARTERIAL SYSTEM), 2017
14 CROSS COUNTRY (STILL), 2016
Oil on birch panel · 48 x 64 cm
Pen and watercolour on paper · 39 x 58 cm
4 ROUTE 66 (ARTERIAL SYSTEM), 2017
15 CUMBRIA FLOODS (TEAR DUCTS), 2017
Oil and mixed media on birch panel · 48 x 64 cm
Oil on canvas · 40 x 90 cm
5 ROUTE 66 (ARTERIAL SYSTEM), 2017
16 HORINGEN PORTHOLE, 2017
Oil on canvas · 120 x 150 cm
Ink and watercolour on monotype · 28 x 28 cm
6 ROUTE SKETCH I, 2016
17 TRONDHEIM PORTHOLE, 2017
Pen on tracing paper · 21 x 30 cm
Ink and watercolour on monotype · 28 x 28 cm
7 ROUTE SKETCH II, 2016
18 FALL LIGHT ON THE LINE TO THE NORTH (EYE), 2016
Pen on tracing paper · 21 x 30 cm
Screenprint · variable edition · 54 x 80 cm
8 ROUTE SKETCH III, 2016
19 WINTER CROSSING ON THE CLYDE LINE (EYE), 2016
Pen and pastel on tracing paper · 21 x 30 cm
Screenprint · variable edition · 54 x 80 cm
9 ROUTE SKETCH V, 2016
20 HYDROPONICUM STUDY (WOMB), 2011
Gouache on photocopy · 21 x 30 cm
Ink and insulating tape on paper · 25 x 25 cm
10 TUCSON II (ARTERIAL SYSTEM), 2017
21 AVRO ANSON ’47 (HEART SURGERY), 2001
Oil on birch panel · 48 x 64 cm
Ink, pastel and watercolour · 72 x 51 cm
11 PUDONG PACIFIC (BRAIN), 2016
22 CHINA (ERECTIONS), 2015–16
Acrylic on canvas · 48 x 90 cm
Oil on canvas · 110 x 200 cm
23 A90 (THROAT), 2016–17
34 LOFOTEN ISLAND VIII (MUSCLE), 2017
Oil on birch panel · 84 x 92 cm
Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
24 ESTUARY SPRING & THE GARE LOCH LINE (EYE) I, 2016
35 KYOTO SHINKANSEN (SPINAL CORD), 2016–17
Screenprint · variable edition · 54 x 80 cm
25 ESTUARY SPRING, & THE GLASGOW LINE (EYE) II, 2016 Screenprint · variable edition · 54 x 80 cm
26 SHIMBASHI (HAND), 2016–17 Acrylic and oil on canvas · 110 x 200 cm
27 LOFOTEN ISLAND I (MUSCLE), 2016–17 Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
28 LOFOTEN ISLAND II (MUSCLE), 2017 Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
29 LOFOTEN ISLAND III (MUSCLE), 2017
Acrylic and oil on canvas · 110 x 200 cm
36 QUEENSFERRY CROSSING I (LEG), 2017 Ink on birch panel · 48 x 32 cm
37 THREE BRIDGES FROM THE WEST (LEG), 2017 Ink on birch panel · 48 x 32 cm
38 QUEENSFERRY CROSSING II (LEG), 2017 Ink on birch panel · 48 x 32 cm ALSO EXHIBITED BUT NOT ILLUSTRATED
39 BIKE FITTING (HEART), 2017
Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
Ink and watercolour · 51 x 72 cm
30 LOFOTEN ISLAND IV (MUSCLE), 2017
40 VISCOUNT 1957 (BELLY), 2017
Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
Ink and watercolour · 51 x 101 cm
31 LOFOTEN ISLAND V (MUSCLE), 2017
41 ROUTE SKETCH V (CIRCULATION), 2017
Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
Pen on tracing paper · 21 x 30 cm
32 LOFOTEN ISLAND VI (MUSCLE), 2017
42 QUEENSFERRY CROSSING (TENDONS), 2017
Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
Oil on gesso on wood · 28 x 44 cm
33 LOFOTEN ISLAND VII (MUSCLE), 2017
43 HYDROPONICUMN, ACHILTBUIE (WOMB), 2017
Chinese ink and watercolour on Xuan paper · 36 x 46 cm
Acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm 63
ARTIST’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS With thanks to The Scottish Gallery for their wonderful encouragement and support without which this exhibition would not have been possible. My thanks also to: Michael Wolchover, my photographed the works; Sue Hubbard and Kapka
16 Dundas Street · Edinburgh EH3 6HZ Telephone +44 (0) 131 558 1200 Email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk
Kassabova for their contributions to the catalogue;
www.scottish-gallery.co.uk
Robert Dalrymple and Nye Hughes, the catalogue
Gallery hours: Monday to Friday 10–6pm and Saturday 10–4pm
fellow traveller in life and constant support, who
designers; Brien Nicholson Framing; Rosalind Lawless and Scott Campbell at Glasgow Print Studio; Fiona Hutchison, Linda Cooper and Susan Wilson at Port Edgar Sailing Club; Thilo Bürgel and Stuart McDonald at the National Museum of Flight; Claire Heminsley, Off the Rails Art House; Scotrail; CrossCountry Trains; Betta Adams; Chi Zhang; and Dawn Kemp, Ronde Bicycle Outfitters. In the United States: Eleanor Wilner and Bob Weinburg; Trudy Wilner-Stack and Mike Stack. In China: Zhou
Kate Downie: Anatomy of Haste held at 16 Dundas Street from 3 August t0 2 September 2017
Rong, Beijing Art Academy; Mr Zhang, seal carver,
ISBN 978 1 910267 62 2
Beijing; Mrs Jianfei Du, Zheng Zhou; Mr Fang’s
Artworks © Kate Downie 2o17
Studio, Zheng Zhou; and Pudong Airport, Shanghai. In Japan: Taeko Sek, Tokyo; Hironori Katagiri and Kate Thomson; Central Japan Railway Company. Finally, in Norway: Hurtigruten Cruises. KATE DOWNIE 64
Published by The Scottish Gallery for the exhibition
Text © the authors 2017 Catalogue © The Scottish Gallery 2017 All rights reserved Photography by Michael Wolchover Designed and typeset in Gothic 821 and Brioni by Dalrymple Printed in Scotland by J. Thomson Colour Printers