Spring/ Summer 2017 Exhibitions Shop CafĂŠ Events
North Sea Fishing by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert
Visitor Information
B9075
Bonhoga Gallery
Weisdale
A970
A971
Lerwick Scalloway
Bonhoga Gallery is owned and run by Shetland Arts Development Agency. A programme of exhibitions is organised each year for the Upper Gallery, featuring local, national and international contemporary visual art and craft. Downstairs are smaller scale exhibitions by artists and craftmakers from both Shetland and the rest of the UK.
Opening Hours Gallery, CafĂŠ & Shop
Bonhoga Gallery, Weisdale Mill, Weisdale, Shetland ZE2 9LW, UK
Mon - Sat: 10.30am - 5pm Sun: 11am - 5pm
Tel: +44 (0) 1595 745750 Fax: +44 (0) 1595 830444 E: bonhoga@shetlandarts.org facebook.com/BonhogaGallery
Admission: Free of charge Accessibility: Disabled parking, wheelchair ramp, disabled toilet 2
Bonhoga Gallery
© Chloe Garrick
Weisdale Mill
Café In the south-facing conservatory overlooking the Weisdale burn the Mill Café is a popular spot all year round for locals and visitors alike.
Bonhoga Gallery is situated in Weisdale Mill, on land cleared for large-scale sheep farming in the 19th Century. It was a meal and barley mill from 1855 until the early 1900s, then used as a butchery and tannery before falling into dereliction in the middle of the 20th century. The building was renovated and opened as Bonhoga Gallery in 1994, and since then has been welcoming large numbers of both Shetland residents and visitors to the isles. Bonhoga means ‘my spiritual home’ in Shetland dialect.
The menu features locally-sourced produce and specialities, all prepared daily on the premises. As well as options for children, the café caters for those with special dietary requirements. Our menu changes daily - check our specials board to see what we have on offer today.
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29 April - 11 June
Gillian Bridle, Jeanette Nowak, Vivian Ross-Smith & Aimee Labourne
Traces
Last year’s Shetland Open winners explore lines of impermanence As part of the prize for last year’s Shetland Open each of the four category winners was offered the opportunity to work towards a group show, supported by Shetland Arts. The artists discussed connections between their work and themes that resonate beyond it: traditional skills, preservation and decay, lines of impermanence and layers of time.
PUBLIC OPENING: Friday 28 April, 6 - 7.30pm Everyone welcome 5
Traces - 29 April - 11 June
AIMEE LABOURNE won the prize in the First Time Exhibitor category of the Shetland Open 2016, for her drawing of Storm Petrel wings. She moved to Shetland in 2016 after graduating in Fine Art at Falmouth University, in 2015. Working primarily with drawing but also including elements of photography, she sees Shetland as a very unique and special place to explore an interest in beauty and decay, and what this can reveal about today’s ideas of the romantic and sublime.
VIVIAN ROSS-SMITH won the Painting, Sculpture and Drawing prize in the Shetland Open for her work, Fishing Hands. A graduate of Grays School of Art, Vivian uses traditional methods of craftsmanship such as knitting, preserving skins and net making in contemporary ways to explore relationships between material and surface; and between man made and natural. She studies and explores her rugged island surroundings through her artistic practice, the end results are layered, textural and steeped with island history and heritage.
JEANETTE NOWAK won the Photography, Print & New media prize for her photograph, Leaving. Based in Yell, she is best known for her basket-making, drawing directly from the landscape around her and nurtured by the rich and descriptive words of the Shetland dialect. She is driven to create work by her strong sense of place.
GILLIAN BRIDLE won the Craft prize
in the Shetland Open for her paper cut, Shetland Seagull. Drawing in the landscape and capturing moments of interaction between creatures, Gillian morphs these moments into simplified designs. She is an artist-illustrator based in Scalloway.
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Lower Gallery
BAIRNS’ OPEN 2017 Check out the work of some of Shetland’s talented young artists in the brilliant Bairns’ Open. Shetland Arts invited submissions from artists of school age (P1 to S6) for this year’s exhibition, held in the Lower Gallery at Bonhoga Gallery from 29 April to 11 June. The theme this year was Lines, and it’s inspired some wonderful, imaginative work. The artistic future of Shetland is in safe hands!
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17 June - 2 July
Amy Gear
+300 artists from 5 Shetland Schools
The Future
Bonhoga Education Programme Supported by Children & the Arts and SIC Creative Links Continuing on from last year’s project - The Art World - the five schools participating in the Bonhoga Education Programme are this year exploring THE FUTURE. What will the future look like here in Shetland in the year 2317? What will the landscape look like? Who will be living here? Will there still be art exhibitions in art galleries? Through gallery visits and workshops the 300 children involved in this project will work collaboratively towards their own exhibition, an animated projection with sound and music that will exist at Bonhoga and online.
Follow the project on our blog: 2317thefuture.tumblr.com/
PUBLIC OPENING: Friday 16 June, 6 - 7.30pm Everyone welcome 9
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8 July - 27 August
Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert
North Sea Fishing
Black & white photographs from the 1990s. With thanks to Ronnie Hughes and the crew of the Mairead, and Duncan Mackenzie and the crew of the Argosy, for their hospitality and generosity. All photographs shot in 1993 on the Mairead, and 1995 on the Argosy.
Scottish documentary photographer Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert captured the reality of the life at sea for the fishermen of Scotland’s North East fishing communities aboard the seine net fishing boats, Mairead and Argosy, in the North Sea in the 1990s.
This is a touring exhibition hosted by the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther. The production has been made possible thanks to the generous sponsorship of several organisations including Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow, Scottish Fishermen’s Trust, Scottish Fishermen’s Organisation and Loxley Colour Photo Lab.
These images serve as an important record of a period and style of fishing which is already passing into history, an insight into the working conditions for seine net fishermen, operating far from the safety and comforts of the shore. They capture the cramped conditions, monotony, and the grueling work in harsh conditions.
North Sea Fishing will be complemented by photographs by Jeremy Sutton Hibbert of the Russian, Polish and East German klondykers (fish factory ships) working in Shetland during the early 1990s, on the Long Wall in the Upper Cafebar at Mareel.
The North Sea – “a confused sea” as it was once described to me and, as one fishing trawler skipper told me, late at night, only the instrument panel lighting the bridge room, “the north sea, she’s a cruel mistress”.
PUBLIC OPENING: Friday 7 July, 6 - 7.30pm Everyone welcome 11
Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert grew up in Scotland, where on his 13th birthday he received a camera. A few years later he became a photographer for editorial, corporate and NGO clients. His work has appeared in magazines such as Time, National Geographic, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, and many others. For over a decade Jeremy was one of the principal photographers for Greenpeace International, undertaking assignments worldwide. His personal and commissioned work, for which he has been the recipient of photojournalism awards, has been widely published and exhibited in Europe Asia, and USA.
I think my first experience on the North Sea was on a fishing boat, on an overnight assignment photographing fishing trawlers for a paper. There was a fisherman’s protest, lots of boats all together, protesting latest EU rules and regulations, net sizes and quotas. I got sent out to photograph. It was a night of adventure: watch dawn rise, shoot the other boats, back to harbour, home by lunchtime. The skipper that night, Ronnie, was a decent chap. I asked him how long he usually goes out for at a time, “10 days”, was the reply. “Can I come next time?” I asked. He smiled, he laughed, he replied, “if you think you can handle it, you can come, but there’s no going back. If you’re sea sick you’ll be sea sick for 10 days”. “Count me in”. – Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert
North Sea Fishing will be complemented by photographs by Jeremy Sutton Hibbert of the Russian, Polish and East German klondykers (fish factory ships) working in Shetland during the early 1990s, on the Long Wall in the upper Café Bar at Mareel (see back page). 12
Lower Gallery
Margaret Worthington
Sea Becomes Sky Australian artist Margaret Worthington was artist in residence at Sumburgh Lighthouse in 2015 and Bressay Lighthouse in 2016, spending time also on Noss and Unst. She has been particularly influenced by the everchanging light and mists that swirl around Shetland, along with the Fair
Isle patterns she saw at the Shetland Textile Museum. “I found that by cutting out some of these patterns in my paper not only was I referencing traditional Shetland craft but the cut-outs allowed slivers of light into the work much like the swirling mists�.
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2 September - 15 October
Barbara Ridland Kristín Reynisdóttir Malfridur Aðalsteindóttir
Behind The North Wind
Nordic Art and spirituality century explorers. On one hand it is seen as a place of darkness and cold, hard and evil, but also in complete contrast, as a place where virtuous people live in happiness and joy - behind the north wind.
There is a place behind the North Wind - 'Boreas' - that cannot be reached by either sea or land. It is a place of spiritual thinking and therefore lends itself to the spiritual in art. In Peter Davison’s book, 'The Idea of North', there are many opinions on the otherness of North. In Greco-Roman culture the north is considered extreme and mysterious, a place in which two opposing ideas come into conflict again and again, seen in works ranging from that of ancient thinkers to nineteenth
This exhibition draws together work by three prominent artists from the Nordic region: Malfridur Aðalsteindóttir (Norway), Kristín Reynisdóttir (Iceland) and Barbara Ridland (Shetland).
PUBLIC OPENING: Friday 1 September, 6 - 7.30pm Everyone welcome 15
2017
Vivian Ross-Smith
Toby Paterson
Island Connections
The Pinwheel
21 January - 6 March
11 March - 23 April
Jeremy
Sutton-Hibbert
Barbara Ridland, Malfridur Aðalsteindóttir, Kristín Reynisdóttir
North Sea Fishing
Behind The North Wind
8 July - 27 August
2 September - 15 October
PUBLIC OPENING: 20 January, 6pm
PUBLIC OPENING: 10 March, 6pm
PUBLIC OPENING: 7 July, 6pm
PUBLIC OPENING: 1 September, 6pm 16
Jeanette Nowak, Aimee Labourne, Gillian Bridle, Vivian Ross Smith
Amy Gear
Traces
The Future
+300 artists from 5 Shetland Schools
29 April - 11 June
17 June - 2 July
Hairst
Maxie Bain
PUBLIC OPENING: 28 April, 6pm
PUBLIC OPENING: 16 June, 6pm
Contemporary art and craft
21 October - 12 November
18 November - 24 December
PUBLIC OPENING: 20 October, 6pm
PUBLIC OPENING: 17 November, 6pm 17
Bonhoga Craft
In addition to the main gallery at Bonhoga there are also dedicated spaces for the exhibition and sale of contemporary art and craft in the Lower Gallery and Shop area.
contemporary textiles and handmade silver jewellery, to quirky ceramics and a large selection of original prints. We change our craft displays on a regular basis to ensure each visit to Bonhoga offers something new and exciting.
There is always a wide range of craft and prints available from Shetland and the UK's finest artists and makers, from colourful
Bonhoga shop also stocks a selection of art and craft related books and gifts, artist cards and design led stationery.
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Bonhoga at Mareel
The retail space in Mareel features an ever-changing collection of design led gifts, stationery, cards and books. A new addition to the display and proving very popular with customers are the humorous, colourful ceramics of Hannah Turner. Bristol based Hannah exhibited her work many years ago at Bonhoga Gallery and we are delighted to have her back. We are particularly excited about the latest addition to her range, the puffin egg cups – we think they will fly out the door‌
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Mareel Long Wall July 2017
Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert
Shetland Klondykers In the early 1990’s, after Communism had collapsed, new economies were struggling in Eastern Europe. Huge processing ships were sent to Scottish waters to buy up the mackerel and herring catches, and take them back frozen or tinned to feed Bulgaria, Romania and the countries of the former Soviet bloc. Shetland’s shores were busy with these floating factories and the influx of workers had a marked impact on the local communities. It was a shortlived enterprise however, which came to an abrupt end after the sinking of three factory ships over a relatively short period.
Award-winning photographer Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert visited the isles in 1994 for two assignments to record this influx of Eastern European factory ships and their crews. Jeremy’s black and white images, reproduced on a large scale for this exhibition, are a fascinating insight into this period of time in Shetland. This work will be on show in this space for up to a year.