THE ART OF HUMOUR - putting together the show

How do artists use humour? A year ago this appeared to be a simple and original brief for an art exhibition.  I had already curated well-received shows on drawing and the word in art. Humour, I foolishly thought, was mostly a soft thing, a sugar pill to make life better. I envisaged sheep on stilts, rocket dog, cartoons of cats and other funny animals. This would be an exhibition to cheer people up in hard times. It would be entertainment like a classic Hollywood film, Errol Flynn slapping his thighs with a grin. But something more interesting and more human has appeared. Humour is the sugar pill that lets us look at life… and death.

A big misconception about art is that it looks to the future, creating the world that will be. It doesn’t. Good art is a looking glass to its time, reflecting back what is important. Picasso painted modern paintings that reflected the angst and change of the 20th century. Hieronymus Bosch did the same for a time where religion, death and the afterlife were never far away. And humour? Without it their work would be almost forgotten.

A Pessimist in Heaven - Alan Macdonald - oil on linen - 107cm x 119cm

I asked how do our contemporary artists use humour and what are they reflecting? I ignored Saatchi artists, with their cult of personality and penchant for found objects, for I don’t think that is art. That is art democratised to an extent where anyone can do it, and this is a joke that’s not funny. I was seeking skilled virtuosos on a journey, looking for something profound, and I had to ask myself ‘is that funny?’

First up for the humour test were dogs cobbled together from ladies’ leather boots, called ‘well-heeled bitches’ by the Cornwall based artist David Kemp. Of course these are funny. And a chess-set made from scrap? The queen has three breasts, so Helen Denerley’s chess set goes into the show too.

Chess set by Helen Denerley

How about a kinemat? A sculpture that tells a story with mechanical monkeys pulling chains. I won’t reveal the end of its tale, but it had to go in. This work is by Eduard Bersudsky (of Sharmanka Theatre) and he will also lend us his powerful drawings made while surviving Soviet Russia. Much of his work will make you cry and laugh at the same time. He is an important world artist.

The show is looking to be very strong. Is a dead mummified cat and rat (cast in bronze) locked in an eternal ‘Dance of Death’ funny? It’s like a twisted but beautiful children’s tale and I had to trust my instinct and admit that I found it very amusing, in a troubling way.

And then I needed painters. Is a painting in the style of a Dutch master but with surreal undercurrents funny? It can be. The first paintings into the show were work by Alan Macdonald and I’ve put his oil of ‘A Pessimist in Hell’ onto the invitation. Pop–art and its newer sister Pop-Surrealism are by their nature amusing. To take a popular icon and change it in a way that is fun for the artist has to be good. Michael Forbes’ work went into the show. In the catalogue I put his piece where Elvis, a Burger King crown, and a skull are fused together. Another painting of Elvis, by Henry Fraser, became available and that had to go into the show too.

When people think of humour in art, they think of cartoons. Immediately, the incredible work of young artist Robert Powell sprung to mind. They’re not cartoons, but intricate ink drawings and etchings that take on the tradition of James Gillray and run with it, updating it for our century. We couldn’t miss out on the much-missed George Wyllie who died last year, so we will have some of his etchings too.

The Learning Machine - Robert Powell - 20cm x 15cm 

Blimey, I thought, looking at all the images and names on my desktop, that’s a lot of work by some of the most interesting artists around. This subject – the Art of Humour – has brought together a band of artist and a bounty of art that is far from just a sugar pill. It had become a unique collection of work, by artists that will be remembered. Humour filtered out something very special, an under-rated tool in the armoury of an artist. If you want to find out exactly what it can do, you will have to come to the exhibition and let the works tell their own funny stories.

Tony Davidson

Gallery Director

Kilmorack Gallery

+44 (0) 1463 783 230

tony@kilmorackgallery.co.uk
www.kilmorackgallery.co.uk

Review of current SAM CARTMAN exhibition

Many thanks to Georgina Coburn for her review of Sam Cartman's wonderful work currently showing at Kilmorack. The exhibition is called 'At the End of the Road' and it runs until the 13th June.

INSPIRED by Scottish and Italian landscapes, Sam Cartman’s first solo exhibition at Kilmorack Gallery represents a significant progression in the artist’s work to date.

THIS IS a show of absolute clarity in the skilled handling of paint, distillation of visual language and command of composition. Characteristically the relationship between elements of nature and human architecture create a sense of immediacy and tension, with linear draughtsmanship and gestural brushwork exquisitely balanced throughout. Moving more deeply into abstraction has arguably strengthened the artist’s composition, and there is new verve and dynamism in this latest body of work, taking Cartman’s practice to a whole new level.

Towards Glenshee

The artist’s acute understanding of the essential crafting of images through line, form, colour and texture is resoundingly evident. Driven by paint handling and with the element of design less consciously visible than in earlier work, formal elements of structural deliberation become fully integrated with the most articulate and subtle handling of paint. Bold planar treatment of oil on board, strong lines and a magnificently controlled palette are tempered by a variation of mark that can only be fully appreciated in viewing the original work. Cartman draws the eye and mind of the viewer into the image with remarkable consistency, a confident rhythm which is sensed and felt from the smallest scale work to the largest in the exhibition.

Towards Glenshee (Oil on board) is a beautiful example of finely tuned pictorial, structural and human elements within the landscape. A pure, bold expanse of aqua sky, undulating interlocking hills and geometric forms are punctuated by singularly decisive marks of russet. Warm accents of colour, typically rust, ochre or flashes of vibrant orange sit in contrast with a predominantly cool, contemplative palette. This restrained use of colour gives Cartman’s work a distinctive edge.

In Towards Glenshee the striking crescent of white feels like a signature and a sense of unexpected depth is created by larger forms in the far left foreground receding into a curvature of seeing and perceiving the landscape. On closer inspection the plane of sky reveals gentle stippling of paint, this together with areas such as a triangle of fluid layers in blue, green and smeared charcoal, encourage consideration of the qualities of the medium from flattened almost industrial treatment to delicate stains. Allowing the white ground to emerge beneath the horizon line creates an impression of luminous, Northern light often glimpsed behind a curtain of sky or dense seemingly immovable cloud. Human dwellings are suggested but largely subsumed in a complex arrangement of abstracted form. It is the feeling of pure blue that immediately draws the viewer and like a great piece of music the underpinning structure of the composition is seamless in its execution.

Usan Diptych

The large scale Usan Diptych is another superb example, an expanse of sky and scattered semi industrial/residential buildings that brings the eye masterfully to the centre of two equally balanced halves. The imprint of palette knife and roller in a geometric cascade create unexpected nuances in the dominant sky; comprised of two blue variations separated by a jagged band of white ground emerging from beneath the painted surface. The loose treatment of the foreground, opaque or stained pigment and animated gestural marks cleverly add to the viewer’s sense of perspective, while the sparing use of eye catching warm colour: ochre, yellow, russet and orange, placed with the utmost precision and instinct, achieve a perfectly balanced composition. In his Single Panel Tryptich Cartman presents a complex arrangement of interlocking man made architectural and semi organic forms testing the structural and compositional boundaries of the image. This exploration of the picture plane, paint quality, density and mark, allows the artist to create a multi-layered response to humankind in the environment.

Temple 5

Temple 5 is a fascinating work in the suggested relationship between human architecture and nature. The jutting apex of the building suggests a stark purity of intent and aspiration in its heightened perspective. The sharply defined vanishing point adds to the sense of human presence in the landscape; the outline of stone walls, tiny darkened window and shaded solidity contrasted with the more ephemeral smears of charcoal and ever present blue/grey sky. Delicate textures of drizzled turpentine and a light touch of ochre path invite closer inspection while sharp geometric accents of purple and linear orange trace the eye’s movement to the horizon line.

Castle Road

Stylistic contrast in works such as Castle Road where drafted, precise lines of architecture and tonal definition meet fluid paint handling and pure abstraction are convincingly balanced in visual counterpoint. This dynamic between design and spontaneous mark is exemplified in the reaction between pigment and board creating a shifting sky of bled ultramarine in Roccasecca. Here the white architectural façade of the building is juxtaposed with liquefied sky. Sharp linear perspective guides the eye into the image but it is colour and paint density that governs our emotional response to the image.

Outpost

Another highlight of the exhibition is Outpost, an image divided by a serpentine line between foreground and mid-ground. To the left of the composition, hard-edged abandoned structures in greyish blue and black contrast with large boulders, stones and viscerally sketched grass in ochre, tinged green, russet and orange. Treatment of the sky is poetically distilled and immediately tactile, stained grey beneath white, with a curvature of thickened paint bringing movement of cloud to the profound stillness and isolation of the scene. Human habitation and its figurative absence in Cartman’s compositions remains poised and enigmatic, an eternal dance between natural and human marks in the landscape. Throughout this latest body of work the artist delivers a sustained and potent exploration of the plastic elements of image making and his chosen subject, creating finely balanced compositions of expansive depth and insight.

© Georgina Coburn, 2013

World Book Day - Art and the Word

Today is World Book Day, a celebration of all things written across the globe.  The relationship between writing and art is a complex but ever present one. The two have been entwined since man first put pigment to wall in the cave.  He was, after all, telling a story .

Kilmorack Gallery artists are a literary bunch.  A few years back, Tony curated a show on Art and the Word.  The artworks that arrived in hanging week were like a secret window to the bedside tables of each artist.

Nacht (night)

Alan McGowan

compressed charcoal and mixed media

But, ah, this prison has my soul,

Damnable, bricked-in, cabined hole,

Where even the heaven’s dear light must pass

Saddened through the painted glass

Hemmed in with stacks of books am I,

Where works the worm with dusty manage,

While in the vaulted roof on high

The smoky ranks of papers range:

Goethe’s Faust

Alan McGowan chose Faust as his inspiration.  Using Goethe's dark, powerful words, he created paintings in his own language, that of charcoal and paint.  For those of you who  saw these paintings, I'm sure you will recall the sheer power created when words and visuals joined forces.  Like all good paintings, a digital image only tells half the story, but it's better than no story at all.  We still have enquires about those paintings today.

Henry Fraser's work often has words in the painting itself, scratched into the painted surface like whispers.  Spending time with the paintings you forget they are there until something jogs your memory, perhaps the words come in from another source and you remember them, or one day you just look deeper.

The relationship between words and painting can be harder to see on the surface, or it can be more manifest.  Peter White's book - titled just to the bare minimum - has blank pages, and while Peter might be inspired by a certain poem or set of words while painting, he leaves the pages blank, like the title, for you to fill with your own interpretation.

I remember Lotte Glob's ceramic books that she wrote secret words on and then threw into the sea.  We will never know what was written on the brittle pages, and as they return to sand at the bottom of the sea, the words will fade in memory.

This April we will have an exhibition on the theme of humour.  Artists working with humour are harder to come by than those who use writing, though we have amassed an interesting selection so far.  Tony is soon to arrive in the gallery with a new artist's work he has just been to visit.  Robert Powell is a young, Edinburgh based artist, who first caught my attention with an obscure literary reference.

At university, studying Scottish literature, I wrote my dissertation on the many artistic collaborations of the poet George Mackay Brown.  A phrase lifted from one of his letters comes to mind today: 'The arts have a lot to give to each other.'

Ruth Tauber,
Gallery Manager

Northern Romantic Painting for the 21st Century

In 'Northern Romanticism,' nature is both awesome and sublime. In the northern romantic mind, there are truths older than industry and science. A romantic artist looks for a place to bond with the elements. In Scottish literature Northern Romanticism is central to the work of James Macpherson (Ossian myths,) Walter Scott and many others. In painting, during the Victorian era it was associated with Balmoral-esque painters like Landseer (Monarch of the Glen.) But what of the 21st century Scottish painting? Industry, art and tastes are unimaginably different from one-hundred and fifty years ago; but nature is still just as awesome and sublime. Here are ten Northern Romantic paintings from our vaults at Kilmorack Gallery.


David Cook - Violent Sea
In 'Violent Sea' David Cook gets close to the dangerous and seductive power of nature. Like a true northern romantic, he lives and works from an isolated studio with no phone, computer or car. It is an aesthetic life, giving his work romantic and shamanic qualities. 

Violent Sea - David Cook - 52cm x 62cm - £2,500

Allan MacDonald - birches, in a time of shadows, 2012
This is a big painting. It surrounds you with energies; the distant vibrating moon, ghostly birch trees and a dance between light and shadow. You can almost walk into it. This is a world where we know something to be true, because we feel it with all our senses. It confirms the sublime.

birches, in a time of shadows - oil on canvas - 137cm x 183cm - £7,000

Kirstie Cohen - Arcus, 2012
You let the power of nature swaddle you in a Northern Romantic painting. You should be engulfed in the vastness of the sky and the land. Cohen paintings do this with surprising abstraction, and a richness that comes the layers of oil paint. 

Arcus - Kirstie Cohen - oil on canvas - 110cm x 140cm - £5,000

Allan MacDonald - Island of Dun, St Kilda, 2004
This is a painting from a series of works painted after a trip to the remote St Kilda islands (2004.) Sea and the elements surrounded the islanders before they abandoned their home in the 1930s. This captures MacDonald's work from this period. The paint is thicker, and the whole feel darker but yet the whole painting is somehow uplifting.

Island of Dun - oil on canvas - 120cm x 180cm - £5,000

Pat Semple - Summer, Orkney, 2011
Pat Semple draws on influences that go beyond the might of nature alone. There is an inner dialogue too; about memories, of people and places, and poetic visions. These come together to give her work extra punch.

Summer, Orkney - Pat Semple - oil on canvas - 80cm x 140cm - £6,500

Lotte Glob - Book of the Land

Poetry and painting can be northern romantic, and so can sculpture. This is a Lotte Glob book, made from material gathered by the artist on her long walks; and assembled to enclose secrets. In nature, there is always a page to be turned.

Lotte Glob - book of the land

Sarah Carrington - Sea Grasses and Rocks, Low Tide, Iona
The sublime power of nature is not always best caught using heavy oil paints. Sometimes it is a lighter thing. Every mark in Sarah Carrington's 'Sea Grasses and Rock' has a purpose.

Sea Grasses and Rocks, Low Tide, Iona - mixed media - 59cm x 84cm

Lizzie Rose - Hebridean Lines
When any painting is distilled down, there is space and lines. In a northern romantic landscape this becomes strange geometries that capture the vastness of the landscape. They are an antidote to industry. Sometimes what at first seems simple, turns out to be complex. This is the key to a Lizzie Rose painting.

Hebridean Lines - acrylic and pencil - 34cm x 33cm - £450

David Cook - Harvest
The natural world of the northern romantic artist is not just storms and majestic hills. Here is the sun and wheat fields, a harvest. Nature can be kind too. 
  

Harvest - David Cook - oil on board - 122cm x 122cm - £4,900

Jane MacNeill - October Meadow, Feshie
Jane MacNeill is known best for shamanic creatures and angels, but a romantic relationship with the landscape is clear from her latest works. Here, in 'October Meadow, Feshie,' we see a mountain and a field, and we see something else too, something awe-inspiring glowing in her paint.  

October Meadow, Feshie - oil on board - 56cm x 50cm - £740

What is Romanticism really? All great works of art look beyond technique and the titillation's of paint. Within the frame is a view of our world, or, even better, a view of something special in our world. It is a quest for magic. 

What art would you have?

People are always amazed to see the huge number of works of all sizes, both on our walls and in the vaults at Kilmorack; and everyday I get asked the question 'what would you have on your walls at home?' It's a difficult question to answer. All good art-dealers show work they love, by artists they believe in and I am no different. It is like asking 'who is your favourite child?' In this case I have around a thousand offspring. Here's my today's top ten favourites (in no particular order.) It will be different next month. 

Peter White: Book
I would have Peter White’s book because of its meditative qualities. There is a calm in his technique that brings your eye back to his work, to be drunk-in like a soul tonic. I have hung many works by Peter White and they always look good. I like this because it’s a book too. more on Peter White

Book - Peter White - 58cm x 122cm - £3,500

Helen Denerley: Molly Dogs drawing
This is a working drawing for one of Helen Denerley dog sculptures and there are the scuffs of the studio on it. I love it because it shows the fluency of Denerley’s lines and her understanding of how a dog moves and sits. In August we have a solo show of her work: Negative Space - life between the lines. It’s one to put in your diaries. more on Helen Denerley

Molly Dogs - charcoal on paper - 48cm x 63cm - £500

Eugenia Vronskaya: My Reflection with Yellow Apples

I love the warm yellow apple paint and the repetition of form in this painting, and the way we are pulled to the self-portrait at the back. These are wonderful techniques but there is also a poetry in the mystery of its composition. It is Vronskaya at her best. more on Eugenia Vronskaya 

My Reflection with Yellow Apples - oil on canvas - 51cm x 60cm - £2,400

Allan MacDonald: Summer Ullinish Skye

This Allan MacDonald painting has a freshness that isn't often seen in landscape painting. MacDonald's paint, like the summer it depicts, is bursting with life. The bright underpainting can be seen in places and this lifts it further. Another reason I would have this, escpecially at this time of year, is because it is so summery. more on Allan MacDonald

Summer, Ullinish Skye - oil on canvas - 48cm x 74cm - £2,100

Gerald Laing: Winged Figure from Axis Mundi (1990)

This sculpture was designed to be outside, originally as part of a bigger public sculpture in Edinburgh (this is the uppermost of four figures.) I would put it on a big boulder on the lawn or have it hidden in a private grotto. Nature and Gerald Laing's figurative work from this period are perfect together. more on Gerald Laing

Winged Figure from Axis Mundi - bronze 3m high aprox, 1990 POA

Henry Fraser: Joshua's Return

I would have this painting because it looks suspiciously like the artist. It shows the determined isolation needed to make good work. As an artist you must be able to make your mark and be proud of it. My knowlege of the old testament isn't great, but I guess Joshua must have had these qualities. more on Henry Fraser

Joshua's Return - acrylic on board - 122cm x 92cm -  £3,600

Gerald Laing: Belshazzar's Feast

This screenprint is after Gerald Laing's return to pop art before his death in 2011. Laing's inspiration was to reshow archetypal classical stories with contemporary characters. This is Belshazzar's Feast with Amy Winehouse. I love it as an iconic image and would easily hang it in my kitchen or dining room. more on Gerald Laing

Belshazzar's Feast - Gerald Laing - screenprint - 85cm x 122cm - £2,880 unframed

Jane MacNeill: Birkana

The strength in Jane MacNeill's work comes out of its quietness. Many layers of paint are put on (and then sanded off) to create a feeling of being between worlds. This is more than just an illustration of a birch tree (birkana.) more on Jane MacNeill

Birkana - Jane MacNeill - oil on board - 25cm x 30cm - £560

Alan Macdonald: A Song to the Sea

I can't think of any contemporary artist in Scotland like Alan Macdonald. He is a master of adding layers and stories to his paintings, adding to their unsolvable riddles. This one is more simple than most, but it still leaves me pleasantly haunted. more on alan macdonald

Song to the Sea - Alan Macdonald - oil on board - 41cm x 25cm - £2,400

Alan McGowan: Two Skeletons

I like this Alan McGowan painting, for it captures a wildness present in his recent work. Here he looks beyond flesh and skin (which as a lecurer in anatomical painting, he knows better than any other artist) into other aspects of being human. It's also an interesting image. more on alan mcgowan

Two Skeletons - Alan McGowan - 25cm x 87cm - mixed media - £1,000

As for my other 990 children... I love them too.

Tony Davidson

Gallery Director

Kilmorack Gallery

+44 (0) 1463 783 230

tony@kilmorackgallery.co.uk

Sam Cartman March Exhibition

Sam Cartman
At the End of the Road

Kilmorack's big March exhibition this year is a solo show of new work by Sam Cartman. He calls it 'At the End of the Road.' This is a place, often remote, that sticks in the mind. It is where man encroaches on nature (and nature on man) and where dreams are hatched (or come to an end.)

Poltalloch 5 - oil on board - 54cm x 74cm

  
I first saw Cartman's work at the Nairn Art Show where he took first prize. Gerald Laing, who was on the selection committee, was enthusing about his work too. The little painting entered by Cartman glowed with sumptious paint work, an interesting abstracted composition and another rare indefinable quality. One of Cartman's techniques is his use of large and important areas of colour. These lift the painting up, giving it space, and are formed from great painterly marks. These larger areas remind me of the 'bigness' of nature, the sky and the land. There are also areas of more detailed marks; the bridges, roads and walls or another aspect of nature. They are subtle, like a dream that's hard to hold onto.

Cartman has lived and worked in Glasgow for over eight years, and has exhibited extensively since he graduated from Cumbria College of Art in 2001. 

'At the End of the Road' previews on Friday 15th March and runs until the 13th April.

Sam Cartman

Great art under £500

One good thing about recession is that art is now relatively affordable. It costs over £100 to fill up the car with petrol and 50p for a second class stamp, both of which vanish into a black hole an instant, but you can still buy art which will endure. Here's some great bargains currently in the gallery for under £500.

Helen Fay - etching - 21.5cm x 16cm - £245 framed

Helen Fay's etchings are popular across the UK and beyond. They're fun and of a wonderful quality, especially her set of Penguins. This is 'Attention' and it only costs £245 framed. 

Lotte Glob - cylinder i - ceramic - £250

For Under £500 you can get two vases by Lotte Glob. Danish born Lotte Glob has been on of the most remarkable figures in Scottish art since the 1970s, arguably with a closer relationship to the norther landscape than any other Scottish artists. She also has a vast international following. Here's one of her cylinder vases - £250

It's even possible to pick-up one of Allan MacDonald's paintings for £500. This is just after he one a major prize at the Discerning Eye exhibition in London. Here's a small sea painting which can be yours framed for £500. A similar but larger sister painting to the Discerning Eye's prize winner is a bit more more, but is still a great buy at £1,300 including hand finished frame. 

Allan MacDonald - High Tide, Lentran13cm x 18cm - £500

Allan MacDonald - Black Cuillins, White Cuillins
36cm x 46cm - £1,300

Madeline MacKay '- Curlew
lithograph - 50cm x 50cm - £365

Madeline MacKay's etchings have the timeless quality that exists in all the best art works. Here is her lithograph 'Curlew.' MacKay is a new graduate from Duncan of Jordanstone (Dundee) Art School, but her work is already being noticed.

Robert McAulay - 'Rugged Red 6' - 11cm x 60cm - £550 

This is a lovely little Robert McAulay painting. It's just over £500 but worth the extra little bit.

Lizzie Rose - 'Flower Lines' 44cm x 44cm

'Flower Lines' by Lizzie Rose. There's a great intensity of line and a dynamic feeling, but it still costs only £460. She's a fantastic artist. 

Peter White - bowl iv - 13cm x 13cm - £430

I always enjoy hanging work by Peter White. There's a quiet beauty and amazing surface. We've shown his work for over fifteen years and he has developed a large and loyal following... the perfect Christmas present and this one is £430. We've got a fantastic large book too.   

Jane MacNeill - 'The Blue Hour' - 22cm x 28cm   £240

 'The Blue Hour' by Jane MacNeill. There is always an other-worldliness in MacNeill's work - part our tangible world and part something else. It's snip at £240.

Sam Cartman - 'Usan Study' - 22cm x 28cm - £500

One of the gallery's solo shows next year is of Sam Cartman's work. Here's 'Usan Study.' It's a little oil. One of Cartman's great strengths is his engaging empty spaces and qualities of paint. This little one is £500. 

If you have a budget bigger than £500.... well how about a lifesize crocodile by Helen Denerley or the Winged Figure from Gerald Laing's 'Axis Mundi' or even Alan Macdonald's 'The Carriage of Figaro?'

Gerald laing - Winged Figure from Axis Mundi - POA

Helen Denerley - Crocodile - lifesize - POA

Alan Macdonald - The Carraige of Figaro'
oil on board - 44cm x 122cm