Whitespace Exhibition

My recent exhibition at the Whitespace Gallery was a show involving myself and Roz McKenzie. The work was a mixture of drawings, painting and contemporary stained glass. To see more of Roz's work click on the link above.. 

Roz's stained glass panels were in lightboxes which we built ourselves and hung on a particular wall of the gallery to get the right level of light (direct light from strip lights on the panels would have ruined the effect).

                                     

My work mostly involved drawings but included the watercolours and oil painting hung on this particular wall. The big painting is titled 'Arsenic Mine' and is based on drawings and photographs I took in Cornwall of abandoned arsenic mines which ran down to the cliff edges. I have previous posts on this blog and my other website. The watercolours were looking at 10 Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament. I was interested in the odd way in which these places represented the heart of our 'democracy' while at the same time looking like a cage. I found the image of tourists staring at fairly mundane scenes through bars at the police officers within like some sort of bizarre zoo. 

More hanging Roz's stained glass panels.

These small drawings took up the last wall of the gallery, they were all drawings I have done in-situ. They are mostly from the various places I have been in the previous year - Wells, Erfurt and paderborn. These drawings represent a sort of travelogue of my travels.

Downing Street/Parliament watercolours with reflections.

Redruth and the world of tomorrow...

Having just finished my last exhibition at the Whitespace gallery and I am now in the process of making work for the next one I am having in June. This exhibition will be quite an exciting event involving artists from a wide variety of countries and backgrounds/styles. Watch this space for more info...

As part of my proposal I plan to show a quadriptych of paintings with the each showing a different aspect of the others paintings in some respect. I am examining what I think of large scale utopian dreams with the often harsh reality of these movements. The obvious ones being nazism, communism and 60s building programmes. 

Despite this I am an idealist! I love both the run down gritty side of the city but also find the architecture of various utopian dreams fascinating as well.

To this end I am painting the images below as part of the series of 4:

Redruth, Cornwall. This image is a painting of a building that stood next to the main station in Redruth, in a twist of fate the building apparently no longer exists. I like the idea that my painting shows a ghost image of what was and that in the duration of painting this it ceased to exist.. With this image I am looking at the anomalies that exists within a culture such as our own in Britain, at once vastly wealthy and yet deprivation and ruin still exists. A non-utopian ideal.

'The world of a past-present, today', collaged imagery. This painting is taking various images and collaging them together. In this picture I am looking at the utopian ideal of clean lines, straight buildings and huge plazas. But even in this image I am looking at creating a sense of unease, the image is empty - no people or any nature either. And the building could just as easily be a prison as a modernist housing block.

The sky was an important element for me in this painting - lifting the eye above the area at the bottom of the painting but also heightening the sense of emptiness of the city. 

I hope to show these paintings plus 2 more and one large piece (space permitting!) in the next exhibition.

Exhibition at the Whitespace Gallery Edinburgh

I am having an exhibition at the Whitespace Gallery in Edinburgh from the 10th till the 15th March. It will be open daily between 11am and 4pm. The opening is on the 10th and drinks will be served! We hope to see you along, the address us 11 Gayfield Square, Edinburgh, EH1 3NT.

Below are examples of some of the works to be exhibited:

The Tin Mine

I finished the Cornish Tin mine painting a couple of weeks ago, thought I would post the results on here. After some painstaking dot action I was able to complete the grassy foreground area. I was most pleased with the (subtle) results. No one will probably even notice the dots, I am however quite happy to know they are there and that there are literally hundreds of them. Next painting I do it on I should really keep a count and mark it somewhere on the canvas.. Anyway here are some pics:

This is the whole painting, my normal camera lens went haywire so I used another camera. After 5 years it has lasted surprisingly long, especially considering the bashes it took. Anyway hence the vignetting on the image. I added in a few details - the shadows and the moon. This was to add some more dimension to the painting.

Dots in the sky, dots on the ground...

I was back in Cornwall recently and was within a stones throw of the site this painting represents. It was interesting to go back and see the area again after over a year.

The moon and shadows.

Scratching the Surface... Part 2!

The second part of our exhibition Scratching the Surface took place at the Arts Complex in St Margarets House, near Meadowbank Stadium Edinburgh. This exhibition showcased smaller works (in the case of Allan and Scott) compared to the last exhibition.

I used it as an opportunity to show works on copper previously exhibited, as well as a new painting on copper.

A view of one of the walls showing works by (from left to right) Allan, Scott, Allan, me, Scott and Allan. The works by Allan are mostly watercolour on prints and Scotts are acrylic on canvas. My painting is oil and enamel on copper. The size of the space was unexpected however it did give us an opportunity to spread the work out more.

A view of the wall on which I hung my copper pieces with a work by Allan (far left) and works by Scott (second from right) and Allan (far right).

Another shot of the space with my works and various works by Allan, Scott and myself.

Works by Allan (far left), myself, Scott, Allan and Scott again (far right).

Various works by Allan and Scott on the walls of the gallery. The space was both interesting and tricky in displaying art works as it had been previously an office, therefore the walls were both long and very bitty.

Works by Scott (left), Allan (middle) and Scott (right).

The main space of the gallery which was very light, being on the third floor.

Another shot of the works by Scott (left), Allan (middle) and Scott (right).

Scratching the Surface

Images of my recent exhibition at the Patriothall Gallery in Stockbridge, Edinburgh entitled 'Scratching the Surface'

This is a body of work I produced for the exhibition, a series of 22 small scale works on wood. Each looked at the city from the often distorting and surprising angle of looking upwards. I used a variety of Media on each, individual images can be seen on my new website soon to be updated (links to which will be posted on here).

An image showing two works I made (Left and Centre) using copper leaf and patenation with various chemicals as well as oil paint and spray paint. The work to the right is by Allan Robertson, a fellow exhibitor (more of whose work can be seen at http://www.allanjrobertson.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/).

A view of the second room of the exhibition showing works by Allan Robertson (two paintings on the right) and Scott McCracken.

Two paintings by Scott McCracken (more of whose work can be seen on his website at http://www.scottmccracken.co.uk/)

A view of the main room of the gallery showing the view opposite my own paintings.

The exhibition was a great success, as the first one I have had since coming back from Germany and graduating. I hope to produce more works for a joint/collaborative show coming up in November as well as Scratching the Surface Part two at the end of March.

EXHIBITION : Patriothall/Arts Com?lex

I am having an exhibition in two parts, at the Patriothall Gallery in Stockbridge, Edinburgh. The first part will show new paintings, the second part in the Arts Com?lex near Meadowbank Stadium, Edinburgh will showcase drawings and studies.

Exhibition Statement : 

Scratching the Surface is an exhibition of work by three Edinburgh based artists presented in two parts. These exhibitions bring together Scott McCracken, Andrew Smith and Allan Robertson who all work within the medium of painting.  Each artist has his own motivations and observations, but they are united in their appreciation and practice of paint’s materiality and the possibilities of painting as a contemporary medium.  The first exhibition will be hosted at the Patriothall Gallery in Stockbridge and will show recent paintings by the artists.  The second exhibition will take place at Arts Complex at St Margarets House and will showcase recent drawings, prints and smaller works.

Artists Statement:

Andrew Smith's recent work has been a continuing evolution of previous years' paintings looking at the city in the context of civil liberties and notions of how society is sculpted. Andrew's paintings are representations that are realistic, blending into abstracted forms of the city from the distorted perspectives. I am interested in the strata of society, how this is manifested, be it visually or in a more subtle manner and questioning it through a visual means. The human environment, that is to say one that humans have specifically and systematically sculpted, has been a particularly strong theme that permeates through my work. What interests me about these environments is both their psychological effect and the social/ideological issues that they establish as well as the layers of history they reflect.


~~~ Look forward to seeing you there!