Art. But not as I know it

Son #1 took me to the Edinburgh College of Art today to see the degree show. His girlfriend, Rachael Bibby, has just done her Masters and you can check out her stuff here. It was quite a change from her usual portraits but I liked her ’spiritual’ theme.

As for some of the other stuff… some of it was just too weird for me. The pie chart pouffee showing death in Scotland was cute but needed a little more explanation. Loved the man-baby which was the spitting image of Son #1 so had to be bought. It was reminiscent of Ron Mueck. Thought the black feather pile would have been better had it been breathing.  Cute puffin/people wall paper. And then there was just some very weird stuff.

Heh, everyone’s a critic.

Still Doubting

Art exhibition

Wanna buy some art from up and coming artists at good prices before they get really famous? Well get along to:

Understudy Events
presents
Black Tie
An Evening of Artistic Entertainment

An exhibition and sale of works by young Scottish artists on the theme ‘Black Tie’
Friday 8th August from 7pm until 9pm
Also open from 12pm until 6pm on Sat 9th

St George’s School for Girls, Garscube Terrace, Edinburgh.

Refreshments will be served throughout.

Information:
lauren@understudyevents.com
or phone: 07745 856490

(And yes, I know I’m meant to be on holiday – and boy, do I have a tale to tell on my official return – but Son #1, who doesn’t get mentioned often in Blogland, begged me to advertise this as his girlfriend Rachel is exhibiting.)

Chernobyl art

Here is the painting I was telling you about. It is by a 15 year old girl, I think, who studies at the Minsk School of Art. Her name is K Shimanovich – perhaps Katya. All money raised goes to buy them more paintbrushes and printing materials, something they lack. Isn’t it gorgeous?

More art

Yesterday Son #1 and I went to Edinburgh Art College’s end of year exhibition. We saw some weird and wonderful things but I’m afraid I am just too old-school to really appreciate that some were indeed art. Does nobody paint pictures of people, that look like people, anymore?

A couple stick in my mind, but I’m sorry I didn’t note the names of the artists.

One man did the most fascinating miniature ink on paper pictures. You needed a magnifying glass to see them properly and they were really unbelievable. How did he do it? One was of a class of school pupils and was about 1 square inch.

A woman did some great Beryl Cook-like characters. They were the closest thing to reality that we found.

And Son #1’s friend has some pretty good paintings of abstract faces. I could have lived with some of them on my wall, but a bit too pricey for me.

A bit too much of Tracy Emin’s influence for my liking. Does modern art work for you?

Ron Mueck

Took a couple of hours out yesterday to go and see the Ron Mueck exhibition at the National Gallergy. You can see some of the stuff here:
http://www.artmolds.com/ali/halloffame/ron_muek.htm

It was not what I thought Fr Kelvin and I were going to see but I am glad we did nonetheless. It was quite an incredible collection of sculptures and well worth a visit.

We saw a big baby, a big woman in bed, a big girl/woman, a big wild man, a big face and a big black face of undetermined gender.

We also saw a small baby, a small man in a big boat, a small spooning couple, and a small pair of women gossipping.

We came to the conclusion that they all had the look of Episcopalians except for the women gossipping. Not sure about them but one of them was surely CofS and I reckon the other was RC. (That sounds as if we thought Piskies don’t gossip but that was not the case – they just didn’t looklike Piskies). And we didn’t decide on the babies.

However, we managed to come up with some pretty convincing stories about them all and what fun that was. But it was not exactly a fun exhibition – there was a lot of sadness in those faces.

A wee bit of culture

Popped in to the National Gallery this week for a bit of culture. You may remember that when I returned to Edinburgh I had great plans to go to the theatre, cinema, and art galleries. So far I have been to the cinema once, the art gallery once and haven’t managed the theatre at all.

But I was happy to see that the Scottish section had my faves on display again: John Duncan’s St Bride and Phoebe Traquair’s The Progress of a Soul. Also spotted a lovely painting of Rosslyn Chapel which I hadn’t seen before, but I can’t remember the artist.

There was also a small exhibition of Rembrandt’s religious drawings.

But why oh why did the shop not have postcards of any of my favourites? I couldn’t see anything in the shop on the Rembrandt exhibition. Bad marketing there.

I did notice that there was also an exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe. I hadn’t heard of him and didn’t have time to explore so missed what I have been told might have been a very interesting exhibition. So it looks like I may be going back with a certain fellow blogger some time soon.

And just to finish off this arty blog… when I was in the Cornerstone I noticed a calendar (of lighthouses) by the Scottish artist Jolomo. I am not normally a great lover of modern art, and I suppose that is what he does, but I do love his use of colour and the energy in his art. I have a friend who has a penchant for lighthouses and I was going to send it to her but she appears to have moved and I know not where. So, I might just have to keep it myself!

Gauguin’s vision

On holiday this week and was meant to go away but that has been put on hold as my mum was rushed into hospital with a suspected heart attack. Tempted to lie around all day catching up on reading but I know from experience that if I do that I won’t feel as if I’ve had a holiday. So today I went into Edinburgh to get some culture. Ha!

First of all the traffic was hellish. Nose to tail all the way in to town. Weather forecast was cloudy with rain – so we got sweltering heat. Walked along Princes Street dodging foreign tourists all suddenly stopping and gazing heavenward like they’ve never seen a castle before.

The National Gallery had an exhibition on called Gauguin’s Vision and it seemed to contain some religious pieces so I decided it would be worth forking out the £6.50 entrance fee. How mistaken I was. There were about 3 Gauguin’s and a few others from contemporaries, with a couple on the theme of somebody wrestling with an angel. Oh, and Breton hats featured heavily. All in 3 small rooms and pretty disappointing. I hope that visitors didn’t think that this was all we have to offer.

Wandered off to have a look around the rest of the gallery and found out to my disappointment that my favourite painting is not on show (John Duncan’s St Bride). Come on folks! Get the Scottish artists out when we have all these visitors.

One good thing – the gallery shop had a sale on and lots of stuff with Phoebe Traquair’s ‘The Progress of a Soul’ so I bought a new mouse mat and a journal.

Wandered round the Craft Fair, met Cat Outram and her sketches, and then came home. It occurred to me that if I put my mind to it I could produce some artwork just as good as some of those I saw. Maybe I shall do that this holiday.