WALL DRA‘HINGS CLAUDE HEATH Blind faith
Claude Heath doesn‘t draw like other people. In the past, he has drawn unknown objects blindfolded, feeling his way around his subject with one hand while drawing it with the other. Nowadays. he is taking a different tack. but his technique for producing images of Ben Nevis for the exhibition at Sleeper is
similarly unconventional.
‘I’ve never actually been to Ben Nevis,’ Heath admits. “I've been drawing it from aerial photographs, viewing overlapping shots through a stereoscope. You are looking at something very flat, but then when you view it through this apparatus, it becomes a tangible thing. The drawings reflect that. They are dealing with what Ben Nevis, for example, would look like from ground level, by making an extrapolation from a looking down perspective to a drawing of a
side-on perspective.‘
As with his earlier blindfolded work, Heath draws sight-unseen. never taking his eyes off the stereoscope. These drawings are then used as preparatory sketches for wall paintings in the gallery, and again Heath subverts usual
modes of practice.
‘The technique I use for wall drawings is pretty simple,‘ he says. ‘l'm trying to transcribe the drawing, but instead of reproducing the original marks exactly, I’m trying to replace the original with sets of other marks. A yellow line might
become a series of dots, for example.’
While the final work is three degrees of separation away from the subject. the aim is to approach a truthful depiction, as true, at least, as a sketch made in the shadow of the mountain without Heath's self-imposed sensory constraints.
‘lt’s about trying to get away from a self-conscious need to make images,‘ he says. ‘To relinquish control, and let the image and the object meet halfway. It‘s hard to put into words, but I’m trying to exclude a part of myself to get at
something more truthful.’
This tweaking of the natural order of the senses, obscuring to reveal, rests on old ideas, not least Daoist philosophy, and raises questions analogous to those identified by Plato in his allegory of the cave. For Heath, a philosophy graduate himself, the work is not to be seen as an investigation of ideas.
‘l'm not trying to put any philosophical idea into practice,‘ he says. ‘The original impetus doesn’t come from scepticism about what’s real and what’s not. It's a remote exploration of a place that I haven’t actually been to, more of a walk around the subject than a definitive statement about it.’
Whatever Heath's aims are, however unfamiliar his practice may seem, he's sure to reveal a view of Ben Nevis unlike any you’ve seen before.
(Jack Mottram)
I Sleeper. 22:3 8444, l I Aug—5 Sep. free.
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Artist impression of Wonderland
SCULPTURAL lNSTALLATlON WONDERLAND
Walking in a winter wonderland
Imagine a Winter landscape in the middle of the city . . . in summer. For two and half weeks during the Festival, Randolph Crescent Gardens WI“ get an extraordinary makeover. The green lawn, plants and trees WI” all disappear from view. In its place. artists Catherine Melin and Lumir Soukup will be covering the grass and wrapping the tree trunks With a semi- transparent white material. It WI” be as though snow had fallen in Summer. “We are trying to create an alternative City space.’ says Lumir SOukup. 'We are taking an existing City space and are transforming it into something completely different but a space that still speaks abetit Randolph Crescent and the City'
In this collaboration hetu-xeen aifist in-re8idence at the Institut liaricais d'Ecosse and artist landscape architect Ltlliiir Souktit). the iifll‘lli‘ifitl‘, transformation uses very siin; )le means to Create a dramatic effect. If‘.(: material is an eco-friendly horticultuiai fleece and the electro luminescent wire \Vl” ensure a very different result by night.
‘We wanted to create a complete blank in the middle of the city‘ says Soukup. ‘lt's almost like putting Tippex down on a large part of a central Edinburgh space. We can't tctal, erase what's there but what we zi'i: domg is plaCIng one landscape “in top of another and at the sante time (were is dialogue between those two landscapes.‘
Altering the eXisting landscape encourages the Viewer to look at things differently. playing on people's natural curiosity. lt forces us to conSider the space as it was and how different it has become.
“The Outcome of the final piece is still unknown] says Soukup. “Because we are working with a ten, ner. Y"£l’.(:ll£tl. we have dene all the tests that we can but at every stage in the i:i;>jt>;t we are taking artistic risks. If 1.0.; we :1; to innovate. yOu've got to take a certain amount of risks'
Let‘s hope the risks have paid of". (Helen Monaghani I Rando/ph Crescent Garner‘s front of lnst/tut France/s D'Etiasse . 225 5366. 9—29 Aug. free.
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Sunny Blunts by Toby Paterson
-, THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 83