All'l’ REVIEW the Open lormat seems a good
BEES!- mm“,Wounmmm
srnEEr LEVEL OPEN "it'lliti’éimmat. shots...
to Presbyterian Scotland, Anderson Street level, Glasgow until Sat 5 act a and Glob’s contribution is special. In Java Exhibition Space until Sun 6 act. The Source. sixteen colour prints llnlted by Inspiration, 43 Scotland- gradually reveal fresh water as a based artists have been selected for worker’s bands Ilse wood and stone to the Street level Open. Knowing this, create a small well from muddy
don’t mistake this review as a fair or ground. In their Pyre For lied Deer representative look at what is set to Hinds, Scotland has a version oi become the annual event celebrating Varanasi. Skulls, bones and antlers ‘Scotland’s expanding photographic are gradually consumed by tire as
culture’. metaphor upon metaphor is sent Shared between Street level and Skyward.
Java Exhibition Space, the show Also a mention tor Tanya Clarke’s
boasts black and white, colour prints study or UFO-shaped sherbet sweets
and transparencies, screen printed and their balance points. Sort enough
Images and video. With landscapes, to melt in your mouth, she manages to
lite studies, digitally manipulated make a visual fizz- Also watch out for Margaret Archbold’s Diary (Frozen), 1990
collages and at least one political Kirsty Stanslleld’s video Sarto Voca-
documenmry series, the range is a tantalising message written on a grand scale. Optimists though should
“finial wide. ob’ecfive| 93kt" give Sims the benefit of the doubt.
~-_~.. ’ 3-3. I Mm r. g, g _ h p Next door ill the cafeteria. lain Kettles " . h ‘i ‘ ‘ ‘ Pearce Institute. Glasgow until Sat [2 and Susie Hunter‘s Cheese Straw — at
Oct. surreal. 25ft inflated plastic version of The rabbit warren of the Pearce that old party favourite -- hangs above
Institute seems appropriate for Current, the staff behind the counter. Really a the venue’s current exhibition. To walk bizarre yellow phallus. it’s amazing
its labyrinthine layout in pursuit of how accepting we are of strange artworks. is like embarking on a phenomena these days. Upstairs and voyage into the twisting, turning deeper inside the building. Tanya con-idors of these artist’s minds. Leighton‘s In Place (if/"ire shows a The poster introduced ten artists. but I child staring intensely into an empty, found only seven, with work ranging flreless hearth. It‘s only a photograph from photography and video, to but it is still a pretty chilly experience. architectural interventions and a sound And sit within earshot of Mary installation in the vast, barrel-vaulted Redmond's sound installation — McLeod Hall. ln Theo Sims’ Front Me repetitive piano plonking. emotive To You, two large, bulbous pot-poum' strings and voices — and you realise scent bags swing from the lobby things are unlikely to heat tip. ceiling. At first whiff. this appears a Hotch-potch. Mixed bag. Gruff. big-hearted. warm gesture to everyone Funny. Govan. All these words spring entering the building. But on closer to mind and only five minutes by tube inspection, the tacky combination of l from Kelvingrove Museum. you‘re
ribbon. net curtain, and ultimately quite literally in another world. (Paul smell. may grate when ingested on such Welsh)
. . ‘ To ‘1
Blood ‘I’ies And Other eonds by Lesley Shearer
[Elim— JULIE ROBERTS Glasgow Print Studio until Sat 26 Oct. There is something eerily disarming about the paintings of Julie Roberts. On
WASPS, Edinbuth until Sun 6 Oct. canvases of intense, flat. colour float When the words ‘creative search and sharply painted objects — chairs, a table. development’ crop up in an artist’s a chandelier. Abstracted from their hand-out, I get that sinking feeling. usual inten'or setting they resonate in Explanations to exhibitions so often their isolation a strange. chilled air. either state the obvious or are Chairs frequently feature in Robens' gratuitously high-minded. Three work. Once it was a l9th century artists - Joyce Gunn Cairns, leather dentist's chair (seen in the Jacqueline lllggs and Miriam Vickers British Art Show earlier this year) cm" 0' "33'" Show work 83 mp'mnting a WhiCh hOVCl‘Cd against a creamy- set for dinner. but slumped on the floor stage in their ‘0 s and (P. But moans coloured background. lt spoke of is an Alicc-|ikc figure, Her head is 0V": “3933: is 3" intending Show- _. a a. . SmeiSSiO" and the possibility Of Pain- obscured by the legs of a chair but her
\ilckers has spent time in Ireland and Now fresh from Rome, after a splayed crinkled, white stockinged legs her paintings oi Co. Clare are Intense “can”... "my; "anal scholarship stay courtesy of the are clearly visible. Yet this is no musings on the hilly terrain. Dark and Scottish Arts Council. Roberts latest Wonderland. but the aftermath of death. brooding, these landscapes in purples and In about" Portrait. With 8 loop at paintings continue in the same vein but Like a forensic photograph taken at the and blues with the occasional dash ot William Nd half- A With" Pom" there’s evidence of a Catholic scene of a crime. it leaves you craving golden yellow have an obsessive reel Show 8 6mm! '3" Vilma"! "90 0' influence. a narrative that only the imagination
to them. Clearly taken with this “CM data" about", 8 “089'”. "83 A papal throne with gilt ornamental can supply, coastal stretch of land, Vlckers he! taco dflcrlbfll by numerous muted flourishes, is set against a backdrop of And keeping a some or the surreal, sometimes let the great outdoors gets Smalls 0' colour. In Jacqueline rusty ted. Symbolic of righteousness. it Roberts has painted one of the walls or the better oi her. Some paintings are ".9983 m'XOd'media W0.” "'0"?! 8 may be free of a sedentary and/or the gallery with a decorative scheme of so intensely worked that the subject is "n9 58'3"“ 59M” empty 8989'. screaming pope but nonetheless its flowers in powder blue, Though similar lost and all that remains is a mass oi 00'0"? and 30mm“ "008- W" MOI" beauty scarcely camouflages it as a seat to a strip of flora] wallpaper, the outsize dark palnt. AS to Joyce Gunn Cairns, “Win! Pal)" and "sing mm m, of far-reaching authority. in another flowers that consume the wall quickly her strength lies in her sell-portraits. "i993 manafl” ‘0 make What con" 3° work. Crime 0f P “351-0”. You get the take-on a sense of the creeping With a hint to Modigliani, she shows 933"! be 3 90MB“ meandfllflfl Into sense of looking through a key-hole undergrowth of a fairy-tale forest, This noise“ stark, bare-chested and 890"” GWPWHOI'S- (5088“! and eavesdropping on a domestic is where the Alice-like figure should elongated with her hand on her hip “WWW” scene. A table surrounded by chairs is I be, (Susanna Beaumont)
88 The List 4-17 Oct 1996