Art
PAINTING ROUND-UP
WILLIE RODGER/JOHN HOUSTON/LOUIS SINCLAIR MCNALLY
Funny, fresh and photographic
Willie Rodger is an artist and printmaker who needs little introduction. His solo show, On the Other Hand at the Open Eye Gallery brings together linocuts and new figurative paintings. The clean-cut, black and white linocuts for which Rodger is famed populate the gallery space. A cast of characters ranges from Wee Pie, 3 man stuffing his face with a Scotch pie, to Shitl, a man looking at the sole of his shoe. Quirky, humorous and delightful, Rodger turns his shrewd observations of everyday people into print. Similarly, his oils on board share much of the humour and attributes of his linocuts. In Day Out, the central composition is made up of a windbreak on the beach. A woman sits inside while her possible partner sits outside. Have they just fallen out? In Day In, a windbreak almost takes
Day In by Willie Rodger
flight. Beautifully painted, employing a palette of subtle hues, Rodger's work exposes the things that often go unnoticed.
Over at the Scottish Gallery are new paintings by John Houston. Painting the west and east coast of Scotland, the works resonate with energy, life and movement. Autumn in Fife is a riot of heavy brushstrokes of colour with the addition of black paint. Again he uses a band of black in From Gullane Beach, revealing his desire still to experiment. Criss- crosses of rich reds, fiery oranges, pinks and blues shimmer to form a perfect evocation of the Venetian landscape in the Grand Canal Series. In Stormy Sunset, Largo Bay colour and passion rain down onto the canvas.
Louis Sinclair McHally depicts the Scottish landscape in a very different way at the Colours Gallery. In Coastline Farm, yellow cornfields meet the sea and sky in bands of almost flatly painted colour. Possessing an almost photographic quality, he captures a fleeing glance, a memory of a place or vista in these very stylised and beautiful
studies. (Helen Monaghan)
I Willie Rodger — On the Other Hand, Open Eye Gallery. 557 7020, until 3 Sep. free; John Houston. Scottish Gal/ecu, 0:38 7200. until 3 Sep. tree; Lows Sinclair McNa/Iy, Colours Gallery 557 4569. until 27 Aug, tree.
Spirt of Place installation detail
INSTALLATION KEIKO MUKAIDE - SPIRIT OF PLACE Pictured energy 000
Spirit of Place is Keiko Mukaide's physical interpretation of the energies that flow in and around the Talbot Rice Gallery. Mukaide believes that everywhere has a spiritual essence which, if recognised. can create harmony.
In this exhibition Mukaide has translated the Talbot Rice's energy into spiritual spirals. Spirals are ubiquitous in nature from the galaxies to the Sunflower and have been recognised by many Cultures as a Symbol of harmony and peace. The two spirals that she has Created reveal that the gallery has good karma. The first. made from woven metal and decorated with coloured glass. hangs like a shimmering v0rtex over the gallery. It is a beautiful and delicate manifestation of the gallery's energy With its beauty further heightened by the euphonious murmurs that fill the space.
Beneath the spiral are coloured paths which map the location of energy lines that flow beneath the gallery. Mukaide has Created two plaster panels that channel the water path. creating a threshold of energy. The second spiral hangs surrounded by Curves of coloured glass and as you watch it expand and contract. you appreCiate the power of spirals and the empathetic readings of the gallery that Mukaide has created. (Isabella Weir)
I Talbot Rice Gallery. 650 2270. until 73 Sep. free.
82 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 21 Aug-A Sep 2003
WALL DRAWING CLAUDE HEATH
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How do you go ab0ut draWing Ben News? More importantly, how does Claude Heath approach this task? The answer is not as Simple as you might expect. Heath's work uses a complex series of processes to construct each finished drawing.
Heath employs a deVice called a stereoscope. an instrument which transforms overlapping photographs into three dimenSional Views. Sketching images seen through this apparatus and Changing lines into sequences of marks. Heath's preparatory drawnth are not so much transcribed onto the wall as interpreted. Despite the complexities in this process. all it essentially constitutes is abstraction.
Dancing across the wall of the gallery is a dazzling blue landscape of lines and patterns. The marks. applied Wllll an aerosol. soften and bleed around the edges. radiating \‘JIIlT luminescence. The arrangement of snaking triangles. dots and dashes overlapping the more IOrmal outlines of the mountain peak appear like markings on an ordinance survey map or isobars and weather fronts. The iridescence of these markings. although texturally very flat. protect from the wall and the whole landscape appears at once to sparkle like a constellation of Stars. Although only a wall drawing. this Show is a bright light in a dark basement. (Matthew Hearni
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From the natural terrain to the man-made. Industrial Parking 1 of Study With Yellow and White pt'tli'lll’} Lines (1999) shows a seel'o'i o‘ COncrete road and l;£l‘~.":ll:l:l‘i. llrhai detritus is caught up in the compoSition ~ broken glass. a fag end and hits of paper. It's as though they have Cut a section of the road and left a great big gaping .‘rhole Ill its place.
Seeing the works out of context. yOu may never icok at the dreur/I in the same ever again.
(Helen Mor‘aghan.
I Boy/e Family. National Gallery of Modern Art. 624 6200, (ml/l .9 Nov. £4 (£3): under 72s free.
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