Traditionally, the Society of Scottish Artists has organised an annual open exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh each autumn. In recent years, the trend towards high-visibility curatorialism has lessened the accessibility of such public space for such artist-run initiatives. So this year, the S.S.A. is overcoming these difficulties by coming out of Edinburgh to stage a staggered series of three exhibitions around Stirling on the theme "A Sense Of Place".
The first show has now opened in the main gallery of the Smith Museum and Art Gallery. This shows a wide selection of S.S.A. members' works in various media. A few of the works were shown in last November's show at the R.S.A., but many others are new.
On the whole, the works benefit from a less cluttered hang than can be the case at the R.S.A. This allows many of the paintings and sculptures to come together with more breathing space.
Individual artists interpret the theme in different ways. George Wyllie grasps the wider cultural context by recapturing the Stone of Destiny debacle with his "Scot On The Rocks": an aluminium throne set atop any number of broken stone blocks, each inscribed "destiny". Kenny Munro, on the other hand, maps the S.S.A.'s own migration as an archaeological find with his "Votadini Visit Stirling". And Sam Wade's water-driven "Engine of Change" provides a delicately trinkling and popular centre-piece for the exhibition.
Liz Douglas's large "Birkhill 1138" tryptych draws inspiration from one particular spot in a fossil-rich valley where she has been working for several years. The canvases show a number of effects: staining, minute pencil-tracings, splashed paint, embedded crystals.
Also featured are three of Mark Johnston's photographic multiples - composed panoramic views of coastal locations on the islands off Argyll.
The historical experience of many Highland Scots, in particular, was, of course, the loss of their own place when the landlord interests cleared the land of crofters. Any appreciation of the wilderness has to be tempered with awareness of the circumstances in which it was created. That is the context in which I appreciate Eoghann MacColl's "Five Souls": a series of five wooden boxes whose glass tops reveal folded blankets inside: a people uprooted.
Other works in the show move between outer and inner space. Phil Duthie's "Long Dark Night", for example, is a strongly painted work which maintains this ambivalence. Peter Russell's large "Hazard: Self Destruct" painting also switches between an explosive outwardness and an interiority by binding textual elements (fragments of French symbolist poetry) onto the surface of the canvas; however, it is frustrating that the work is hung too high for these to be seen clearly.
Another work which suffers from the way it has been hung is Michael Pinsky's "Wall Stripes", constructed around photographs of people's use of Daniel Buren's striped pillars in Paris. This appears to form a total environment in the catalogue photograph, but loses some impact by being spread across the two walls of a gallery corner site at the Smith; perhaps a side-gallery position would have been better.
All in all, "A Sense of Place 1" provides a successful start to this ambitious project by the S.S.A.
A.D. 3/2/96
Link to 1995 S.S.A. Exhibition in Edinburgh.