Art in Corrie “Yes!”

During the warm week that looked like summer, Corrie Hall blossomed into a splendid display of paintings, sculpture and creative artefacts of all kinds, while people relaxed on the grass outside in a truly Mediterranean manner. In the hall, a wonderful structure made from discarded pallets was hung with decorative mirrors that reflected countless images at slanting angles, somehow turning the place into a kind of treasure cave. The ever-inventive Marvin Elliott had constructed this, and at one end of it stood his weirdly evocative sculpture of a standing man in big boots, his torso consisting only of burned timber. “Yes,” he said, “it’s by me and the vandals.”

A rich variety of pictures lined the walls, including Tim Pomeroy’s marvellously evocative interpretation of a ruined cairn among powerful plant growth. Nicky Gill, always a wonderful colourist, showed paintings of rocks and sea that found new subtleties of reflected light, and Tracey Gibson’s study of a horse and rider in an extended trot was much admired. Her versatility knows no bounds however, and her paintings of open-eyed, daisy-like flowers were bursting with colour and invention.

The show pledged a proportion of any profits to the YES campaign for Scottish Independence, and a stall was well provided with explanatory leaflets and a quiz sheet. It also offered very handsome, simply designed ‘YES’ coffee mugs, capacious and a pleasure to use. We have not so far spotted any ‘NO’ mugs. Somehow the concept seems to lack the same cheery impact.