Arran Visual Arts exhibition
Lochranza hall looks spectacularly festive this summer, with its lofty space filled with coloured paper globes of every size. The exhibition by local artists had spread into the stage area, giving a good feeling of space and scope. The same could be said of the work on show, wide-ranging and full of interest.
The constant delight in Arran’s landscape and seascape was, as always, well represented, sometimes with a freshness of vision that stood out. Yvonne Bailey’s strong, subtle drawing of an old, ruined building used a subtle combination of pastel and a fine ink line that made the viewer look afresh. Pat Eyres, in a very different way, used a fine patterning that gave her view of Corrie Harbour a detailed, decorative effect, missing only in the handling of the red boat in the foreground. Stephen Gill, well known for his small, thoughtful paintings, broke new ground in this show with a dreamlike composition of children and a dog playing in woodland, and Gaynor Harris showed three works that continue to explore a personal vision of life.
David Penn’s accomplished paintings evoked the blizzards of last winter with overwhelming effect, touching on the desperation of men out on the hill searching for drift-buried sheep in a landscape that had become a white nightmare. Rebecca Roberts, at the opposite end of the scale, showed an ink drawing of a curled-up Dalmatian dog that beautifully caught the quiet pleasure of observing its black and white patterning. Simon Sloan’s watercolour drawing of a reclining figure used a fine line combined with free washes of indigo that implied a sense of bulk and landscape. As in the work of Henry Moor, limbs and body bulk could be seen as a structure similar to a rocky cliff – an outstandingly interesting work.
Mary Dick’s exquisite little constructions pack a whole evocation of doll’s house life into a size that could be held in a child’s hand, while Jan MacGregor, one of the most exploratory artists in the show, uses machine embroidery and fabrics to create a rich, strange vision of the world. Her interpretation of a walk in Glen Ashdale creates a world full of detailed interest and patterning, with ebullient whorls of silver thread that sail free of all convention. Exciting stuff.
Janette Mcleod, unusually for an artist better known in the fields of still life and fantasy, shows a portrait – but what a portrait! Anyone who knows the sitter will recognise instantly the whole essence of the man, encapsulated into a fine invention of colour and cats and patterning. An outstanding achievement.
