Ed Kluz
On Friday night we popped along to The Scottish Gallery for the opening of Architecture of the Enlightenment, their latest exhibition of works by Ed Kluz which explores the unique topography and architecture of Edinburgh’s New Town.
Built during the late 18th and early 19th centuries as a counterpart to the overcrowded and squalid living conditions of the medieval city which clustered around the castle, the New town expressed the highest values of the Enlightenment age. An ordered grid system of streets and public squares, punctuated by grand circuses and crescents emulating the cities of classical antiquity.
The exhibition features a series of new paper collage & mixed media works.
Ed Kluz is an artist, illustrator and printmaker. His work explores contemporary perceptions of the past through the reimagining of historic landscapes, buildings and objects. The spirit of early Romanticism, the Picturesque movement and antiquarian topographical engravings underpin his approach to image making. He has a particular interest in the eccentric, uncanny and overlooked – follies, lost country houses and ruins provide a constant source of inspiration.
Find out more about Architecture of the Enlightenment which runs until 24th December 2014 at The Scottish Gallery, 16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ. The catalogue for the exhibition is available as a PDF.
Ed has to date produced two fabrics for St Jude's, with further designs due in 2015.
You might also enjoy this short film that we made about Ed's work, filmed and edited by Alun Callender.
David Cass
I have very fond memories of the time I spent as an artist in residence at Joya: arte + ecología in Andalucia, Spain back in 2011 (here are a few images from my visit).
So it's been great to read of artist David Cass' time spent working in this unique landscape.
We're great fans of David's work. I remember being particularly impressed by his degree show at Edinburgh College of Art from where he graduated in 2010, receiving the Royal Scottish Academy’s John Kinross Scholarship to Florence.
As Guy Peploe of The Scottish Gallery explains...
“David Cass has an innate understanding of matière; a sensitivity to material, it’s texture, tone, pigment, weight and beyond this its context, history and emotional resonance. He works with found objects and by an act of appropriation and minimal intervention – perhaps merely turning the front of a drawer through ninety degrees – he creates works of art with quiet authority."
A large part of the work David is creating during his time at Cortijada Los Gázquez will be exhibited in an upcoming show, during the summer of 2015, with The Scottish Gallery. His new works are taking his exploration of water (and the sea), a step further - these new works on paper (informed by his recent photographic and film works) illustrate both real and imagined scenes of flooding, inundation and destruction. His landscape exploration has developed, and he's taking time to learn new methods of response - film, photography, writing and sound.
You can view more of David's work over at his website.
David Cass - Artist in Residence from Joya: arte + ecología on Vimeo.
Brita Granström
We recently made an overnight stop in Newcastle upon Tyne - to see Brita Granström’s paintings at the University Gallery.
On the ground floor are her lively illustrations for The Beatles - a book on which she has collaborated with her husband Mick Manning.
Upstairs is an extensive exhibition of Brita's bold paintings - often the result of working in the great outdoors, whatever the weather.
Many of the paintings depict her native Sweden where she includes family and friends in the landscape - fishing, swimming, hanging washing to dry. Others include black hollyhocks, cow parsley or the orange stems of pollarded willows and views to calm interiors.
The exhibition runs until 31st October 2014 at University Gallery, Northumbria University, Sandyford Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST.
All of the works being exhibited can be viewed in a PDF file via the gallery's website.
Brita Granström – The Night Swimmer
We're looking forward to seeing Brita Granström's latest exhibition in Newcastle which runs until 31st October 2014.
For this exhibition, The Night Swimmer, Brita draws upon her Swedish roots to blur the boundary between observation and imagination, reality and dream. In a narrative sequence that opens with playful domestic studies and bedroom interiors she leads us at dusk, by way of farmyard and orchard, to a lake where women struggle with storm-blown washing, and a dark jetty awaits the night swimmer.
Brita’s paintings leave room for interpretation and imagination, allowing us to make up our own Midsummer night’s dream; however serene or haunting.
The exhibition runs until 31st October 2014 at University Gallery, Northumbria University, Sandyford Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST. Visit their website for further details.
Brita Granström and Mick Manning also collaborated on a contribution to our fundraising journal Random Spectacular No. 2.
The Making of Nature Table
We’ve just uploaded a new film that looks at the inspiration behind Angie’s Nature Table fabric and wallpaper.
We had worked with the photographer Cristian Barnett before and he offered he making of a short film in return for a donation to the Movember fundraising programme (supporting the work of this global men’s health charity).
We were delighted to take him up on the offer - and here is the result (with special thanks to Ultramarine for the use of 'Within Reach' from their recent This Time Last Year album)
Away with the Birds
This August Hanna Tuulikki's heartfelt re-weaving of Gaelic song will be performed live on the Isle of Canna.
Away with the Birds will be performed by a female vocal ensemble in the beautiful harbour of the Isle of Canna, where the music reverberates with the bird-calls and the ebb of the tide.
Hanna Tuulikki is a Glasgow-based artist and composer. Away with the Birds is her most ambitious work to date. Selecting Gaelic song from historical archives, she has sought out extracts and fragments which imitate birdsong and rewoven them into an extraordinary soundscape. Each of the five movements represents a different habitat and bird community – wader, sea-bird, wildfowl, corvid, and cuckoo.
Find out more about how you can support this Kickstarter project
Secret Gardens of Spitalfields
Having spent a couple of weeks living in Spitalfields for the recent St Jude's In the City exhibition, now we're back north it's a shame we won't be able to visit some of these secret gardens of Spitalfields which will open to the public on Saturday 7th June 2014 as part of the National Gardens Scheme.
As Spitalfields Life founder The Gentle Author points out:
"If you did not know of the existence of these gardens, you might think Spitalfields was an entirely urban place with barely a leaf in sight, but in fact every terrace conceals a string of verdant little gardens and yards filled with plants and trees that defy the dusty streets beyond."
Find out more via Spitalfields Life
