Artmag | Apr 21 2023

Issue 260

21 April, 2023

• Ross Ainslie performs at Edinburgh Tradfest. See PERFORMING ARTS page 40.

ART & TRAVEL

66 HOTEL ART

A copy of Shadows and Light: The Extraordinary Life of James McBey. See page 32

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Publisher Christie Dessy, publisher@artmag.co.uk

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Special Features Susan Mansfield

Contributing writers Julie Boyne, Sofia Cotrona, Vivien Devlin, Danele Evans, Malcolm McGonigle, Amy Miles, Gordon Reid, Jelena Sofronijevic, Eilidh Tuckett, Joanna Zuchowska

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© 2023 Instant Publications Ltd. Reproduction in whole or in part is forbidden without the written permission of the Publisher. Instant Publications does not accept responsibility for unsolicited material. ADVISORY Readers are advised to check all listed information before attending an exhibition or event.

Uprooted Visions Edinburgh Printmakers

Until Jul 2

Featuring print, textiles, video, sculpture and photography, this is the culmination of a series of residencies hosted across five European printmaking studios, including Edinburgh Printmakers, which supported artists whose practices have been disrupted by displacement and migration. For some, including several Ukrainian artists, the experience is more recent, while others have developed their careers over decades in their new home countries.

Now living in the UK, Ireland and across Europe, 30 artists from around the world, including Syria, Ukraine, Bosnia Herzegovina, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Kosovo and Turkey, have created new works exploring themes such as the concept of home, the enduring experience of war, the nature of moving across borders and changing selfidentity.

The Creative Europefunded project also offered month-long residencies at print studios in Amsterdam, Cork, Ljubljana, Slovenia and Odense, providing space to experiment, work with studio technicians and discover new techniques. edinburghprintmakers.co.uk

The Art Works, Edinburgh

The National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) have announced plans to build a cutting edge facility in north Edinburgh, where many of the country’s most important art treasures will be housed. Part of the City of Edinburgh Council’s £1.3 billion Granton Waterfront regeneration project, the complex will offer world class visitor facilities and new outdoor public spaces.

To be called The Art Works, the site will cover the equivalent of two playing fields and feature over 100,000 works, enabling the NGS to show more of the national collection than ever before. On average it is estimated that national galleries worldwide have sufficient space to show only around ten per cent of their collections at any one time. Planning application has now been made for the project, which will also house the historic collection belonging to the Royal Scottish Academy. nationalgalleries.org

Kaffe Fassett: The Power of Pattern Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh Until Jul 8

This exhibition includes over 70 eclectic pieces drawing on artworks by invited international makers inspired by the textile guru Frank Havrah “Kaffe” Fassett MBE. Considered one of the most successful artists and designers working in contemporary craft, he is best known for his colourful designs in the decorative arts, including needlepoint, patchwork, knitting, painting, ceramics and mosaic. Curated by Fassett along with Dennis Nothdruft from the Fashion and Textile Museum, the exhibition includes quilts, cushions, clothes and archival material. dovecotstudios.com

An artist’s impression of how The Art Works will look at Edinburgh’s Granton Waterfront

Rezan Arab, Untitled, etching

Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition Cinemas nationwide

Now showing at selected cinemas nationwide, this is the latest film from Exhibition On Screen, the producers who work with major international museums and galleries to create a cinematic immersion into some of the world’s best loved art.

The film takes audiences on a private view of the blockbuster exhibition currently showing at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the largest gathering of Vermeer’s works ever staged. Accompanied by the museum’s director, viewers can enjoy Vermeer’s work in high definition close-ups and learn about his artistic choices and motivations for his compositions as well as the creative process behind his paintings. exhibitiononscreen.com/films/vermeer-blockbuster-exhibition

40th Anniversary Exhibition Aberfeldy Gallery Until May 29

This exhibition at Aberfeldy Gallery celebrates one of Scotland’s longest running galleries. Current owners Adam and Anna Seward took over the gallery in 2017 after 19 years under the ownership of Judy Proudfoot. Anna’s connection to the gallery dates back to its inception, as her grandparents, Roger and Merril Sylvester, made up half of the quartet who ran the gallery for its first 15 years. The anniversary exhibition features contemporary art by over 50 established and emerging artists based in Scotland. aberfeldygallery.co.uk

Jonathan Shearer: Journey Into Autumn and Winter City Contemporary Art, Perth Until May 3

The current exhibition at City Contemporary Art in Perth features dramatic landscapes painted ‘en plein air’ and presented in The Room, the gallery’s dedicated solo show space.

There is also plenty of time to catch the annual Spring Show, featuring new work by regular gallery artists such as Nael Hanna, Greer Ralston, Jonathan Mitchell and Fee Dickson Reid. ccart.co.uk

Lindsay Turk, Anthesis II, oil on canvas

Jonathan Shearer, Stob Ban Mamores

Filming Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition

Ruth Nicol: From the Capital Detail Framing & Gallery, Edinburgh Until Apr 29

Documenting various scenes around Edinburgh, this exploration of location and architecture includes residential, historical, commercial, natural, nautical and industrial landscapes to explain life in the capital, particularly the docklands of the Port of Leith.

Working in varying scale, from very large to very small, Nicol’s principal thread throughout this collection of drawings and paintings is the use of colour and energetic, expressive mark-making with the intention of capturing the specific light this northern city enjoys through a period of dramatic change. All the locations depicted are important to the artist and represent either daily views or personally significant vistas. detailframing.co.uk ruthnicol.com

Melanie Pyne: Children of the Eagles The Alchemy Experiment, Glasgow

Until Apr 30

The title of this solo photography exhibition by multi-media documentarian and research communications specialist Melanie Pyne is a reference to the literal translation of ‘Shqiptar’, a term used interchangeably by Albanians in reference to the true name of their country (Shqipëri”, or Land of the Eagles). The series documents the older population in the streets of Tirana, Durrës, Çeprat and Vloré.

Little is known of the country of Albania. A blend of isolationism and Stalinist-like authoritarianism under Enver Hoxha kept the Balkan country the poorest and most repressive in Europe. This project attempts to document the generations who grew up under the rise and fall of the Communist regime between 1945 and 1991 as they navigate the liminal space of a new, modernising Albania. alchemyexperiment.com

Spring Exhibition

Torrance Gallery, Edinburgh

Until May 14

This show features over 40 artists, some exhibiting at the gallery for the first time, including Rosalind Walker, Brett Watson, Carolyn Bell, Daniel Martin and Al Bell. With a range of price points and styles, artwork is being sold “off the wall”, so you can take your purchase away with you rather than have to wait until the end of the show. The gallery offers free or assisted P&P rates for both UK and international delivery. torrancegallery.co.uk

Ruth Nicol, Firth of Forth from Lauriston Castle

Al Bell, Deep Forest Light

Morwenna Morrison: Vanitas Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh

Until May 7

Stemming from the Latin for vanity, ‘vanitas’ is a kind of still life painting which depicts earthly objects of symbolic significance. Skulls, extinguished candles, flowers and fruit at the cusp of withering serve as confrontational reminders of the fragility of life and, ultimately, of death.

Morwenna Morrison is fascinated by the 17th century genre, particularly of the Dutch variety. She invents her own versions, some of which may strike the viewer as peculiar subjects for still life subjects such as a novelty glass ornament in the shape of bear or a toilet roll. Concerned with the psychology of ageing, Morrison’s existential paintings are anchored in everyday physical objects representing the waste we leave behind when we die. arushagallery.com

Spring Exhibition Glasgow Gallery

Until May 20

This exhibition features seascapes, landscapes and cityscapes as well as glasswork, woodwork and jewellery. Artists include Sheena Christie, who is new to the gallery, and Nichol Wheatley (ahead of his solo show in June) along with gallery favourites Senja Brendon, John Bathgate, Scott MacDonald, David Marshall and Helen L. Robertson. glasgowgallery.co.uk

Castle

Ally Wallace: Tilted Tints

Upright Gallery, Edinburgh

Until May 5

A collection of aluminium and paper wall sculptures in the shape of geometric designs and folded to create subtle shadows. The aluminium sculptures, painted in acrylic gouache, are an extension of earlier studio experiments on A4 coloured sheets of paper. More rigid and durable than their paper predecessors, they continue to convey the same feeling of lightness and simplicity.

Wallace also produces installations, drawings, paintings and videos in response to the built environment, in particular modernist architecture. Recent projects have taken place in the University of Stirling’s Pathfoot Building and Netherdale football stadium in Galashiels. uprightgallery.com

David Marshall, Eilean Donan

Ally Wallace, Edge, acrylic gouache on folded aluminium

Morwenna Morrison, Vanitas V, oil on wood panel

Var. artists

Kilmorack Gallery, nr. Beauly

Until May 2

New paintings are currently showing by three gallery favourites. In his inimitable naive style James Newton Adams explores his experience of Scottish landscapes and seascapes as well as the people, animals and objects which inhabit them, often highlighting tensions in their relationships with each other and with the land itself. Liz Knox explores colour, composition, texture and light with a deftness which brings power to her still lifes and outdoor works. Peter White is known for his almost geologically textured paintings of apparently simple subjects – a head, boat, book or bowl – which he elevates into something powerful. kilmorackgallery.co.uk

Scottish Towns, Mountains, Lochs and Ladies

17a Menzieshill Road, Dundee

Apr 22-23, May 6-7

Dundee painter John Stoa is hosting an exhibition of his paintings in his studio, over two weekends in April and May. The exhibition comprises over eighty paintings and coincides with the opening of John’s urban garden to visitors, in association with Scotland’s Gardens Scheme. John’s former career was in horticulture, but his art career has been enormously prolific – he has produced about 1800 paintings, and exhibits with the Broughty Ferry Art Society and the Dundee Art Society. Half of the sales will be donated to Cancer Research UK. Admission is £4.00, with children free. johnstoa.com

scotlandsgardens.org/scottish-garden-in-february

Katy Galbraith & Terry Howson: Up the Garden Path

Artisanand, Aberfeldy

Until Apr 28

Artisanand Gallery features two artists with very different approaches to their work, one more focused on the style and function of the final piece, while for the other the art-making process itself is essential to living life.

Working with a variety of recycled and salvaged materials, Katy Galbraith makes mosaic artworks which can be either decorative (pictorial or sculptural) or functional (mirrors, table tops). This collection showcases her signature style of brightly coloured pieces, reflecting her love of flowers. Some of her works are suitable for outside and can be considered “garden art”.

Terry Howson creates vibrant, abstract landscapes using watercolours, oils and cold wax, which she often distills herself. Continuing to experiment, she is also working in digital imagery. She exhibits in Scotland and France, where she has run her own gallery. artisanand.co.uk

Liz Knox, Amsterdam Associations, oil on canvas

Floral patio table by Katy Galbraith

John Stoa, Union Canal at Linlithgow

Ann Cowan Larks Gallery, Ballater Until Apr 30

Featured artist Ann Cowan is inspired by the architecture and cityscapes of Edinburgh. She is also creating a series of concertina sketchbooks featuring the harbours of East Lothian and Fife.

She explains: “The linear form of these books lends itself to representing the walks I take to explore these places. I’m able to show different perspectives, jump from one spot to another and pick out compositions that catch my eye”. larksgallery.com

Liz Myhill RSW: Stravaig Frames Gallery, Perth Until Apr 29

Liz Myhill’s new exhibition takes its title from a word meaning to roam or wander without aim. Says Liz: “To stravaig is, for me, an unbounded freedom, where I feel most at home and content. It may only be as far as the end of the croft on Skye, where I roamed as a child, or it may be high into the mountains, along lonely coastlines or among scattered islands and skerries. These places observed in solitude exert a powerful hold, a desire to understand them more fully by bearing witness to their character as it undergoes subtle shifts through the hours, days, weeks, months and years.”

“Many of my works are

completed in one burst of energy while out on location and subject to the inconstancy of changing weather conditions. Although challenging at times, it is this unpredictability that I find so exciting – the raw power of the elements and their ability to shape the work. There is an urgency to being out in these conditions, a complete absorption in the moment.”

The exhibition features 40 works, which can be bought off the website using a card or PayPal. Frames is also part of the Own Art scheme, which allows buyers to make 10 interest-free payments. framesgallery.co.uk

Annual Exhibition

Scottish Society of Botanical Artists 8th

Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr Until Apr 30

Showing for the first time in Ayrshire, the SSBA exhibition includes affordable ‘mini paintings’ following the success of the idea last year. Also showing is A Sense of Place, a small exhibition of work by some of the artists who have taken part in Open Studios Ayrshire in recent years, featuring paintings, ceramics and silver jewellery.

themaclaurin.org.uk

Kerry Souter, Honeysuckle Perfume (A Sense of Place)

Liz Myhill RSW, Atlantic Swell, mixed media on paper

Here’s One I Made Surlier Art@47, Pittenweem

Until Apr 30

This diverse, all-star show features sculptors, painters and craftmakers David and Robert Mach, Phill Jupitus and Garry Miller. David Mach’s famous giant collages and sculptures are no less epic for being gallery scaled and postcard manageable. The eggshell sculptures of Garry Miller sit happily amongst Phillip Jupitus’ intensely riotous graphics. pittenweemartsfestival.co.uk

Moy Mackay Gallery Q, Dundee

Until Apr 29

Featured artist at Gallery Q in Dundee is Moy Mackay, who uses merino fleece fibres, in the same way that a painter uses brushstrokes, to depict the colours and textures of the beautiful Tweed Valley in the Scottish Borders. This coupling of a traditional craft and a fine art application has brought Moy a large fan base following numerous exhibitions throughout the UK and in the US. There is also a mixed exhibition of paintings by gallery regulars and newcomers as well as wood sculptures, mirrors, trays, prints, hand-made glass, ceramics and jewellery. galleryq.co.uk

Natasha Mikhailova: Road to Blues

Art & Craft Collective, Edinburgh

Until May 6

Currently running at the Art & Craft Collective in Edinburgh is the Ukrainian abstract painter’s first solo exhibition in the UK. artcraftcollective.co.uk

Moy Mackay, Sundown

Natasha Mikhailova, Road to Blues

Kate Downie, Walking with Toddler, monoprint

The Spring Show

Resipole Studios, Acharacle, Argyll

Until May 26

Resipole’s current show features new work by the gallery’s wide roster of artists, including wildlife and landscape paintings by Alan B. Hayman and Colin Woolf, abstract expressive works by Jane Rushton and Morag Young, small scale landscapes by Lisa Houston, figurative and still life paintings by Andrew Sinclair, ceramics by Helen Michie, seascapes by Jim Wright and wood-turning work by John Hodgson. resipolestudios.co.uk

The High St. Gallery, Kirkcudbright

The High St. Gallery has a large collection of Georgian to midcentury retro art glass, pottery from the Arts & Crafts, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and midcentury periods and new paintings by James Macaulay, Davy Brown and Hazel Campbell. highstgallery.co.uk

Helen Michie, Moidart strata sculptural bowl, earthenware with sea glass

Blue Chalcedony Agate and Hammered Silver Brooch by Rolf Olstad (Norway), mid-century

James McNaught: Looking for Ariadne

Ronald F. Smith: Painting Colour

Roger Billcliffe Gallery, Glasgow

Until May 13

James McNaught paints in gouache and watercolour with a delicate touch and a faultless technique. His witty and enigmatic paintings have an obsessive quality, depicting a surreal, brooding, slightly threatening world, often unnervingly quiet and inhabited sporadically by mysterious recurring figures.

Most of Ronald F. Smith’s paintings in this small collection are based on observation and memory following a trip to Corfu. He says: “They are not scenic representations, but responses to places visited. It’s more about personal vision. Seeing the vivid colour and strong light of the Mediterranean/ Ionian Sea is always stimulating and a dramatic contrast to the subdued light and colour of the west of Scotland.” maisieandmac.com

James McNaught, A Group of Elegant Ladies Caressing a Piano, gouache

Spring Exhibition

Velvet Easel Gallery, Portobello

Until May 28

Velvet Easel is presenting work by over 50 artists, both gallery regulars and newcomers such as Sky Portrait Artist of the Year contestant KellyAnne Cairns. All media are represented, including figurative, landscape and abstract paintings of all sizes as well as prints, ceramics, glass, sculpture and jewellery. There is a wide range of price points and the gallery is a member of the Own Art scheme, which enables buyers to spread the cost of purchases. velveteasel.co.uk

Allan J. Robertson, The Jetty

Never Apologise Macrobert Arts Centre, University of Stirling Until Apr 30

This is an exhibition from the Lindsay Anderson Archive celebrating the life and work of one of the most distinctive British film-makers of the 20th century. Part of the generation which transformed the post-war cultural and artistic world in Britain, Lindsay Anderson’s films reflected life and society through films such as This Sporting Life (1963), starring Richard Harris as a Yorkshire rugby league player whose romantic life is not as successful as his sporting life, If…. (1969), with Malcolm McDowell as a schoolboy leading a savage revolt in an English public school, and O Lucky Man! (1972), with McDowell again as an ambitious coffee salesman in a series of improbable and adventures which challenge his naive idealism. The exhibition marks the centenary of Anderson’s birth. macrobertartscentre.org

Ken McClymont: Large Works

William Dick: Paperworks

Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock

Until May 6

In his abstract paintings Ken McClymont repeatedly uses a simple, circular motif and juxtaposes balanced and contrasting colour to provide what he would like to be viewed as “a worthy and enduring piece of two-dimensional art-music”.

Accepting the notion that there are two distinct forms of abstract painting – namely, geometric and organic – William Dick explores minimalist structures in an expressively painterly way. beaconartscentre.co.uk

Work by Ken McClymont

Fraser Gallery, St Andrews

One of Scotland’s longest established galleries is saying hello to spring with some stunning floral paintings fresh from the studio of Nael Hanna. frasergallery.co.uk

Nomads Tent, Edinburgh

This year celebrating its 40th anniversary, Nomads Tent is a veritable warehouse of tribal and village crafts sourced direct from Asia and North Africa. nomadstent.co.uk

Nael Hanna

Nael Hanna, Blues

WASPS x Kirkcudbright Galleries Kirkcudbright Galleries

Until Jun 4

This exhibition, featuring works by 60 tenants of studios across the country, continues the Galleries’ partnership with Workshop and Artists Studio Provision Scotland (WASPS), which provides affordable studios for artists, makers and the creative industries.

kirkcudbrightgalleries.org.uk waspsstudios.org.uk

Redisplay Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow

Ongoing

Visitors to this exhibition can see over 200 artworks spanning seven centuries in the revamped main gallery. Many of the works have never been on show before, while others have been hidden from view for a number of years. These include Sea Devil’s Watchtower (1960) by Alan Davie, A Paris Street (c.190608) by the Scottish Colourist S. J. Peploe and The Great Honey Coloured Moon (c.1911) by “Glasgow Girl” Jessie Marion King. Artworks which have undergone conservation, giving them a new lease of life, include Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh’s stunning gesso panel The White Rose and the Red Rose.

The Hunterian is home to the University of Glasgow’s extensive art collection, which includes paintings of international importance, the largest print collection in Scotland, a growing contemporary art collection and an outdoor sculpture courtyard.

glasgow.ac.uk/hunterian

J. D. Fergusson, Les Eus, oil on canvas

Louise Evans, Yo-yo, oil & scrim on canvas

Spring Exhibition Fidra Fine Art, Gullane Until Apr 30

Fidra Fine Art’s current exhibition includes works bursting with colour by some of Scotland’s finest contemporary artists working in a variety of styles. fidrafineart.co.uk

Helen de Main & Mandy McIntosh: Repeat Patterns Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow Until Oct 15

This new commission from these two Glasgow-based artists brings their work together for the first time in an institutional context, exploring their interests in feminist histories, care, housing, displacement, class and the demand for equality, through forms of printmaking, including works on paper, fabric and sculpture.

Referencing the second wave feminist argument that ‘the personal is the political’, which asserts that experiences in women’s personal lives are directly linked to the social and political conditions within society, the exhibition contributes to current conversations about the core pillars of the welfare state provisions. glasgowlife.org.uk

Over 450 people attended the opening of Repeat Patterns.

Davy Brown, Still Life with Red Lamp and Palette Knives, oil on board

Photo: Iona Shepherd

of the BEST

By Susan Mansfield

Alberta Whittle: Create Dangerously

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art/Modern One, Edinburgh

Until Jan 7, 2024

Scots-Barbadian artist Alberta Whittle’s star has risen in the last five years, as she has picked up one accolade after another and represented Scotland at the 2022 Venice Biennale. This is her biggest exhibition to date, bringing together the full range of her multidisciplinary practice alongside her work from Venice. If you think of her principally as a film-maker, this is an opportunity to see her film work in the context of painting, drawing, textiles, sculpture and installation. From the passionately political to the gently celebratory, the show takes in the many moods and themes of her work. nationalgalleries.org

Jasleen Kaur: Alter Altar Tramway, Glasgow

Until Oct 8

Jasleen Kaur grew up in Pollokshields, a stone’s throw from Tramway. Now London-based, she returns to her old stamping ground with a solo exhibition in which she uses installations, kinetic sculptures and sound to explore elements of her personal and cultural history. Working in the large scale space of Tramway 2, she interweaves aspects of Sikh and Muslim heritage and her memories of growing up in Scotland. Axminster carpet, bottles of Irn Bru, football scarves, family photographs and even a red Ford Escort are all part of her imagined landscape of both the sacred and secular. A soundtrack fuses Sufi Islamic music with political pop, colonial instruments and the artist’s own voice. tramway.org

Photo: Glasgow Life

Alberta Whittle, Entanglement is more than blood, tapestry

Sebastian Diaz Morales: Smashing Monuments Collective, Edinburgh

Until Jun 11

Given the pulling down of statues around the world during the Black Lives Matter campaign, one might expect destruction in this 40-minute film by Argentinian artist Sebastian Diaz Morales. However, the film, which was made in Jakarta with members of the influential Indonesian art collective ruangrupa, is affectionate rather than iconoclastic. Members of the collective are filmed in conversation with the city’s statues, mostly created in the 1960s when the nation was newly independent and now surrounded by traffic-clogged motorways. As the artists reflect on their own lives, they remind us how statues bridge the gap between generations, becoming fixed reference points in the story of a changing city.

collective-edinburgh.art

The Accursed Share Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh

Until May 27

Taking as their theme money – specifically, debt – and how it has been an instrument of colonialism and exploitation, artists from countries including the Philippines and the Democratic Republic of Congo propose ways that these issues might be transformed, from a forest which uses artificial intelligence to run its own affairs to an installation of 50 mortar shell casings repurposed as plant pots. It is also the first chance in Scotland to see the influential work Naming the Money by Turner Prize-winner Lubaina Himid. Both angry and thoughtful, the exhibition continues the gallery’s ambitious programme of bringing together work on particular themes by artists from around the world. trg.ed.ec.uk

Sebastian Diaz Morales, still from Smashing Monuments, 2022

Hanna von Goeler, Syrian Serin, watercolour on defunct Greek banknote

All Islands Connect Under Water CCA, Glasgow

Until Jun 3

This exhibition marks the end of Confluence, a year-long project aimed at building links and fostering understanding between the art communities of Marrakech and Glasgow. The show explores the work of three artists – Asha Athman, Islam Shabana and Samra Mayanja – who have taken part in residencies and research projects. Their practices are connected by an interest in the sea as a contested space culturally and politically. Tracing submerged stories and exploring fragmented worlds, the show is built around the idea of ‘barzakh’, an in between, liminal space or a point of transition. The work explores specific events, situations and mythologies tied to these territories between borders.

cca-glasgow.com

Kira Freije: River by Night

Cample Line, Thornhill, Dumfriesshire

Until Jun 10

If contemporary art is usually an urban phenomenon, Cample Line is building a reputation for challenging that by inviting artists to make work for a space in the midst of rural Dumfriesshire. London-based Kira Freije is the latest artist to be invited to the gallery, reconfiguring existing work and making new work to respond to the location. (The title refers to the river Cample, which flows right next to the gallery). A graduate of the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford, Freije began by working with a blacksmith to learn metalwork techniques and often works with materials found in scrapyards as well as with blown glass. Her evocative pieces have been described as poetic assemblages, conveying fragments of narrative and a sense of time and place.

campleline.org.uk

Work by Asha Athman

Photo: Mike Bolam

Photographer Rachael Talibart captures the ebb and flow of the English coastline in the days surrounding violent storms with images from her book Tides and Tempests. rachaeltalibart.com

1 Dufa (Norse mythology: ‘pitching wave’)

2 Medusa (Greek monster figure with snakes for hair)

3 Echo (mountain nymph in Greek mythology)

4 Sedna (an Inuit goddess of the sea)

5 Apollo (Greek and Roman god)

6 Loki (Norse trickster god)

7 White Walker (Ask a Game of Thrones fan.)

8 Leviathan (a sea monster in Mesopotamian and Hebrew tradition)

Arts at Loaningdale

Loaningdale House, Biggar

Apr 25-30

Arts at Loaningdale is launching Scotland’s newest piano festival. The Spring Piano Festival in Biggar in the Clydesdale countryside features Canadian Angela Hewitt, known for her performances of Bach and here turning her talent to works by Mozart (Fantasie for Piano No. 3 in D minor, K397 ) and Beethoven (Sonata for Piano no. 7 in D major, Op. 10 No. 3).

Also featuring are: Brian Kellock, one of the UK’s most in-demand jazz pianists: Spain’s Miriam Gomez-Moran, who brings her doctoral research on Liszt into her performances of his works; Worbey & Farrell, who lighten the classical mood with some wicked humour; and the Russian-born, Scottish-based virtuoso Nikita Lukinov in the festival’s first Emerging Artist Concert.artsatloaningdale.org

Isla Ratcliff

Venues across Scotland

Until May 5

Scottish fiddler and singer Isla Ratcliff is setting off on her first headline solo tour across Scotland, showcasing material from her debut album The Castalia, which features both traditional and self-penned tunes inspired by time spent in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. She says: “The music on the album is all about bringing people together, and it celebrates the power of music in doing so.”

A graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Oxford University, Isla was a semi-finalist in the BBC Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2022 competition and was nominated for Up and Coming Artist of the Year 2022 at the MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards. She has performed at Celtic Connections, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the BBC Proms and is accompanied on the tour by Ellen Gira (cello) and Iona Reid (piano). islaratcliff.com/gigs

ON THE COVER

Edinburgh Tradfest

Var. venues

Apr 28-May 8

Hundreds of artists and musicians are gearing up to perform over eleven days of traditional live music, song, storytelling, dance, workshops, talks, ceilidhs, film and special events. Opening week highlights include: six-time Grammy nominee, American multi-instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens, who kicks off the festival with Grammy-winning Italian pianist Francesco Turrisi; the award-winning documentary film Heading West: A story about a band called Shooglenifty; legendary pipers Rona Lightfoot and Allan Macdonald; AustroBritish folk-punk singer-songwriter Alicia Edelweiss; and tenor banjo player Cieran Ryan and band. edinburghtradfest.com

Photo: Elly Lucas

Nikita Lukinov performs in the Spring Piano Festival’s Emerging Artist Concert.

Ross Ainslie performs with Tim Edey at the Traverse on Monday May 8.

Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Edinburgh & Glasgow

Apr 21-23 & 28-29

The RSNO continue their season with Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony (he used a Russian word meaning ‘passionate’ or ‘emotional’), which was his final masterpiece. Here it is paired with the composer’s exuberant and joyous Violin Concerto, performed by the acclaimed American violinist Randall Goosby, and Johansen’s nature-inspired Pan.

Next up is Intimate Brahms, a chamber concert demonstrating why he has been described as music’s ultimate romantic dreamer and including the gorgeous Clarinet Quintet and the playful Piano Trio. This is followed by epic music in the form of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Shostakovich’s powerful Symphony No. 10 performed by pianist Leif Ove Andsnes and conducted by RSNO Music Director Thomas Søndergård. See website for exact details. rsno.org.uk

Leif Ove Andsnes

Photo: Gregor Hohenberg

Scottish Chamber Orchestra Edinburgh, Glasgow & Aberdeen

Apr 27-29

The SCO perform the most famous symphony ever written, Beethoven’s Fifth, including the most famous intro in classical music (da-da-dadah). At its 1808 premier in Vienna (directed by Beethoven himself after only one rehearsal), the orchestra did not play well and after a musician made a mistake, the maestro stopped the performance and started again. However, this inauspicious beginning did not deter it from becoming one of the most performed symphonies of all time. The programme also includes Britten’s Simple Symphony and Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2. sco.org.uk

Scottish Ballet

A Streetcar Named Desire Glasgow, Inverness, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Kirkwall & Stornoway

Until May 6

Scottish Ballet take to the road with a stylish adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ famous play, which is one the most performed plays and has inspired many adaptations in other forms.

In steamy 1940s New Orleans, fading southern belle Blanche DuBois moves into her sister Stella’s apartment. Stella’s brutish husband Stanley sees that Blanche is not what she appears to be and sets out to destroy her.

Scottish Ballet breathes new life into the classic tale, with graceful waltzes at the DuBois family home, electrifying jives in a Louisiana nightclub and intense duets in the caged heat of Stella and Stanley’s apartment. scottishballet.co.uk

Joseph Stieler’s iconic 1820 portrait of Beethoven

Photo: Andy Ross

National Theatre of Scotland

Kidnapped – A Swashbuckling Rom-Com Adventure

Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness & Perth

Until May 6

This riotous re-telling of Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventure novella follows 19-year-old Davie, who, having never left home, heads off with nothing but a hand-drawn map and quickly realises that he has a lot of catching up to do, as he navigates murderous foes, Jacobite outlaws and the most inept crew of pirates this side of the Atlantic.

Jam-packed with 20th century pop music and 18th century romance and performed by a dynamic ensemble of actor-musicians, Kidnapped is a colourful coming of age story shot through with Stevenson’s trademark blend of poetry, humour and heart. nationaltheatrescotland.com

Who Killed My Father Scottish Tour

Apr 27-May 30

Growing up gay in a small town in France, Edouard endured the violence and homophobia of his alcoholic, right wing father, who has suffered an accident in the workplace which left him bed-bound and on morphine to ease the pain. Edouard confronts his father, who can hardly walk or breathe. Uncovering a startling connection between political decisions and his father’s broken body, Edouard’s anger turns to compassion, as his father’s violence appears to be the result of years of social brutality. The play is based on the book by Edouard Louis, who exposes how the consequences of neo-liberal ‘reforms’ inflicted on the lives of workers are lived out in their own bodies.

surrogate-productions.com

Kidnapped

Michael Marcus in Who Killed My Father

Photo: Emily Macinnes

Lest we forget

THREE YEARS AFTER we all learned what “lockdown” meant, much has returned to normal. Art galleries, theatres and concert halls are back in business, a bottle of hand sanitiser often the only clue to recent events.

Although the pandemic changed everyone’s lives for a time, few creatives are queueing up to explore the experience. And who could blame them? In the arts, as in other spheres, the focus is on moving forward.

But that is not the whole story. For those who lost loved ones or suffered long-term damage to their health, forgetting is impossible. The effects on NHS waiting lists will be felt for years to come and some businesses are still struggling to recover. The experience of lockdown still weighs heavily for many who want their stories to be heard. One of the few spaces where that can happen is art.

Artist and poet Alec Finlay has just completed the final phase of the multi-faceted project I

Alec Finlay in Pollok Park

In a world which would rather forget the Covid-19 pandemic, artists are playing an important part in creating spaces to remember.

Susan Mansfield spoke to three of them.

Remember: Scotland’s Covid Memorial. People gathered at the Memorial Walk in Glasgow’s Pollok Park for a minute’s silence on March 23, the third anniversary of the first national lockdown. The project was commissioned by a partnership which included Greenspace Scotland and The Herald newspaper, which led a public fundraising campaign to meet the £250,000 budget.

Finlay, who himself suffers from long Covid, is a defiant voice on the subject of remembering. He says: “As much as some may want to push these events to the side, they’re not over. Two million people in the UK have long Covid. Some people are still shielding. Bereaved families are still grieving, and their grief is heightened by what feels like a lack of respect from politicians. The pressure to move on is part of that. This becomes a very political work simply by telling the truth.”

The Memorial Walk features 40 trees with wooden “supports”, sculptures inspired by human gestures of support, some of them modelled by the bereaved and those with long Covid. Each tree bears the words “I remember”

Covid Memorial

in one of the many languages spoken in Scotland, and QR codes enable walkers to listen to some of the memories submitted to the project, read by actor Robert Carlyle.

Hundreds of Covid memories, single sentences beginning with the words “I remember”, were collected from people of all ages and backgrounds, creating what might be the first social history of the pandemic. Some were recorded by Carlyle, others printed in a book. All have been stored electronically on the project website and at the National Library of Scotland. Submissions are still being accepted.

Finlay says: “I had worked on other projects relating to health, like the organ donor memorial, but this was on a different scale. I needed to find a way of working which was appropriate to that, which I did by integrating different art forms. Rather than making a single centrepiece, the idea from day one was to use the whole landscape, to make something very large out of some things which were very modest.”

“I said very early on, it has to be not just for

I Remember – Scotland’s

“

I said very early on, it has to be not just for the bereaved, but for everyone affected

Photo: Hannah Laycock

the bereaved, but for everyone affected, including those grieving their health. One in eight people who had Covid has long Covid, and that’s not talked about. We’ve just had a leadership election in Scotland where Covid wasn’t talked about except as a historical event, which Sturgeon handled well. There is not a single long Covid clinic in Scotland. The lack of provision is a political story. I was excited to get the commission because I wanted to show people who had become disabled that we could still achieve things.”

Another group of people for whom forgetting is not an option are the NHS workers who were in the pandemic front line. In the summer of 2020, sculptor Kenny Hunter was commissioned to create a large scale work celebrating healthcare workers for the courtyard of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. Your Next Breath, described as ‘a memorial to mark the containment of Covid-19 and the resilience of healthcare workers’, was unveiled last autumn and has been nominated for the Marsh Award

for Excellence in Visual Arts Engagement .

The sculpture is composed of four socially distanced figures at ground level, representing NHS workers at the end of a shift removing their masks and PPE. Hunter drew on interviews he conducted during the pandemic with surgeons working in intensive care units.

He explains: “The words that came up again and again were ‘reflection’, ‘resilience’, ‘exhaustion’ and ‘compassion’. That’s what I wanted to try to convey. Hopefully, each figure has got a bit of each of them. I wanted their humanity to be tangible. They’re all dressed in scrubs, so they could be surgeons, anaesthetists, junior doctors or auxiliary nurses. I didn’t want there to be individual roles or hierarchy.”

Hunter compared the context of the work to the war memorials of the last century. He continues: “Society tends to build monuments to people who gave their lives, and in a way this was a similar human experience. There was a

time when people didn’t understand what the virus was, how it spread. Their job was to walk into rooms with people with this disease, and a lot of them did get ill. It seems a tame beast now, but at the time it was a really scary situation.”

“A lot of people did their lockdown projects, built a shed, did their garden, had quite a nice war, but for other people it was hell on earth. People don’t want to think about it, and for most that’s okay, but it’s different for the people who gave so much. They went into the burning building and we went out the other way.”

Claudia Zeiske, former director of the community arts organisation Deveron Projects in Huntly and now a freelance curator and producer, spent the summer of 2022 collecting Covid experiences of ordinary people in Aberdeenshire. Funded by the Scottish Government via Greenspace Scotland, she devised Mountain to Sea, a 250-kilometre walk, meeting groups and individuals in each

From Claudia Zeiske’s Mountain to Sea

town and village she visited.

With the aim of ‘walking the strapline of Aberdeenshire’ (the phrase used to promote the area to visitors), she started at Ben Macdui in the Cairngorms, following a meandering route to the coastal towns of Peterhead and Fraserburgh, and sat with people around her pink tablecloth embroidered with participants’ names (a tradition from her German family). Zeiske says: “By the time I arrived in Peterhead, I felt like I had walked the British class system.”

Her blog and film record a spectrum of experiences, from people who took up new hobbies and enjoyed walking and cycling in their local area to harrowing experiences of grief and hardship. In the coastal towns, many workers at fish factories on zero hours contracts were laid off with no access to furlough and had to rely on food banks to survive.

In Peterhead Prison, Zeiske heard from inmates about being locked in their cells 24/7 for ten

Kenny Hunter, Your Next Breath

Claudia Zeiske with her pink tablecloth

days if one person on their unit tested positive. She also met overseas workers on trawlers who became stranded in Scotland with no paperwork to come ashore, while she described the “electric” atmosphere in one sheltered housing complex where “anger, frustration and sadness” were still palpable. She says: “The people who are most affected are the elderly and the really young. I think the mental health pandemic will be longer and bigger than Covid.”

What she found everywhere was a hunger to share experiences. Some people talked for hours, and in one town people actually queued up to talk to her. She says: “Some things are so strange in life you almost can’t tell their stories later on, you have to do it at the time. If you don’t write these stories down, they will get lost somehow. If you don’t capture these stories, who will remember?” •

For more information about I Remember: Scotland’s Covid Memorial visit iremember.scot

For more information on Claudia Zeiske’s Mountain to Sea project visit claudiazeiske.com

I Remember – Scotland’s Covid Memorial

Hand-made

All the featured makers are selected from the directory of Craft Scotland, the national development agency for contemporary craft and the go-to destination for anyone looking for beautiful, hand-made objects and who are passionate about supporting Scottish craftmakers. craftscotland.org/craft-directory

Jewellery designer Aubin Stewart creates vibrant collections with a strong focus on colour and composition. She often uses repurposed objects which are scavenged or collected or are off-cuts paired with delicate, precious elements. aubinjewellery.com

Printed textile artist and designer Joanna KinnerslyTaylor explores visual rhythms in her work to capture a particular moment, atmosphere or environment. She combines dyeing, painting and screenprinting on linen, developing bespoke colour palettes for each project. joannakinnerslytaylor.com

Mixing contemporary designs and traditional techniques, knitwear designer Fiona Ross takes inspiration from bright colours and geometric patterns to create her luxury Candy Coated Accessories, which complement each other perfectly. candy-coated.com

Known for his uncompromising stance on excellence, furniture designer and maker Daniel Lacey makes exquisitely hand-finished ‘furniture art’ pieces made to be used today and passed down for future generations to enjoy as heirloom pieces.

daniellacey.com

Ceramicist Tokes Sharif of Studio Brae hand-crafts sculptural, yet functional objects, using locally sourced, natural and sustainable materials wherever possible. Each piece is fashioned in small batches into iconic and timeless forms influenced by architecture and nature. studiobrae.com

Award-winning artist and jeweller Caitlin Hegney looks for rhythms and patterns which transcend ancient times, interpreting them for the present day. She uses handmade tools to translate her sketches into precious metals and handmixes pigments to dye wooden surfaces rich shades of blue. caitlinhegney.co.uk

Museum of Fine Arts

France’s third largest city prides itself on its cultural attractions

Only in Lyon F

By Ian Sclater

ROM ITS EARLY DAYS AS A ROMAN SETTLEMENT, Lyon went on to become a leading printing centre in the Renaissance, an industrial and economic powerhouse through its silk and textile trade, a technical innovator thanks to the Lumiere brothers’ invention of cinematography and today hosts France’s leading art event, the Lyon Biennale.

The city’s oldest and most picturesque district, ‘Vieux Lyon’ (Old Lyon) has one of the largest collections of Renaissance architecture in Europe. Largely pedestrianised, it was the first site in France to be protected under the Malraux law, introduced by the then culture minister and novelist Andre Malraux, which granted taxdeductible status to the restoration of classified property.

A unique feature of Vieux Lyon are its ‘traboules’ (from the Latin ‘trans-mabulare’, meaning to pass through) – passageways and courtyards linking streets through buildings, much to the delight of visitors. The area is topped by the ‘Tour metallique’, a mini-Eiffel Tower which it predates by three years.

At the top end of the Presque’ile (Peninsula) district fringed by the Rhone and Saone rivers (they meet at the lower tip), the Museum of Fine Arts occupies the vast 17th century Royal Abbey of Our Ladies of Saint-Pierre. The finest provincial art museum in France, it stands on the Place des Terreaux, site of the Bartholdi fountain (designed by the same man behind the Statue of Liberty) and previously the site of the guillotine during the bloody French Revolution. To this day some locals refuse to cross the square in deference to ancestors who were victims of the Reign of Terror.

The museum’s seventy exhibition rooms house paintings, sculpture and decorative arts dating from antiquity (including the second largest collection of Egyptian artefacts in France after the Louvre) to the 20th century.

Pride of place goes to the largest collection of Impressionist works in France after the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, including works by Degas, Renoir, Monet, Sisley, Pissarro, Cezanne and Morisot. Other French masters include Moreau, Manet, Dufy, Boudin, Poussin, Ingres, Gauguin, Matisse and Daubigny, while their international counterparts range from Veronese, Rubens and Rembrandt to Chagall, Picasso and Bacon.

A whole room is dedicated to Louis Janmot’s 18-piece The Poem of the Soul, which took him 20 years to complete, while a splendid sculpture display includes works by Rodin, Bourdelle, Wouters, Maillol and others. The permanent displays are augmented throughout the year by themed exhibitions. mba-lyon.fr

Mac Lyon

A giant hand paints the Lyon opera house at the Cinema and Miniature Museum

Guimet

A still from the world’s first publicly screened film greets visitors to the Institut Lumiere

Designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano (Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Los Angeles City Museum of Art, etc.), the Musee d’Art Contemporain de Lyon, or Mac Lyon, is in the Cité Internationale, a huge office, retail and convention complex on the northern edge of the city near the Parc de la Tête d’Or (Golden Head Park), one of Europe’s largest urban parks.

Since 1984, when the first exhibitions took place, works have been especially created by living artists. At the time of its opening, the Lyon contemporary art scene lagged behind much of the rest of Europe and the decision was made not to try to catch up by acquiring existing works, but instead to develop its own collection. This now covers a variety of media, from painting, video, sculpture and sound works to photography, drawing, film and digital art. There are also a number of large scale installations. mac-lyon.com

Lugdunum Roman amphitheatre

Museum of Printing and Graphic Communication

Housed in a splendid Renaissance building in Vieux Lyon, the Maison des Avocats (Lawyers House), the Cinema and Miniature Museum is one of a kind in Europe, with two unique collections assembled by the artist Dan Ohlmann: over 450 pieces of movie memorabilia and objects relating to traditional special effects techniques such as modelmaking and stop motion techniques and 120 faithfully reproduced miniature dioramas of Lyon interiors and other familiar spaces on a 1/12th scale.

Procured from some of the biggest European and American film studios, the cinema section includes animatronics, masks, models, prosthetics, robots, costumes and creatures of all kinds. Clips show the making of films such as Vertigo, Ben Hur, Spiderman, Mrs Doubtfire, The 5th Element, Gremlins and many more.

If you’ve ever been curious to see a hand from Edward Scissorhands, Julie Andrews’ umbrella from Mary Poppins, the original costume from Batman Forever or a triceratops from Jurassic Park, this is the place. There are even complete sets from the movie Perfume, which were transferred from the Bavaria Studios in Munch and reassembled by the original set-builders.

The incredibly detailed miniatures include dinosaur skeletons in an imaginary natural history museum, an artist’s studio, a kitchen, a musician’s untidy flat, a metro carriage, a chapel, a grocer’s shop, an art gallery, a brasserie, a library, the Lyon opera house, a hospital ward and a prison. museeminiatureetcinema.fr

In the splendidly named Monplaisir district, the Institut Lumiere – or, specifically, a spot in the adjoining grounds – is known to fans

of film-making as the birthplace of cinema. In 1895 brothers Auguste and Louis Lumiere presented the world’s first paid public screening of short films using their new invention, the cinematographe, a three-in-one device which could record, develop and project motion pictures.

Of the ten 50-second films shown, “Workers leaving the factory” has gone down in history as the world’s first. It was shot opposite the gate to the Lyon factory their father had founded to produce photographic plates, and today visitors can stand on the very spot on Rue du Premier Film (First Film Street) where the camera was set up. The factory has since been demolished and today the site is occupied by a modern film theatre and a gallery for photography exhibitions.

The family’s Art Nouveau mansion, replete with mosaics, chandeliers, marble fireplaces and even ‘pere’ Antoine and his wife’s seemingly undisturbed bedroom, is now a museum dedicated to the history of film-making and photography. There is a wonderful scale model of the villa by the man behind the Cinema and Miniature Museum.

Ironically, the appropriately named brothers (‘lumiere’ is French for light) saw film as a novelty and had withdrawn from the film business by 1905, going on to develop their other major invention, the first photographic colour process. institut-lumiere.org

The colourful exterior walls of the Institute of Contemporary Art make it a local landmark.

The vast main exhibition hall in the Musee Guimet

Overlooking Lyon is the Fourviere hill (site of the original Roman settlement of Lugdunum, birthplace of the Emperor Claudius), where the Notre Dame de Fourvière Basilica is an unmissable site. Its construction followed a promise made in 1870 by the people of Lyon to their archbishop to build a basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary if the city was spared during the Franco-Prussian war.

An annual pilgrimage to the hill (known to locals as “la colline qui prie”, or “the hill that prays”) still takes place to thank the city’s patron saint, and the scene is represented on a magnificent stained glass window in the chapel dedicated to her. fourviere.org/en/discover/ notre-dame-de-fourviere/basilica-2

Elsewhere on the hill are the Lugdunum Museum and Roman Theatres. You can find yourself a seat in the amphitheatre, which seated over 10,000 spectators and is today the scene of a performing arts festival in summer, and the Odeon, which was dedicated to music and public readings and is now a museum with collections of mosaics, bronzes, scale models and everyday objects tracing the history of Lyon from prehistoric times to the early Christian period. Both are on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. lyon-france.com/je-decouvre-lyon/ culture-et-musees/musees/lugdunummusee-et-theatres-romains

The Rhone and Saone rivers meet at the Musee des Confluences.

Housed in a Renaissance building which was Lyon’s first town hall, the Museum of Printing and Graphic Communication traces the history of printing from Gutenberg’s 15th century letterpress printing process, which radically transformed the way knowledge was communicated, to the digital revolution. The museum has a leaflet of the Gutenberg Bible, the first book printed in Europe.

Lyon was once the European capital of printing, producing books in various languages.

Several streets are named after famous printers, and during WWII the city’s printers produced many Resistance pamphlets.

Exhibits range from one of the earliest printing presses to a 1990 Macintosh Classic computer, while displays explore the diversity of graphic design, from bus tickets and advertising posters to railway signs and record sleeves. imprimerie. lyon.fr/en/edito/presentation_musee

In the Villeurbanne suburb the Institute of Contemporary Art has one of the biggest public collections in France, with about 1,600 works by national and international artists such as Daniel Buren, Gerhard Richter and Jeff Wall as well as early career artists. Virtually all media are represented, and the building’s colourful exterior walls make it a local landmark.

The institute has four exhibition periods a year, with a new space created for every show. (Note to foodies: The IAC is just a few minutes’ walk from a Lyon institution – the Halles Paul Bocuse indoor market, which has been providing top notch fresh food since 1859.) i-ac.eu/en

On the south edge of the Parc de la Tete d’Or, the Musee Guimet originally opened in 1879 to house the personal art collection of the industrialist and philanthropist Emile Guimet. It subsequently went through a variety of uses – a brasserie, a theatre, a skating rink and eventually the city’s Museum of Natural History – before standing empty for 15 years. Its reopening for the 2022 Lyon Biennale revealed an enormous, labyrinthine complex with a particularly aweinspiring central hall and it now hosts a variety of temporary exhibitions. guimet.fr

FURTHER INFO lyon-france.com •

Los Angeles

More and more hotels are displaying distinctive art to help establish, emphasise or change their identity and differentiate them from others. The art collections they are creating to enhance their interiors are intended to engage a creative clientele. Ian Sclater recently visited some Los Angeles hotels which appeal to art-lovers.

MARILYN MONROE wallpaper, a gold monkey in a perspex case, a neon nude, er, eliminating neon stars? Or a wall installation of typewriters, an arty surfboard display or a plastic gnome giving the middle finger? It must be the CitizenM Downtown Los Angeles (the M stands for mobile), where the emphasis is on the playful, whimsical and irreverent.

Like all the hotels in the Amsterdam-based CitizenM group, this one does not take itself too seriously. The open plan ‘canteen’ and ‘living room’ (no formal restaurant or lounge here) encourage a casual atmosphere amid a riot of colour, shelves full of art books and alcoves laden with a phantasmagorical selection of objects.

CitizenM hotels have joined the ranks of some of the world’s top museums, such as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, London’s Saatchi Gallery and Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, on Smartify, an app for art-lovers which uses image recognition technology to identify artworks and provide information about them. A selection of pieces from CitizenM hotels worldwide can be discovered via the app, while the in-room iPad can take you on an art tour of the chain’s collection of over 400 original works.

citizenm.com

ALSO DOWNTOWN, the residentially inspired Hotel Per La occupies the former neoclassicalstyle Giannini Building, originally the headquarters of the Bank of Italy. (The 1920s banking hall is now the main dining area.)

The hotel has retained the building’s signature architectural and design features such as its Doric columns, inlaid plastered ceilings, the fully restored gold and blue Italianate ceiling (from which the hotel’s colour palette is drawn) and marble floors. The public spaces are grand, yet playful and every individual piece of furniture has been custom-made, although they look like they match exactly.

Many of the furnishings and decor were sourced from local LA artisans, including decorative wall lighting from Edition Modern, hand-painted pots by artist Jill Spector and hand-thrown ceiling lights by ceramist and lighting designer Neptune Glass.

The lobby features a custom-made curved plaster front desk by Katrien of Voila Studio inspired by linen fabric, while behind the front desk a hand-painted tapestry by LA muralist Jessalyn Brooks spread across five arches depicts flowing silhouettes.

Every room and suite has custom-designed furnishings, such as antique Persian rugs in saturated, vibrant colours, and a selection of vintage art pieces or original photographs and illustrations by commissioned artists drawn from a collection of over 4,000 pieces. hotelperla.com

Hotel Per La Guest Room

Hotel Per La Claire Suite

Photo: The Ingalls

Photo: The Ingalls

IN ITS LANDMARK 1920s California Renaissance Revival building on the historic Broadway corridor, LA’s foremost concentration of Art Deco architecture and palace theatres, the Downtown LA Proper Hotel is a design destination in itself, with its gorgeous ‘Mexican modern’ interiors enhanced by touches of Spain, Portugal and Morocco, not least through the use by designer Kelly Wearstler of over 100 different kinds of hand-painted tiles throughout the property.

Formerly the private Cabrillo Club, which numbered Cecil B. DeMille among its members, the building, a designated Historic Landmark, has been reimagined through a modern lens, blending vintage elements with modern influences while preserving the spirit of Old Hollywood with a style Mr DeMille would have appreciated.

Mexican folk art-style paintings greet visitors in the lobby, where the walls and ceiling are enveloped in a mural by Abel Macias populated by stylised flora and fauna representative of Central and South America, a theme which is continued with Oaxaca hand-woven reed lampshades and Aztec motifs on the wall outside every guest room.

Residential in feel, each room and suite is appointed with vintage furniture and rugs and accented with hand-applied plaster detailing and a warm palette of charcoals and mauves.

There are site-specific murals and installations by local artists and artisans such as ceramicist Morgan Peck (reception desk, roof-top tables), Ben Madansky (the ceramic wall in the Pool Suite) and Judson Studios, whose stained glass adds sparkle to the public areas. LA’s longest established stained glass business, they have numbered Frank Lloyd Wright among their clients.

Bonus: The hotel is within walking distance of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) and the Broad, two of LA’s top art museums, and the Music Center and Walt Disney Concert Hall. properhotel.com/downtown-la

Ben Madansky’s ceramic wall in the Pool Suite of the Downtown LA Proper Hotel

NEAR THE VIBRANT intersection of Melrose Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, the Kimpton La Peer has an engaging assortment of art, from graffiti pieces by Retna to a topographical installation of the city displayed behind the front desk, while the elevator walls are covered in floral murals by Japanese graphic artist and Apple collaborator Kahori Naki.

The La Peer also has its own artist in residence, James Peter Henry, who occupies a large studio where guests can watch him paint or take a class in everything from preparing canvases to mixing paints.

A native of Australia, James first became influenced by Aboriginal cave paintings. His work depicting an underwater kingdom of tropical fish on a coral reef was projected onto the Sydney Opera House for World Ocean Day in 2021 and Vogue magazine featured a dress he made for Art Basel Miami. He is represented by Winn Slavin Fine Art on ritzy Rodeo Drive. lapeerhotel.com

jamespeterhenry.com

Resident artist James Peter Henry and Charlie in their studio in the Kimpton La Peer

Living Room

Graffiti work by Retna in the Courtyard

TUCKED AWAY below the Sunset Strip, the Petit Ermitage is a boutique hideaway and an oasis of calm from the excitement of West Hollywood. The first thing you notice is the art, including a Dali here, a de Kooning there, a Miro, Erte or Rauschenberg elsewhere, not to mention the Tuscan-inspired detailing on the walls by muralist Marcus Suarez, the European antiques or hand-woven Turkish carpets. The owners’ collection of paintings and artefacts is displayed throughout the hotel, adding gallerylike gravitas to the guest corridors.

Eighty suites, of which no two are exactly alike, have been converted from luxury private residences, giving the hotel a home-like, ‘Boho chic’ feel.

Owner Stefan Ashkenazy is also a founder of the Bombay Beach Biennale, ‘the most radical art festival on the west coast’, which takes place in Bombay Beach on California’s Salton Sea (actually, a lake), the lowest community in the United States.

petitermitage.com

bombaybeachbiennale.com

Guest corridors are lined...

...and lined with art.

OFTEN HOSTING MUSICIANS

performing at the nearby Music Center or Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Omni Los Angeles Hotel is adjacent to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) and down the street from the Broad, two of LA’s top art museums. The nearby landscaped urban park at California Plaza is surprisingly free of the city hubbub. If venturing Downtown from here, you may opt for an orange cabin on the Angels Flight, the narrow gauge funicular railway plying up and down Bunker Hill.

omnihotels.com/hotels/los-angelescalifornia-plaza

The Lobby of the Omni Los Angeles Hotel

The Omni Los Angeles Hotel has the Broad (l.), Walt Disney Concert Hall (top) and Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) for neighbours.

Shadows and Light: The Extraordinary Life of James McBey by

Alasdair Soussi pub. Scotland Street Press

This new biography sheds light on the Aberdeenshire-born artist who, after serving as the official war artist to the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in WWI (his portrait of T. E. Lawrence is in the Imperial War Museum collection) and enjoying commercial success between the two world wars, retreated to north Africa and relative obscurity. Never a joiner of the art establishment, McBey (1883-1959) led an adventurous, almost cinematic life, in the process gaining a reputation artistically as something of a modern Rembrandt, most esteemed for the now unfashionable art of etching. An exhibition of his work continues at the Aberdeen Art Gallery until May 28.

The Endless Coloured Ways

by Sanja Marusic pub. Hannibal Books

The Dutch-Croatian artist Sanja Marušic creates new worlds with her intriguing, vibrantly coloured self-portraits and desolate landscapes, whether influenced by her world travels or by using her own living room as a backdrop. Experimenting with shapes, colours and layers, she explores recurring themes such as escapism, the relationship between man and nature, motherhood and finding a balance in human relationships. Starting with photography, she uses a variety of analogue and digital techniques, sometimes changing the image in such a way that it seems as if we are looking at a painting.

Vermeer ed.

Pieter Roelofs & Gregor J. M. Weber pub. Hannibal Books

The official publication accompanying the largest Vermeer exhibition ever staged, currently running at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (until Jun 4), immerses the reader in the immensely rich pictorial world of the master painter from Delft. All 37 works attributed to him, such as The Milkmaid and Girl with a Pearl Earring, are included and examined in extraordinary close-up detail. An international team of experts has conducted extensive research into the life and artistry of the 17th century artist which has yielded new insights into his social position, household, religious life, technique and the influence of his environment on his painting.

African Art Now

by Osei Bonsu pub. Ilex Press

Over the past two decades contemporary African art has taken its rightful place on the world stage. Today, African artists work outside the confines of limiting categories and outdated perceptions, producing art which is as much a reflection of Africa’s tumultuous past as a vision of its limitless future. Published in collaboration with the Tate, this expansive and far-reaching overview features some of the most interesting and innovative artists working today, celebrating the diversity and dynamism of the contemporary art scene across the African continent.

For a chance to win a copy of the book, go to page 36.

How did you get started in the art world?

I worked in financial services, as a fund manager, for 31 years. I had been made redundant and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next when I met Mark Ashley who was renovating the building on the waterfront at Newport where Tatha is now. He asked if I wanted to come and run the gallery with the artist Helen Glassford. We launched in 2014.

When did you fall in love with art?

I’ve always loved art. I come from Broughty Ferry and when I was a teenager going into Dundee with my friends, we would hang about the McManus Galleries. Museums and galleries have always fascinated me. When I worked in finance, I was lucky enough to be in an organisation that bought great pieces of Scottish art for their offices. I could see it made a difference.

How do you decide what to show in the gallery?

We have a stable of artists, and we do a mixture of solo and group shows, sometimes mixing in their work with new artists. What we will never do is put up the same kinds of work just because it’s safe. We always want to be exciting and new. Artists say Tatha is an

artists’ gallery. There’s got to be a degree of commerciality because you need to put the lights on, you need to survive, but we’re not frightened to put on a show that isn’t truly commercial just because we love the work.

What’s a normal day like?

We can spend 80 per cent of a day talking to people. We would never sacrifice time that connects with people. Every conversation is fun, even if someone doesn’t like the work. That means that things like social media, updating the website, planning, doing the accounts have to be done at other times.

What are the best parts of the job - and the worst?

My colleague Claire (Mackie) and I do everything in the gallery. We curate the shows, hang the pictures, when a show comes down, we repair the walls. There are bits, like Excel, or doing the accounts, which just have to be done. So just do it and get it right, make it easy because the good bits always outweigh the little bits that annoy you. Sometimes, we just sit here and feel immersed in amazing art.

What happened in lockdown?

When the first lockdown happened we were hanging a show. Nobody saw it! We did videos and walkarounds so people could see the show online and we worked hard to reach out to clients who were sitting at home just like we were. We did more through social media and connected with clients through phone calls and emails. And people found us on the internet, sometimes by chance. Now we have got a really nice international following.

How did the pandemic change the art world?

Access to artists is more readily available now through social media, so more people buy direct from the artist. On a positive note, it’s made the art world more open and people are more comfortable looking at art, but it’s also allowed all sorts of art to be sold through social media, good, bad and indifferent, and I think it has had a slight impact on galleries.

What advice would you give someone who’s buying art for the first time?

Trust your gut. You’ll know when a piece of work resonates with you. Stand in front of

Lindsay Bennett, owner

Tatha Gallery, Newport-onTay

the piece and think about how is it making you feel. Don’t match it to the curtains or the wallpaper, look at it in its entirety and spend time with it.

What’s the secret of running a successful gallery?

To love what you do. Make it fun and connect with people. The day I stop feeling passionate is the day I would stop.

What are you most proud of?

We met Norman Gilbert in 2018 when he was 91. He’d been painting for 60 years and had had limited success. His studio was an Aladdin’s cave of paintings. We invited him to have a show with us, and BBC Loop did a programme about him which went viral. He became an overnight sensation. We were able to get him the recognition, at last, that he so deserved.

Has a work of art ever changed your life?

About ten years ago, I went to Florence and saw Michelangelo’s David for the first time. It is at the end of a long room. I stood at the top, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak. I was absolutely blown away by the detail and the

size and everything about that piece of work. Sometimes I can’t comprehend how someone can create something so incredibly beautiful.

If you could have have a work of art from any art collection anywhere in the world…

I’d probably have a piece of David Hockney’s, because I’ve read about him, I like his stories, who he is. But tomorrow I’d probably take a Picasso. And then I might just want an Old Master as well. Do you think I could put David in the back garden?

What are you excited about?

Keeping doing what we’re doing. Producing eight amazing shows a year, finding new talent out there and bringing in artists who have been making work for 50 years who just live round the corner. Finding works which make this space come alive and being even more global than we already are.

Tatha is at 1 High Street, Newport-on-Tay, DD6 8AB. tathagallery.com •