Visual art

Profile: Rob Kennedy

Artist's exhibition seeks to shift focus from personality and biography

My exhibition at the CCA is a ‘solo’ exhibition that also includes work by other artists, these are included in part to shift the focus away from the biographical/personality aspects of an artist’s work that often dominate a solo exhibition while also…

Scott Myles: This Production

Dundee artist and former skater reclaims DCA building’s interior

It makes sense that the site of DCA used to be Scott Myles’ playground. Back then he was a skater boy and it was a bricks-and-mortar garage re-imagined as the sort of makeshift skate-park for local heroes and future high-flyers, which, under the…

Edvard Munch: Graphic Works from the Gunderson Collection

Extended introduction to troubled Norwegian painter

Perhaps the greatest surprise for casual viewers of this high-profile new exhibition from the Scottish National Galleries is the discovery that Norwegian painter Edvard Munch had a whole catalogue of work besides ‘The Scream’. One of the most famous…

Tony Swain: Drowned Dust, Sudden Word

Using materials of newsprint as starting point for abstract painting canvasses

There’s a deliberately seductive art to the design of a newspaper page, but only within the uniform rigour of the reader’s expectations. Northern Irish artist Tony Swain subverts these norms by using the materials of newsprint as the starting point for…

Callum Innes - Works on Paper 1989–2012

Demonstrates tension, richness and depth already familiar in Innes’ paintings

Callum Innes’ explorations of material processes are well demonstrated in this first exhibition dedicated to his works on paper. Abstract images of colour familiar from his paintings on canvas fill the space, each one creating particular tensions…

Paul Thek: If you don’t like this book you don’t like me

Candid close-up of Brooklyn-born painter and sculptor

‘I will now call to mind our past foulness and the carnal corruptions of my soul’ goes one missive culled from the now opened pages of almost a hundred notebooks left behind by Brooklyn-born painter and sculptor Thek, which came to light following his…

Ambitious outdoor arts festival Roofless

Artists Olivier Grossetete and Sumit Sarkar to create public art projects over the next year

They say if you’re going to think, think big, and that’s exactly what Roofless, Scotland’s all-new outdoor arts festival is doing, with impressive scale and great purpose. Plotted initially in five locations, and bringing together professional artists…

Giants in the Forest: The natural art project putting sculpture into Scotland's woods

Massive project undertaken as part of the Year of Creative Scotland

In a country where much of our creativity is inspired by the incredible natural environment around us, what better year to launch our unique project, Giants in the Forest? Looking down on us from tree tops will be massive wicker heads, seeded and…

Make 2012 your Year of Creative Scotland

Discover incredible events happening near you this year

The Year of Creative Scotland is packed full of exciting new initiatives to complement a fantastic and enhanced, year-round cultural programme. It shows off our creativity at its best...

Video: animated street art at Newhaven

Edinburgh artist Spaceboy animates a 150 metre-long mural along fishmarket shutters

Edinburgh artist Mike Inglis, aka Spaceboy, has collaborated with Red Stripe on transforming the shutters of Newhaven fishmarket into a Jamaica-inspired animation. The first cut of the video can be seen below. Spaceboy pasted his illustrations…

The Magical World of Mackintosh makes the famed designer accessible to kids

The architect is the subject of a Festival of Museums activity day

It went from a place of learning, to a place to learn about learning – but whatever its use, the brilliance of its architect shines through. Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1904, Scotland Street School Museum has many of its creator’s signature…

Vive la Tapisserie! 3 at The French Institute

Exhibition of miniature tapestries from Edinburgh's STAR* collective

For the third year running STAR* returns to the French Institute with an exhibition of miniature tapestries - Vive la Tapisserie!3. This follows on from their successful retrospective That was Then: This is Now at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh, at the…

Karla Black

'Giant tiramisu' is breathtaking and ludicrous in equal measure

Between Karla Black’s work and its viewer, the tension is unbearable. Rarely can inert sculptural work have exerted such a gravitational pull upon its audience, and the effect of ‘art vertigo’ it inspires just can’t be understood unless it’s seen live.

Jeremy Deller: Sacrilege

Stonehenge reimagined as a bouncy castle celebrates creative power of play

If you’re feeling down in the dumps, there are few things more rejuvenating than jumping up and down like an idiot for a few minutes. If you can do so without bursting out laughing like an even bigger loon, chances are you’re dead. As a child of the…

Lorna Macintyre: Midnight Scenes & Other Works

Intriguing and apparently unrelated pieces across various media

An exhibition which speaks most eloquently only when its creator’s intentions have been read and understood, Midnight Scenes & Other Works at first appears to be a series of intriguing but unrelated pieces across various media. There’s a video work…

Emory Douglas: Seize the Time

Imagery of Black Panther party’s minister for culture still high in insurrectionary power

The imagery of the Black Panther party’s first and only minister for culture has lost none of its insurrectionary power over the last half-century. At a time when the Arab Spring and Occupy movements have reintroduced a generation to often violent…

Scotland's Festival of Museums returns for 2012

Programme ranges from Tosca's classics to Scotland’s local heroes

18-20th May sees the return of the Festival of Museums – Scotland’s only country-wide cultural celebration which offers something slightly out of the ordinary for visitors to our museums. For those who remember museum visits as quiet, sedate and serious…

Wolfgang Tillmans

Visually stunning and technically excellent mix of photographic works

Wolfgang Tillmans’ new installation at the Common Guild is composed of an eclectic mix of photographic works, both visually stunning and technically excellent, with a disconcerting disregard for continuity of imagery. This diverse collection includes…

Folkert De Jong: The Immortals

Dutch artist references Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh

A gaudily attired couple sit astride some scaffolding watching the debris-ridden legacy of the best minds of their generation. Or at least that’s the sense you get of Dutch artist Folkert De Jong’s site-specific sculptural intervention, which looks to…

Teresa Margolles

Photographic archive of the now decaying Mexican border town

Life’s a riot in Teresa Margolles’ work for Glasgow Sculpture Studios’ new space in Glasgow’s old whisky bond building, which sources a photographic archive of the now decaying Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez alongside a new piece mined from…

Richard Wright: Works on Paper

Small and delicate lesser-known works are enigmatic and unassuming

Buried in the back corner of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Richard Wright exhibits some of his lesser-known works on paper. They are unassuming, enigmatic and predominantly abstract as with most of Wright’s work. However, in contrast to his more usual…

New Print Generation

Edinburgh Printmakers exhibition featuring Rachel Maclean, Patrizio Belcampo and Lyndsay Gauld

Just in time for Degree Show season, Edinburgh Printmakers has chosen to hold its own mini student exhibition – a selection of emerging graduates from the four major colleges who use printmaking techniques as the basis for their work. As with every…

Cornish visual artist Kurt Jackson discusses his history and working practices

Artbeat Kurt Jackson What was the first exhibition you went to see? Being the son of two artists meant that I was brought up visiting numerous exhibitions, both of their contemporaries and public shows. However, there was an exhibition in 1985 at…

Edinburgh Art Festival 2012

Includes Susan Philipsz, Kevin Harman, Andrew Miller and Anthony Schrag

From repurposed warehouses to historic masterpieces, the Edinburgh Art Festival’s 2012 programme, to be unveiled this August, showcases international stars, world-renowned artists and local heroes. The all-new ‘Promenade Programme’ of publicly sited…

Central Station: Rosemary Head

Dundee-based sculptor of clay

Now based at Tin Roof Arts Collective in Dundee, Rosemary Head moved to Scotland from Derbyshire to attend Dundee University, where she studied art, philosophy and contemporary practices. Inspired by the interdisciplinary focus of this course, and…