Visual art, Reviews

Philip Braham: Falling Shadows In Arcadia

Insensitively curated exhibition pits the fragility of human life against the enduring landscape

This exhibition of photographic prints by the Royal Scottish Academy’s Morton Award winner 2009 comprises two rather different series’. The most prominent pictures are of black and white scenes – forests, bodies of water, vacant bridges – that have been…

Atsuo Okamoto: Faraway Mountain

A strong sense of both exploration and play

Walking among Atsuo Okamoto’s granite sculpture feels rather like exploring a prehistoric puzzle – 12 pillars, erupting from the ground, cracked and split into pieces then carefully put back together. The Japanese sculptor’s first solo show in the…

Victoria Crowe: Reflection

Rich but congested series of studies of Venice

With so many shows in the Edinburgh Art Festival rigorously analysing the capital itself, Victoria Crowe’s show ‘Reflection’ offers an incongruous but welcome vacation from this theme. Instead of following the trends of site specificity or channelling…

The Space Between

Erratic mixed printmaking show

Taking the theme of ‘space’ as its departure, it is unsurprising that the selection of work in Amber Art’s current show is erratic: by its very nature all artwork deals with space. It appears instead that the term is a comfortable theme within which to…

Perennial Art: A Drawback

Exploring the art of drawing in a calm environment

This European collective is intent on raising the profile of the oft-overlooked art of drawing. Perennial Art’s second exhibition in the Scottish capital draws on influences ranging from the darkly surreal to 20th century board games, and their space at…

Edward Weston: Life Work and William Wegman: Family Combinations

A pair of fascinating photography exhibitions for the price of one

These two fascinating exhibitions by two very different photographers challenge John Steinbeck’s belief that cameras should be disparaged because ‘they are so much more sure than I am about everything.’ Weston was the natural, a pioneer and a comrade…

Julie Roberts: Child

Honest and compelling exploration of childhood

Julie Roberts’ new body of work takes the subject of childhood and explores the displacement of children in the mid 20th century. Her paintings do not make use of universal images; instead they are the result of in-depth research and working through…

Hito Steyerl: In Free Fall

Sophisticated film captures the global economic crisis

A theoretician, artist and filmmaker interested in documentary strategies in contemporary art, Hito Steyerl’s work focuses on the intersection between politics and aesthetics, specifically the status of images as they circulate globally. Steyerl is a…

Mairi Gillies: Natura Sensus

Hortisculpturist explores the relationship between art and plants

Mairi Gillies explores the interventionist nature of horticulture, which, as opposed to agriculture, isn’t always for harvesting, but rather for aesthetic, ownership and collection purposes. As a sculptor, she works with the notion of cultivating these…

Gemma Holt & Richard Healy: Shapes And Things

Making art from the everyday

A partnership instigated by Edinburgh gallery Sierra Metro, ‘Shapes and Things’ is the first collaboration between London-based artists Richard Healy and Gemma Holt. Both work to manipulate and divert the language of design, injecting ‘newness’ into…

Joan Mitchell

Arresting display of abstract paintings

Inverleith House really is a special place. An 18th century mansion reserved entirely for the display of art, its beautifully proportioned light-filled rooms enjoy unmatched views of rolling lawns and botanicals. The works that are exhibited within its…

Martin Creed: Ballet Work No 1020

Oh, do try harder, disgruntled of Sadler’s Wells

Three stars. That’s what Martin Creed’s getting, although I suspect he was aiming for one, and some outrage. Three stars because there are a couple of interesting dance moments, a few good laughs, and some of the musical numbers are quite good, although…

Gilbert and George exhibit at the National Gallery

Retrospective of the iconic art duo

There’s something quite unnerving watching the three films that form the oldest contribution to this mini retrospective of Brit Art’s most enduring double act. Here they are, Gilbert and George, in grainy black and white, young men still in their 20s…

Martin Creed - Down Over Up

Playful exercise in keeping order from the Turner Prize winning artist

It’s tough at the top, as class-conscious ex-Animal Alan Price once sang. Price also added that it’s rougher at the bottom, and positively boring in-between. Equally pertinent to the irresistible rise of Martin Creed is Robin the Frog’s maxim by way of…

Impressionist Gardens

A remarkable exhibition of iconic, influential works at The National Galleries

The National Galleries of Scotland’s ambitious exhibition brings together around 100 paintings focusing on the garden as subject for impressionist painters: remarkably the first show of its kind to have been held anywhere in the world. It’s hard to…

Alexander and Susan Maris' The Pursuit of Fidelity (a Retrospective)

A journey back in time in search of truth, faithfulness and accuracy

‘I am in pursuit of fidelity and if I find it in no dearer time would I rather live,’ reads the passage written above two lovers on a 15th century tapestry in the Burrell Collection. The tapestry, reproduced on a wooden board on the gallery wall at…

Iran do Espírito Santo

Brazilian artist comes to the Ingleby Gallery presenting visual puns

Internationally acclaimed Brazilian artist Espírito Santo here presents visual puns in the form of beautiful mirrored and crystal sculptures, and a wall painting that alternately produces an instinctive and immersive effect. This is a formula that not…

Kim Coleman and Jenny Hogarth: Staged

Edinburgh-based artists stage a cultural land grab from August’s invasion

Entered by way of a curtained-off doorway and presented in a compact room whose pillar-effect cornices form a kind of proscenium arch, this collaborative show by Edinburgh-based artists Coleman and Hogarth sets out its stall as a reflection upon the…

Prints of Darkness

Playful compendium of new work exploring record cover art

If a record is the ultimate mass-produced multiple, the mainstream music industry’s demise has seen a reclaiming of vinyl as a more bespoke medium whereby one work of art (musical) is packaged inside another (visual). This compendium lines up 13…

Sitting & Looking

Innovative group show offers comfortable, close examination of 21st century objects

At first glance you might be forgiven for thinking you have wandered into an upmarket furniture store. Upon closer inspection it becomes apparent that there are wonders here that far outweigh the trappings of consumerism. Taking a seat to peruse the…

Edinburgh Art Festival surrealist exhibition Another World leaves potential unfulfilled

Impressive, if surprisingly straightforward, collection of surrealist works

For a source so rich in departures for radical flights of enquiry, this presentation of surrealist paintings, objects, journals and sculptures is alarmingly straightforward. By marrying a host of mesmerising works by the likes of Dali and Magritte to a…

John Squire: Nefertiti

Henderson Gallery, Edinburgh, until Thu 19 Aug

Ex-Stone Roses guitarist John Squire describes this collection of work – his first in Scotland – as a ‘silent music project’, which clearly plays upon his desire to not return to making music and certainly not to go back to his old band. You could argue…

Katie Cooke: Balancing Act

This body of work is a concise but moving depiction of the photographer’s struggle through several courses of surgery, which may have left her unable to walk. The pinhole exposures correspond with the length of time Cooke was able to stand and represent…

Scott Myles: Elba

In a series of silver and black prints, a sculpture ensemble graces the dance floor of a ballet studio: a pas de deux played out by two slim plinths, a glass object lifted by an office chair, and a stepladder achieving a grand-plié to uphold a petite…

Mark Handforth

The Modern Institute, Glasgow, until Sat 24 Jul

A neon work hangs on the exterior of the gallery like a signpost to an underground poker venue. The piece, entitled ‘Weeping Moon’, sketches the outline of a half moon in pink and blue neon lights with tears rolling down its brick-faced cheek. This…