Visual art

Edinburgh International Festival 2011 programme keeps an eye on the East

National Ballet of China, Ravi Shankar, Philip Glass among highlights

23 Mar 2011

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra raise the curtain of the 2011 Edinburgh International Festival in style this year with a performance Robert Schumann’s exotic musical Das Paradies und die Peri, one highlight from an EIF programme that boasts acts from…

The rising stars from Glasgow School of Art’s textile department

New fashion talent emerging from Glasgow

7 Mar 2011

Glasgow School of Art’s Newbery Tower is one of the highest points in the city: a grim, grey beacon to 1970s architecture. Its scheduled demolition this summer is set to change the city’s skyline dramatically, which is why for this year’s annual fashion…

The most significant works of art in Edinburgh

Scotland's National Galleries are home to many major works

16 Feb 2011

What’s your idea of true art? The perfect peachy bums of The Three Graces? Football mastermind Sir Alex Ferguson rendered in cut-up red postcards? A stern-faced ice-skating minister? Whatever tickles your artistic fancy, you can be sure to find it in…

Central Station - Anne Doble: Artinkulate

Intricacies with healthy Scottish/nautical flavour

14 Jan 2011

Anne Doble is a self-taught artist/designer-maker, running her own business, Artinkulate, from her home in Portknockie in the North East of Scotland. Prior to this she had a long career in retail management and latterly qualified as an anaesthetic…

The best upcoming events in Scotland in 2011

Highlights of the 2011 cultural calandar from Film, Music, Comedy, Theatre and Visual Art

3 Jan 2011

Huge gigs, inspiring theatre productions, comedy legends and two cute little waving bears – just a few of the things coming up in ‘11 that we can barely contain our excitement about

Antony Gormley - One and Other

6 Oct 2010

(Jonathan Cape) For 100 days last year, 2400 chosen people plonked themselves atop the Fourth Plinth at Trafalgar Square and had an hour to express pretty much anything they wished. So, we had one person delivering a list of apologies for all the…

Chris Close's exhibition at the Edinburgh Book Festival 2010

17 Aug 2010

Chris Close seems to have established himself as the portrait photographer of choice for the Edinburgh International Book Festival. The authors visiting the festival to present their work and thoughts have been captured in a series of pictures by Close…

Impressionist Gardens

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

5 Aug 2010

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…

Prints of Darkness

Playful compendium of new work exploring record cover art

29 Jul 2010

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…

Edinburgh gallery opens new space in Leith

Axolotl gallery to open sister space OXO in Leith

23 Jul 2010

As any self respecting Leither will tell you, the area’s renaissance continues. First the decent bars and restaurants took root, then the ever burgeoning Leith festival. This fortnight its cultural kudos gets another boost with the addition of a new…

Kim Coleman & Jenny Hogarth at Edinburgh Art Festival

Paul Dale finds out more about their Festival installation

15 Jul 2010

Following a rich tradition of surveillance art, Kim Coleman & Jenny Hogarth’s festival show aims to turn Edinburgh into a city under observation. Paul Dale peers through their lens

Martin Creed: Down Over Up - Edinburgh Art Festival

The Turner Prize winner on his Festival work

15 Jul 2010

Renaissance Man Martin Creed is on the Fringe and at the Book Festival as well as stirring up the art world this August. Rosalie Doubal hears from an artist who wants to fully explore the process of living

Impressionist Gardens collects flora and fauna work by Monet, Pissarro, Renoir and Manet

14 Jul 2010

The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie comes in many forms. For the suburbanites of the impressionist movement, inspiration lay not so much on their own front door, but among the vivid hues between the leaves of their back gardens. As befits the woozy…

Billy Connolly statue set for Glasgow's former shipyards

5 Jul 2010

The Big Yin is to be immortalised as part of a new sculpture in one of Glasgow’s new housing developments, in Anderston. Billy Connolly will be recreated as a steel structure following a commission by housing charity, Sanctuary Scotland. Artist Andy…

Dutch Landscapes

Queen’s Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 9 Jan

2 Jul 2010

The cool, spacious interior of the Queen’s Gallery is an apt accompaniment to the moody tones and airy landscapes of these Dutch masters of the art of landscape painting. The exhibition brings together 42 works from painters including Jacob van Ruisdael…

Must I Paint You a Picture?

Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, until Fri 16 Jul

2 Jul 2010

A members group show is typically a disparate affair. The annual Transmission exhibition, where members are given the opportunity to include a work of any size or medium, is a true Salon-style exposé, covering the walls from top to bottom and spilling…

Bright fashion futures at ECA Fashion Show 2010

14 May 2010

Vogue have talked in the past about the ‘Scottish contingent’ in fashion. Designers like Jonathan Saunders, Jamie Bruski Tetsill and Scott Ramsay Kyle (all GSA textiles graduates) and Holly Fulton, Graeme Black and Chloe Patience (all ECA alumni) have…

Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys 1880–1900

4 May 2010

The Glasgow Boys were a pioneering group of the late 1800s, consisting of both Scottish and international artists. Their work is put under scrutiny in a major new retrospective exhibition. It is not so much the story of the Glasgow Boys, their…

Affordable Art: Getting Started - Susanna Beaumont

29 Apr 2010

Buying and owning art can bring both pleasure and profit, and you don’t need stacks of cash to get started. We begin our guide with some tips from a prominent gallery owner...

Glasgow International 2010 highlights - Katrina Brown interview

15 Apr 2010

GI director Katrina Brown introduces some of the festival’s themes and highlights This year’s festival takes place across a vast array of spaces and places in Glasgow, from major museums and regular contemporary art venues to temporary sites and…

Killing Curves: Lynn Ahren

22 Mar 2010

Killing curves Scottish artist Lynn Ahrens’ figure painting carries murderous intent. Paul Dale chats to him about his work Glasgow-born, Edinburgh-trained, and under- appreciated painter Lynn Ahrens likes to talk about the human figure. ‘My work has…

Central Station: Eggmachine

19 Mar 2010

This week’s showcase of what’s hot in the contemporary art world is eggmachine, the alter ego of Gerry Thomson, who runs the woodworking shop at Glasgow’s Southside Studios, where he also creates work. Gerry, who graduated from Glasgow College of…

New Diane Arbus exhibition set for Dean Gallery, Edinburgh

23 Feb 2010

If Diane Arbus hadn’t slashed her wrists in 1971 aged 48, who knows how her work might have developed. As it is, the New York-based photographer became an underground icon, lionised for her untimely death as much as the warts and all portraits of…

Alexis Marguerite Teplin - One foot in the past

26 Jan 2010

Voluptuous, salacious and lavishly overshooting the decorative, Alexis Marguerite Teplin’s paintings are as visually arresting as they are referentially dense. Boundless pleasures can be sourced from the unpacking of their rich montages, and the…

The Dreisburg Wunderhorn

4 Dec 2009

In the Middle Ages, Gunther the Quizzer travelled the Holy Roman Empire, leaving copious notes and drawings of the strange sights he encountered. This extraordinary legacy of baffling, incoherent waffle was recently collected by Edinburgh-based artist…