Visual art

Lucy Roscoe - The Beach House

Collection of sea-themed prints and paper sculptures in convivial deli setting

Edinburgh-based artist-illustrator and founder of the Book Tree Press, Lucy Roscoe, brings a body of new work to Edinburgh’s Broughton Deli. The Beach House is the tenth in a specially curated series by Nicola Brooks and fills the space with delicate…

Photographer Elad Lassry to bring film Untitled (Ghost) to Tramway

Scottish appointment follows artistic recognition in Venice and Germany

What does modern mean? Does it mean commerical, bright, and futuristic? Or is modernity simply something to do with how our view of the past changes over time? These aren’t new ideas to occupy the mind of an up-and-coming visual artist, but Elad…

Graham Fagen: Missing

Moving video installation running parallel to the Tramway's Andrew O'Hagan-penned theatre production

Graham Fagen’s moving video diptych Missing explores the experience of going missing, and what it is like for those left behind. Commissioned by the Scottish National Portrait gallery, it is produced in partnership with the National Theatre of Scotland…

Glasgay!: Re-Invention

Exhibition and workshop aimed at gay and trans comic fans

The idea of gay culture in comics is nothing new, with handfuls of uptight academics frantically pointing out the homoerotic sub-tones of Batman and Robin’s cartoon exploits since the 1950s. The foundations of X-Men arguably lie in the civil rights…

Nick Sargent: A Scottish Land

Bold and charming celebration of the Scottish landscape

With A Scottish Land, one-time set and costume designer and Edinburgh resident Nick Sargent returns to Oliver Chapman Architects in-house gallery space for the first time since their inaugural exhibition. Inspired by a photograph of a generic…

Alan Reid: Boudoir Concrete

Delicately balanced clashing of art and design

Looking for all the world like propaganda posters for Nazi leisure organisation Kraft durch Freude, Alan Reid’s representational drawings of lissome young bodies appear to promote healthy living and sexless appeal. Lithe bodies are interrupted by…

Gary Rough - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. . .

Meshing of conceptual ideas that leaves no lasting impression

Running at Sorcha Dallas for the next month is Gary Rough’s latest Glasgow exhibition Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc..., a meshing of two conceptual ideas, the ongoing collection of 1,984 copies of George Orwell’s classic, 1984, and the attempted…

Central Station - Laurie Hastings

Laurie Hastings is an illustrator and printmaker, striving to produce images that capture and communicate the imagery and narrative of a text. People are often central to the images Laurie creates: she enjoys conveying an emotion or a certain tension…

Paul Muzni: Configure

Versatility found among abstracted oil and pastel pieces of Edinburgh artist

Edinburgh artist Muzni treats the eyes in this collection of life works focusing on the female nude, constantly striving to keep his approach as fresh as the colours that make up his delicately abstracted oil and pastel pieces. The use of pastel is a…

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Lightning Fields and Photogenic Drawings

Breathtaking exploration of both photography and science

To say that Sugimoto's contribution to the Edinburgh International Festival is striking would be an understatement. This is the first time these works have been displayed in Europe. The Japanese photography pioneer’s huge analogue 'Lightning Fields…

Vault Art Glasgow is an inventive new art market

Featuring artists Dawn Youll, Ellie Harrison and Risa Tsunegi

Vault is a new art fair that will take place inside an art installation, set inside an arts space, that houses artists’ studios. Like a Russian doll the event playfully peals back the dominant layers of today’s art market, to reveal independent practice…

Detours film project at 2011 Edinburgh Art Festival

Responses to work by Aidan Moffat, Josie Long and Ross Sutherland

While everyone might know about the Edinburgh Art Festival, a series of collaborations have been quietly reflecting the works exhibited in the various exhibitions around the city. Suzy Glass (behind the creative social network Central Station) and Angie…

Futureproof 2011: New photography in Scotland

Cross section of work by recent graduates

As the third in a series of exhibitions initiated by Street Level Gallery, Futureproof profiles a cross section of work by graduates from the five Scottish university photography departments. The pictures on show are taken by nimble-fingered light…

Interview: John Byrne

Painter and playwright at 2011 Edinburgh Art Festival

What came first – the art or the writing? It must have been the drawing and the art, because my mother used to tell people that I was drawing in my pram. We have to take her word for it – she was a very honest woman. Do you hold writing and art in…

Smile

Feeble collection riffing off ill-conceived ideas

Between the Spangles wrapper psychedelia of its poster to the feeble collection of art in the gallery, Smile does nothing to live up to its name. Riffing off ill-conceived ideas honed from (a misunderstanding of) the Fluxus movement and the writings of…

John Byrne: Moonlight and Music

Major exhibition of works by much-loved Scottish artist

So recent are some of the pieces in this show – timed to coincide with the launch of a biography of the artist by Lund Humphries – that self-portrait ‘Chop Suey’ and Byrne’s children’s book Donald & Benoit: A Story of a Cat and a Boy arrived close to…

Richard Demarco and Joseph Beuys

An art world friendship under a Scottish sky

A single rose can make a garden; a single friend can make a world. Writer, artist and philosopher Richard Demarco’s friendship with the humanistic artist Joseph Beuys was something special. These two passionate, occasionally obtuse men were drawn to…

Mystics or Rationalists?

Elegant conceptual works bend associations of the ordinary

Stealing the show, Susan Hiller’s new levitation works are exemplary of the conceit at the heart of this group exhibition. Having infused conceptual and minimalist strategies with the influence of psychoanalysis and pop culture since the late 1960s…

Peace at Last!

Photorealist style of Kate Davis focuses on political history with feminist narratives

This small collection of works by Kate Davis is a response to the Glasgow Museums’ collection. The show focuses both on political history with feminist narratives and the archiving process mixed in with her own interventions. In the first room is the…

Interview: Hiroshi Sugimoto

Renowned photographer on his EAF exhibition

Is this your first visit to Edinburgh? I did pass through here once in the late 90s. I was shooting seascapes around the Scottish coast. Which wasn’t so successful: mostly, I saw many oil towers, so I couldn’t get clear seascapes. I thought it was a…

Early Relativity: Karen Cunningham and Zara Idelson

Good pairing of Glasgow-based artists

Every year for their summer show The Duchy pairs a recent graduate with a more established artist. This year Glasgow School of Art graduate Zara Idelson shows paintings and interventions alongside the work of Glasgow-based Karen…

Stephen Sutcliffe: Runaway, Success

Biography-obsessed artist hides behind his heroes

It’s been a while since Yorkshire-born Glasgow resident Sutcliffe has trotted out his curious wares in Scotland, and it’s not difficult to see why. His work is moody and peppered with arch cultural references to complex arty prima donnas Joe Orton…

Carmen Sylva

Established artists take on a new and exciting identity

A procession of odd assemblages punctuates the centre of Sierra Metro’s exhibition space. They are Katharina Stoever and Barbara Wolff’s latest artistic response to Peles, a late 18th Century Romanian castle that has inspired their practice for over six…

Chris Drury - Land, Water and Language

A man, his boat and some nice scenery

Life’s a journey not a destination and other such homilies. God preserve us from the travelogue artists. Chris Drury is one such artist. This exhibition, which was initially created for Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Centre in North Uist, takes its…

Norman McBeath & Robert Crawford: Body Bags / Simonides

Mournful collaboration between photographer and poet

Scots translations of epitaphs by the ancient Greek poet Simonides, coupled with black and white photographs, adorn the high-rising walls of two lofty Edinburgh College of Art studios. Joined by tall vases of white lilies, classical casts from the…