Rosie Lesso

Tom Phillips - Word and image

15 Nov 2007

In 1966 the artist Tom Phillips went on a shopping expedition in Peckham, casually looking for a book to play with and adapt. Chance led him to a copy of WH Mallock’s A Human Document, an obscure and relatively forgotten Victorian novel, which the…

Jim Lambie: Forever Changes

24 Apr 2008

SCULPTURE AND INSTALLATION Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, until Mon 29 Sep Lambie seems to be an ideal choice for the Gallery of Modern Art’s contribution to the Glasgow International, particularly given his established international reputation yet…

Young Athenians

The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, until Sun 12 Nov

27 Oct 2006

PAINTING, PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEO, INSTALLATION Both Edinburgh College of Art and The Embassy Gallery link the 17 or so artists in this eclectic exhibition. In the first, dark wood panelled, dimly lit room, a curious, uncomfortable atmosphere ensues. A…

Edinburgh Art Festival

Street arts

31 Jul 2008

Edinburgh residents are used to a takeover at this time of year. As hoardes of performers, artists, comedians and their assorted entourages set up a whole other city on top of theirs, the festivals can feel divorced from the realities of Edinburgh life.

Turning point - Richard Wilson

Edinburgh International Art Festival

22 Jul 2008

Installation artist Richard Wilson is a true pioneer whether he’s experimenting with drawing, film or sculpture. Rosie Lesso hears from the man about how he loves to defy preconceptions British artist Richard Wilson has an uncanny ability to distort…

Cathy Wilkes: Prices

17 Jul 2008

REVIEW INSTALLATION The Modern Institute, Glasgow, until Sat 6 Sep Cathy Wilkes is adept at creating compelling discomfort, making us look, and look again at queasy or disturbing phenomena in search of hidden meanings and narratives. In this…

Melanie Gilligan

8 May 2008

PERFORMANCE AND INSTALLATION Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, until Sat 10 May This exhibition by London-based artist and writer Melanie Gilligan takes place not in the usual Transmission gallery, but in an upper Wasps studio space opposite. The…

Enrico David

27 Mar 2008

Italian-born, London-based artist Enrico David showed the exhibition Ultra Paste in late 2007 at London’s ICA, where it received significant critical praise. In fact, since 2001 his reputation has grown so considerably he is now regarded as one of the…

Spanning the void

1 Nov 2007

Think of post-war Eastern European modernisation and what comes to mind? Invariably, it is the drab, rashly executed housing blocks, service pavilions, train stations and shopping centres that inspire Monika Sosnowska, leading the Polish artist to…

Nathan Coley

23 Aug 2007

Be careful when entering this exhibition – a sturdy strip of wood runs right across the entrance just high enough to trip unsuspecting visitors flat onto the floor. This is not a health and safety oversight but artist Nathan Coley’s intervention…

Harry Smith Anthology Remixed

17 Jul 2008

REVIEW PAINTING, DRAWING, PHOTOGRAPHY, MUSIC CCA, Glasgow, until Sat 26 Jul Artist, filmmaker, musicologist: just a few of the labels attached to Harry Smith, the great American polymath of the 1950s. This exhibition celebrates the chain-smoking…

GROUP SHOW, Doggerfisher

13 Mar 2008

Doggerfisher, Edinburgh, until Sat 26 Apr Doggerfisher’s annual group show brings together work by recent graduates and more established artists. Refreshingly, the gallery unites the six artists via an interest in formal concerns with space and…

Collage City

17 Jan 2008

PAINTING, SCULPTURE, PRINTMAKING, PHOTOGRAPHY Dean Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 24 Feb This latest offering from the Dean Gallery has drawn a number of key works out from the Gallery of Modern Art’s permanent collection to create an unassuming and…

Group show: Delia Baillie, Iain Sturrock, Jessica Harrison, Karen Kirkwood, Sophe McKay Knight

Amber Roome, Edinburgh, until Thu 8 Mar

12 Feb 2007

PAINTING, PHOTOGRAPHY Given that Amber Roome is a small-scale gallery space, and that five artists are involved in this show, one can assume it will be a rather intimate affair. The five artists are not thematically linked, but there do seem to be…

Paul Rooney

5 Jun 2008

VIDEO The Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sat 12 Jul Liverpool-based artist Paul Rooney’s two video works on show at the Collective Gallery include the newly commissioned ‘Lost High Street’ (2008), which draws on his experiences as an art student…

Gary Fabian Miller & Edmund de Wall

4 Oct 2007

Repetition, when performed by the human hand, will always be peppered with tiny differences. This is evidence of man’s failing against the machine, yet there is, of course, unexpected pleasure to be found in human error. It is a subject of fascination…

Johanna Billing

20 Sep 2007

Modern life often forces us into strange and awkward social situations, something Swedish artist Johanna Billing seems painfully aware of. Somewhere between document and fiction, her films record moments that she breezily calls ‘on the surface, quiet…

Richard Long: Walking and Marking

16 Aug 2007

Even at 60, Richard Long is a towering, physical man. He has trekked across the Sahara, Lapland, and the Himalayas, crossed Ireland in 12 days and lost himself in the Gobi desert and the Norwegian wilderness. For the past 40 years Long has been making…

David Batchelor

9 Aug 2007

David Batchelor has been a busy man of late, scouring pound shops in London and Scotland for pegs, combs, cutlery, clothes pegs, children’s toys, girly hair accessories and a whole manner of other cheap plastic objects in preparation for this new site…

Picasso: Fired with Passion

9 Aug 2007

The crowd puller/money spinner for this exhibition is its heavy emphasis on Picasso’s ceramic work, running from his later years of 1947–1961 and all produced whilst living and working in the South of France. And indeed they are fascinating, ranging…

Anna Barriball

The Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sat 28 Oct

27 Oct 2006

PHOTOGRAPHY, SCULPTURE AND INSTALLATION ‘Untitled (Wallpaper)’, Barriball’s first drawing on display here, is a heavy-handed graphite rubbing on tracing paper recently taken from the Ingleby Gallery’s wallpapered wall. This intimate relationship with…

Laura Ford - Armour Boys

18 Aug 2006

Given the enormity of Laura Ford’s subject matter - children at war - this exhibition is surprisingly underwhelming. Ford has drawn on and subverted Scottish armour displays, particularly those at Fyvie Castle seen during a residency in Aberdeen in…

Ingleby Gallery

All change

7 Aug 2008

Edinburgh’s Ingleby gallery has gradually developed a solid reputation for showing emerging and established contemporary art in a domestic Georgian setting, but their art collection has grown along with their status, prompting directors Richard and…

Them: Artur Zmijewski

28 Feb 2008

VIDEO AND INSTALLATION The Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sat 22 Mar Polish filmmaker Artur Zmijewski has established an international reputation and this film, ‘Them’, was originally shown at Documenta 12. The film is a documentary ‘social…

Split Personality - Alan Michael

31 Jan 2008

Rosie Lesso creates an imaginative map of associations as she considers the work of painter Alan Michael Like many artists before him, Alan Michael’s first point of reference is the sea of visual information we encounter as by-products of…

Jason Nelson

29 Nov 2007

PRINTMAKING, FILM The Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sat 22 Dec The Collective Gallery’s annual New Work Scotland exhibition this year showcases, among others, the work of Dundee-based artist Jason Nelson. Born in the ex-mining town of Kelty…

Ilana Halperin

1 Nov 2007

In 2003 Glasgow-based artist Ilana Halperin turned 30. To celebrate she visited the Eldfell volcano in Iceland. This is perhaps not the way most young women would commemorate their third decade, but it ties in with both her nomadic temperament and her…

Interview - Aileen Campbell

18 Oct 2007

Rosie Lesso talks to Aileen Campbell about her current exhibition at Glasgow’s Transmission. RL Your performative practice takes place in a range of formats and contexts. How would you define it? AC Generally I want to become embedded in both…

Voluntary Action

6 Sep 2007

It’s now ten years since Stirling’s small artist/volunteer-run space The Changing Room opened its doors. In that time it has provided a supportive platform for emerging and established talent from Scotland and beyond. The continuing success of this…

Michael Craik: Razed to the Ground

16 Aug 2007

There can be an arresting intimacy in small paintings. The artist’s relationship becomes that much closer and more private, the intentions more modest. Certainly this seems to be part of the appeal of Michael Craik’s most recent works, all of which are…

Chongbin Park

1 Aug 2007

South Korean born artist Chongbin Park moved to London in recent years, and the sense of fragility and alienation he feels as a foreigner within the city has formed the backbone to much of his recent practice.

Hanneline Visnes: Sleepshapes

18 Jun 2007

DRAWING, PAINTING Within Hanneline Visnes’ intricately layered drawings and paintings one finds a multitude of mysterious broken and distorted references, where stories begin yet lead us nowhere. As an artist interested in the long history of…

Peter Jaques: Babble

The Corn Exchange Gallery, Edinburgh, Fri 27 Apr - Thu 14 Jun

23 Apr 2007

PHOTOGRAPHY Locking yourself in a pitch black basement with a dog and writing excerpts from ancient Greek texts such as Orpheus and Eurydice and The Twelve Labours of Hercules onto photographic paper with an old style quill pen dipped in chemicals…

Rob Churm

Sorcha Dallas Gallery, Glasgow, until Sat 7 Apr

13 Mar 2007

DRAWINGS Crying roses, knitted clouds, bare lightbulbs, Japanese symbols and hand drawn texts are among the fantastical images found in Glasgow-based artist Rob Churm’s surreal, layered monochromatic drawings. At the root of Churm’s works is a…

Living in the Modern World

City Art Centre, Edinburgh, until Sun 4 Mar

29 Jan 2007

PAINTING, FILM, PHOTOGRAPHY and INSTALLATION The spaces we inhabit and the buildings that surround us shape much of modern life as we know it. This is the basic premise for this densely packed exhibition, which spills out over two floors of the City…

Douglas Gordon

The dark arts

22 Nov 2006

Just days before Halloween, the exterior lights of the Royal Scottish Academy were switched from white to red, casting a warning beacon to the city that something dramatic and uneasy was afoot. Five huge black posters were unfurled over the façade…

Andrew Sunley Smith - Migratory Projects

Andrew Sunley Smith - Migratory Projects

10 Oct 2006

INSTALLATION, PHOTOGRAPHY AND FILM Migratory Projects, by Australian artist Andrew Sunley Smith, loosely explores migration and survival, via records of journeys through Australia. Along with documentary photographs, items from the journeys are…

Adel Abdessemed: Trust Me

24 Apr 2008

REVIEW VIDEO, DRAWING AND INSTALLATION The Common Guild, Glasgow until Sat 7 Jun One of Adel Abdessemed’s videos was rejected by the Gi’s committee for this exhibition due to its excessive violence. This further cemented his reputation as an artist…

Interview - Elph

10 Apr 2008

Rosie Lesso You have an established reputation as a graffiti artist, so how do you feel about exhibiting with Recoat Gallery? Elph Over the last few years I’ve done quite a few exhibitions in small galleries, so I felt fine about showing the work in…

Nick Evans and Tony Swain

28 Feb 2008

PAINTING AND SCULPTURE Inverleith House, Edinburgh, until Sun 20 Apr Two Glasgow-based artists have been brought together and seemingly linked by their aptitude for and interest in the process of making. It gives this exhibition an appealing rawness…

Interview - Arek Kozak

14 Feb 2008

Rosie Lesso talks to Arek Kozak about bringing Poland to Scotland at the Collective Rosie Lesso The exhibition, Polish-Scottish Cultural Stimulation, makes cultural comparisons in response to the rising number of Polish inhabitants in Edinburgh. As…

Carol Rhodes

4 Jan 2008

Carol Rhodes’ meditative, repetitive approach to landscape painting could be linked to artists such as Friedrich, Corot, Monet or Cezanne, each in their own way sharing an obsession with the genre, though, as the artist Merlin James points out: ‘Rhodes…

Roman Signer - Action man

29 Nov 2007

Since the 1970s Swiss artist Roman Signer has been making eccentric kinetic art, enlivening both himself and found objects with elemental forces such as wind, fire, water or explosives. At first glance, Signer’s clowning around seems to lack substance…

Johanna Billing

18 Oct 2007

FILM AND INSTALLATION Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, until Sun 4 Nov There are many ways of going round an exhibition. Some might favour a more linear, systematic approach, whilst others prefer to flit around randomly, driven by intuition. But…

Opt In For Art Exhibition

The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Fri 20 Apr - S

9 Apr 2007

PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEO, INSTALLATION, DRAWING, PAINTING

Aggregate, Jamie Shovlin

Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh

16 Jan 2007

PAINTING, FILM, PHOTOGRAPHY, INSTALLATION Museological stirrings are already afoot at the Talbot Rice Gallery. London-based artist Jamie Shovlin has pulled out multiple dusty copies of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species from the University of…

Friedrich

Doggerfisher Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sat 3 Feb 2

20 Dec 2006

PAINTING, PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEO AND INSTALLATION Friedrich - Marcus Amm, Helene Appel, Eva Berendes, Ellen Gronemeyer, Alex Heim, Karin Ruggaber and Nicole Wermers The seven artists in this upcoming exhibition ‘Friedrich’ are united geographically…

Graham Fagen

Doggerfisher Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sat 9 Dec 2

11 Nov 2006

PRINTMAKING, PHOTOGRAPHY, INSTALLATION Graham Fagen has painted the walls in the main gallery black, immediately setting an ethereal, theatrical tone to this dimly lit exhibition, entitled ‘Closer’. Three silkscreen prints, simplistic white linear…

Word Order: Concrete Poetry and its Influence

The Changing Room, Stirling, until Sat 21 Oct

28 Sep 2006

SCULPTURE, INSTALLATION AND PRINT Although the main space is minimal, the Scottish poet Alec Finlay’s playful wall works adds gusto to Stirling’s Changing Room. Welcoming us to the exhibition is ‘Loop’ (2006), cut out letters spelling the title four…