Beamer 3

The Academy Gallery is dim, lit only by the projection of films of diverse shapes and forms, on ceilings, high walls, on glass, on 3-D objects...The first impression is of an Aladdin's cave, an eclectic mix of colour and sensation, and I am keen to take the time to look more closely. 

Luckily, as it is quiet, I have an opportunity to chat to Georgina Porteous, installation artist and Moray College Fine Art graduate. She takes the time to show me round and talk me through the various  pieces, which bring together works by well-established names as well as artists at the beginning of their careers. 

gallery plan

Frames per Second: Graham Roger, Chris Bird, Dave Martin

One of the most arresting works is Frames per Second, a film installation by artists Graham Roger and Chris Bird, with sound by Dave Martin. The pieces weaves together photography, film and sound, and is projected onto a wall of glass resin blocks made by Tain glassworks arranged on the floor. Footage combining domestic and natural imagery has been edited to run simultaneously. The effect is technically intriguing and colourful, but also provokes thoughts about concurrent lives and places, and the impact of digital imagery and technology on our experience of time. 

Ailsa Robertson

Opposite this vibrant colour is a more subdued collection of film, including work by Dundee artist, Cordelia Underhill, Porteous herself, Ailsa Robertson (Moray College graduate now working in London) and Scottish film-maker Dan Shay.The work is projected in a circle through a pane of textured acrylic, emphasising the tone and pattern of the footage. The soundtrack to Robertson's natural imagery of snowy trees includes the howling of wolves.  This oblique presentation creates a calming, impressionistic play of light and sound, rather than dwelling on meaning. 
 

Caroline Bury: Untitled

Caroline Bury describes her practice as 'experimental and dark with a humorous twist, using unusual or unexpected materials'. The disembodied head on the gallery floor, onto which grotesquely moving features are projected, is indeed part horror, part humour. In a similar vein of self-referential portraiture, a film series on the outer wall features a rather disturbing monologue by Camilla Brody about attractiveness (Possibility to Love), and slightly  Bjorkish footage of Selena Kuzman stepping through a range of natural habitats dressed as a white stag, with large white antlers. Also in this space is the first of two Micheal O'Connell (aka Mocksim) pieces, Recay 2008, featuring the voice of John Peel. London-based Mocksim's  surreal animation work investigates everyday functional processes, attempting to re-understand through tinkering with systems and inventing new routines and procedures. His key interest is in 'the mediation of human relationships through technology, its curious dynamics, feedback loops and ritualistic aspects'. The work is both intriguing and clever.

Against the far wall is running a psychedelic sequence by John McGeoch (Artsinmotion), created as a visual for a music concert. While it could work well with a live band, it feels a little too obviously computer-generated.

Sandro Kopp: skype painting

A more engaging work is Sandro Kopp's film of skype painting. The ongoing interaction between painter and subject on the split screen speaks as much about our timeless capacity to connect emotionally across time, place and race as about the wonders of modern technology.

Kopp shares the projector with the second of Mocksim's short loop films or 'simupoems' - a crumpling till receipt entitled Live Well. It is a simple but poignant commentary on life and consumerism. 

Porteous is clearly passionate about how film can connect people. She says, 'The Beamer Nights Project is a fusion of my practice as it relates to my passion for film, archive and site specific installation.  My curation of these expositions brings people together to create and celebrate projections in all its forms. This is done by facilitating original conversations and connections by triggering the widely diverse memories of people’s life experience.' 

This stimulaing show is as much a testament to Porteous' determination and hard work (she has Crowdfunded for the Beamer series), as to her enthusiasm. Given the quality of these works, they could have benefited from a little more space in a larger gallery. But it is refreshing to see new and established artists together, and this is an exciting mix.


Beamer 3 is the latest of Georgina Porteous's Beamer series, running at the Academy Gallery, Moray School of Art in Elgin from 14 March to 4 April. For more information see http://www.beamer.me.uk/

Half-Light

Half-Light is running concurrently with Nora Fok, from 14/3 - 15/4/17. This is a touring exhibition of monochromatic works from three artists with connections to  Caithness. 

Jana Emburey is a visual artist working across a wide range of media including paintings, drawings, printmaking, sculpture and installation. Her work explores the concept of time perception, memory and our transient nature. 

Originally from Caithness, jeweller Beth Legg has been strongly influenced by the remote environment she comes from and is fascinated by the quiet edges of places – a bleak remoteness which can be both beautiful and melancholic. 

Glass artist Karlyn Sutherland initially studied architecture and has a long-standing interest in the bond between people and place. With a particular focus on the characteristics of space that shape our memories and sense of attachment.

An Orkney Calendar 2014

Although this is a small exhibition, the intimate space of the small gallery gives it a sense of mystery and something 'other', which works with the pieces. The mood is understated, with an organic beauty. I was particularly struck by Karlyn Sutherland's piece 'An Orkney Calendar', regular incised shapes made of kiln-fired glass, representing the shadows of a building. It has a sculptural, timeless quality.

Monotype on Japanese Kozo 2016

Jana Emburey's delicate abstract photogravure and monotypes combine tiny etched circles with large monochrome planes. They combine line and form, delicacy and energy very successfully I think.

Restrained 2016

Northern Triptych 2015

Beth Legg is a jeweller, but her work has a sculptural element. One is tempted to wonder what she might produce at a much larger scale. I was particularly interested in 'Northern Triptych', which has a symbolic quality, contemporary, while referencing traditional materials and techniques.  

Filament science and Nora Fok

New Threads' is running at the Inverness Museum from 14 March to 15 April, commissioned by the Harley Gallery, represents a selection from the last six years of British jeweller Nora Fok's intricate textile wearables. Fok's work examines the interaction between art and science and falls somewhere between jewellery, sculpture, art, craft and textile, making it clear that such distinctions are at best artificial!

Snowflake series 2012-13

Mathematics and the three dimensional structures that underlie life’s natural forms are the starting points for these new series. The three themes are: 'Exploring Flax', which led Fok to develop a new thread combining nylon and flax; 'Magic of Nature', showing the latest pieces resulting from Nora’s continuing fascination with natural forms and nylon threads; and 'New Forms, New Technologies', in which she uses 3D printing to create sculptural forms strongly influenced by the mathematical/structural philosophy of Buckminster Fuller.

Fok says, 'The processes that I use - weaving, knitting, crocheting and knotting - turn the linear nylon into simple and complex structures, which are inspired by my fascination with the natural world and the mathematical models that underpin it.'

Knot talk 2013

There is a range of work - from linen and seed pods in organic arrangements to the high-tech plastic and nylon 3-D printed and intricately looped, almost 'space-age' neckpieces. This is a very contemporary use of textile and sculpture that has a fragile, if somewhat artificial, beauty. For example the Snowflake neckpieces, a series of intricately looped circlets in clear nylon, demonstrates incredible craft and patience. The Noughts and Crosses series (2014-15), hard plastic circlets incised with negative spaces is very clever. Yet I found the regularity of these patterns and the inflexible nature of the material failed to evoke an emotional response. The woven linen circlets and neckpieces hung with seed pods have an African tribal feel. Some appear tactile and interesting. Perhaps they need to be moving while worn on someone's body to acquire a sense of life and movement. Under glass they seem a little static. 

The piece 'Knot Talk', a body hanging of textile with knots, based on the quipu counting system used by the ancient South American Cloud People, is interesting. Fok writes of it, 'I let the knots do all the talking. The Cloud People had their way of recording personal events and information, just as we use mobile phone and the web.'

Geodesic home 2015

Hybrid 2013-15

 












I was more drawn to sculptural pieces like this organic one, and like the plastic and nylon 'Geodesic Home'. One of the most successful pieces I felt was 'Hybrid', which takes as its inspiration the Ebola virus and a pollen grain and creates a weird and intriging shape that appears almost alive. Perhaps Fok is at her best when she does not limit herself to circular neckpieces, but is able to be spatially more free?

Katy Dove

Between 7 January and 25 February there was a memorial exhibition at the Inverness Museum of drawings, collages, paintings, prints and animations by the much-loved artist Katy Dove (1970 – 2015). Katy grew up on the Black Isle, and created meditative spaces through her combinations of sound and image, and contemplative responses to colour and rhythm. She found children to be especially receptive to her work. So I took my two children (10 and 12) along, so we could share our impressions.

We were all struck by the animations in the first alcove, playing on a screen. The rhythmic music combined with abstract moving coloured shapes to create a slightly disembodied meditative sense, light rather than dark.

Her small 2-D paint and collage pieces around the gallery space were similar - simple and colourful, with an underlying sense of innocence and joy. In the back room of the gallery were large textile pieces, art quilts, again with the same childlike quality. These were not particularly well lit, but visible. I felt that the animations were the strongest pieces, and that the combination of moving forms and music was effective. 

Overall, we found the show calming and positive. I missed an 'edge' in this exhibition. However, it was relaxing to experience, and there was a real poignancy in the fact that such an obviously sunny and positive person with a sense for sharing the pleasure of art, particularly with children, had such an early and tragic death.