ARTICLES & REVIEWS

SCOTTISH ART NEWS

"Remembering Janet Boulton at Little Sparta"
Survey of the career of painter Janet Boulton (1932-2024), paying particular attention to her work at Little Sparta, the poetry garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay.
February 2024.

"Calendar of Love"
On Brandon Logan's exhibition of unique minimalist paintings made from colums of paint-encrusted string at Endinburgh's Ingleby gallery.
February 2024.

"Trembling Together"
Review of group show The Trembling Museum at the Hunterian Gallery, Glasgow, curated by Manthia Diawara and Teri Geis, including works of historic and contemporary African diaspora art.
January 2024.

Strength and Sentiment: Early Eardley"
Review of Early Eardley at Glasgow School of Art's Reid Gallery, foregrounding Joan Eardley's early, naturalist-influenced work.
December 2023. 

"Amy Todman: Somewhere in this World"
Interview-based feature on Lebanon-based Scottish painter Amy Todman, discussing her recent show at Beirut's Agial Gallery.
November 2023.

"Heading Norse"
On David Faithfull and Imi Maufe's curation of the touring group show (w)ORD EBBE+FLOW, featuring artists from Scotland and Norway.
October 2023.

"Divine Realms"
On Sekai Machache's exhibition Svikiro, at Mount Stuart House, Bute, named after a spirit medium of the Shona people of Zimbabwe.
September 2023.

"Lighting the Shadows"
Review of sculptor Rowan Mace's colourful geometric constructions in plywood and oil paint at Cample Line, Dumfries. 
September 2023.

"Dream Houses"
On the Scottish painter Carole Gibbons (b.1935), whose long overlooked work is the subject of a monograph from Galerie 5b and exhibition in Glasgow.
August 2023.

"For the Love of Lepidoptera"
Review of Monster Chetwynd's solo show at Mount Stuart, Bute, exploring human relationships with moths.
July 2023.

"The Craft of Gloria Wilson"
Feature on the nautical writer and artist, a long-time collaborator of Ian Hamilton Finlay's and influence on his poems of the 1960s onwards.
June 2023.

"Saoirse Amira Anis: Symphony for a Fraying Body"
Interview-based feature on the Dundonian artist ahead of her solo show at DCA and dance-based performances at Art Night Dundee.
June 2023.

"Unravelling Times"
Review of group show at the Hunterian, Glasgow, featuring film and photography by Lis Rhodes, Francis McKee, Anne-Marie Copestake, and Iman Tajik.
June 2023.

"Science and Magic: Glen Onwin"
Survey of the Scottish land-artist's work exploring saline marshes and using natural materials to create chance-based artworks.
June 2023.

"Studios of Sanctuary"
Interview with three of the refugee-artists involved with Edinburgh Printmakers' In from The Margins residency programme, Ethar Dira, Paria Goodarzi, and Antony Reznick.
May 2023.

"Blowing in the Wind"
On Keg de Souza's solo show Shipping Roots, at Climate House, Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh, exploring stories of botanical migration.
May 2023.

"The Glasgow Enlightenment"
On Rabiya Choudry's signage for three east-end libraries in Glasgow, commissioned by Common Guild.
April 2023.

"Scale Model Memories"
Review of a show of paintings by Willie Sutherland at Beacon Arts, Greenock.
March 2023

"A Yorkshire Haunting"
Interview with film-maker Andrew Black ahead of the premiere of his Margaret Tait Award commission On Clogger Lane.
February 2023

"Secret City"
Review of the group exhibition Hidden Histories: Exploring Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Dundee’s Art Collection at the McManus Art Gallery and Museum.
February 2023
 
"Jessie Sheeler, 1939-2022"
Obituary for the important early collaborator of Ian Hamilton Finlay who co-founded Wild Hawthorn Press and Poor. Old. Tired. Horse.
February 2023
 
"Bodily Traces"
On Matthew Arthur Williams's Soon Come at DCA, Dundee, a sequence film and video works exploring diasporic British-Caribbean identity.
January 2023
 
"Prosthetic Aesthetic"
Review of Andrew Gannon's exhibition of sculptures made with casts for prosthetic limbs at Fruitmarket.
January 2023

"On Painting/ Painting On"
Review of Hayley Tompkins's show Far, at Edinburgh's Fruitmarket, including examples of the artist's painted household objects.
November 2022

"Empty Abundant Gardens"
On Elizabeth Price's UNDERFOOT, a film-work and rug piece commissioned for the Hunterian, Glasgow.
November 2022

"Mad Grass Painting"
Survey of a recent show of abstract painting by Chinese-Malaysian artist Hock Aun-Teh, who became the first Asian graduate of GSA's School of Painting and Drawing in 1974.
October 2022

"Flights of Remembrance"
Review of Frank McElhinney's conceptual photography show Flight at Street Level, Glasgow, exploring the history of Scottish-Irish migration.
October 2022 

"Let Glasgow Flourish"
On the show Lanark, at Glasgow's Hunterian, a set of materials from the Alasdair Gray archive recording the creation of the novel.
September 2022

"The Monks' Tale"
Interview with Angus Writers Circle, the first residents of artist Bobby Niven's New Scriptorium, built on the grounds of Arbroath Abbey.
August 2022

"Empire of Joy"
On Saoirse Amira Anis, For No Other Reason than Joy, at Cample Line, an exploration of the domain of the artist's alter-ego Freedom Princess.
August 2022

"Katie Paterson, Requiem"
Review of a show comprising fossil remnants from across geological history. At Edinburgh's Ingleby Gallery, April-June 2022.
Summer 2022

"Et in Arcadia Artifice"
On Abbas Akhavan's Study for a Garden, a set of site specific installations at Mount Stuart on Bute.
June 2022

"John Patrick Byrne, A Big Adventure"
Review of the first retrospective of Byrne's work in over 20 years, at Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery.
June 2022

"Future Remains"
Interview with Katie Paterson on the opening of her exhibition Requiem.
April 2022

"X Marks the Spot"
On Sulaïman Majali, the recipient of the 2022 Margaret Tait Award, commissioned by LUX Scotland to support experimental film and moving-image in Scotland.
April 2022

"Meet Me at the Threshold"
On a group show in Edinburgh featuring work by the Talbot Rice Gallery's resident artists for 2018-21.
April 2022

"Data Dredging"
Review of show by Moira Salt and Fiona McGurk at 16 Nicholson Street, Glasgow, curated by Aga Paulina Młyńczak.
March 2022

"Kind(s) of Blue"
Artist's profile on Scottish-Zimbabwean photographer and performer Sekai Machache.
March 2022

"Of Books, Barns, and Boats"
On Fair Winds and Following Seas, a group show in honour of Leonard McDermid and the Stichill Marigold Press.
February 2022

"Hill-walking for the Eyes"
Review of James Hugonin's Fluctuations in Elliptical Form at the Ingleby, Edinburgh.
March 2022

"Drawn from Memory"
Artist's profile on Glasgow-based Korean painter Sin Park.
February 2022

"Things of the Flesh"
Review of the Hunterian Gallery and Roberts Foundation exhibition Flesh Arranges Itself Differently.
January 2022

"A Field in England"
Review of Amartey Golding, Bring Me to Heal, at Tramway, Glasgow.
December 2021

"Unbearable Lightness"
On a new show of paintings and sculptures by Cathy Wilkes at Glasgow's Modern Institute.
December 2021

"Winter Fruit"
Review of Jyll Bradley's sculptural installation Pardes at Edinburgh's Fruitmarket Gallery.
December 2021.

"Jumbie Soundscape"
On a new version of Ashanti Harris's dance piece An Exercise in Exorcism, performed at Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art.
November 2021.

"Labour and Liberation"
Review of Howardena Pindell: A New Language at The Fruitmarket, Edinburgh.
November 2021

"Text Disabled"
Review of Acts of Observation, a group show exploring the politics of contemporary disability at Collective, Edinburgh.
November 2021

"John Andrew 1933-2021"
Obituary for the stone carver, graphic designer, teacher, and long-time collaborator of Ian Hamilton Finlay.
November 2021

"Mind the Matter"
Review of Moyna Flanigan's new show of paintings, Matter, at the Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh.
November 2021

"The Language of Things"
Review of Tonico Lemos Auad's exhibition of sculptural objects Unknown to the World, at Cample Line, Dumfries.
October 2021

"Outdoor Shoots"
Review of Alex Boyd's Tir an Airm (“Land of the Military”), an exhibition of photographs exploring Scotland's militarised landscapes at Stills Gallery, Edinburgh.
October 2021

"Soft Power"
Review of Gather and Arrange, an exhibition of textile art by design collective Arrange Whatever Pieces Come Your Way at Mount Stuart House, Bute.
October 2021

"Naturally It Is Not"
Reviews of Alaya Ang and Hussein Mitha, Plotting (against) the Garden and Christine Borland, In Relation to Linum, at Edinburgh Art Festival 2021.
August 2021. 

"Always in Paradise"
Antiguan artist Frank Walter's circular "spool" paintings offer a window into the centre of a visionary imagination, as a new show at the Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, reveals.
August 2021

"Tracing Impressions"
A history of Glasgow University's holdings of paintings and correspondence by James McNeill Whistler, celebrating a new exhibition of Whistler's work at the Hunterian Gallery.
August 2021

"Margot Sandeman"
On the Scottish modernist painter Margot Sandeman, including her creative relationships with Joan Eardley and Ian Hamilton Finlay.
August 2021

"The Youngest and The Best"
Shaun Fraser and Will Maclean's new show Owners of the Soil, at The Fine Art Society Edinburgh, uses collage and sculpture to dig into themes of migration and colonisation.
August 2021

"What If . . . ? / Scotland"
Review of a show at V&A Dundee pairing citizens with architects across six towns in Scotland to devise solutions to problems of infrastructure and community cohesion.
July 2021

"Cottage Economy"
Review of John Brennan's Scotland's Rural Home: Nine Stories about Contemporary Architecture (Lund Humphries, 2021)
July 2021

"Marine Lights"
Five highlights of the Ian Hamilton Finlay exhibition Marine, at Edinburgh City Arts Centre.
July 2021

"Articulating Identities"
A Conversation between contemporary artists and filmmakers Jamie Crewe and Tako Taal about their work exploring trans and racialised identities.
July 2021

"Living Mountain"
Ilana Halperin's summer 2021 exhibition There Is A Volcano Behind My House, at Mount Stuart House on Bute, is a dazzling exploration of geology and genealogy. 
June 2021.

"Art of Survival"
On the history of Mount Stuart, a masterpiece of Victorian gothic architecture on the Isle of Bute.
May 2021

"Warped Perspectives"
On the life and work of Scottish textile artist Archie Brennan, ahead of an exhibition of his work at the Dovecot Gallery, Edinburgh.
May 2021

"Pulling at the Thread"
Interview with textile artist Christian Newby ahead of his show Boredom>Mischief>Fantasy>
Radicalism>Fantasy at the Collective Gallery.
May 2021

"At the Threshold"
Review of Alastair Noble's artist's book in homage to Ian Hamilton Finlay.
April 2021

"Wild Commons"
On the Bothy Project network of interregional artists' residencies across Scotland.
April 2021

"Ian Hamilton Finlay and Ian Gardner: A Walled Garden"
Review of artist's book documenting Finlay's 1980s collaboration with Albert Speer, former Nazi architect and armaments minister.
March 2021

"In Praise of Shading"
On Scottish painter Alan Johnston, exploring his engagement with Japanese Wabi-Sabi aesthetics. 
March 2021

"A Man Walks into an Art Gallery..."
Interview with sculptor Mick Peter about his cartoon-based installation works.
February 2021
 
"Stormy Waters"
Review of Joanne Coates's North Sea Swells, a photo-portrait of the Orkney fishing industry.
February 2021
 
"Chagall at the Circus"
On Marc Chagall's The Horse Rider (1949-53), his first work to be purchased for a public collection in Scotland.
January 2021
 
"Tangled Intensities"
Review of painter Sara Barker's exhibition Undo the Knot, at Cample Line Gallery.
November 2020

"Hidden Depths: Edwin Morgan's Scrapbooks"
On the extraordinary 35-year scrapbook project of Scottish modernist poet Edwin Morgan, and influences on it from Surrealism to Cold War politics.
October 2020
 
"The Universal in the Particular: The Glasgow School at Cockburnspath"
Surveying the work of Glasgow School painters at their artists' colony at Cockburnspath during the 1880s.
September 2020
 
Review of Alistair Peebles/Brae Editions, The Gledfield Effect
Review of an artist's book evoking the brief but creatively rich period Ian Hamilton Finlay spent at Gledfield Farmhouse in the northern Highlands.
June 2020
 
"The Enigma of John Lavery: Irish Nationalist, Glasgow Boy, British State Artist"
An overview of the life and work of the Irish-born Glasgow School painter John Lavery (1856-1941).
June 2020
 
"Postcards from the Front"
A survey of the Fleming-Wyfold Collection's new acquisition of Ian Hamilton Finlay prints.
May 2020
 
Review of Sylvia Wishart, Orkney Drawings 1968-1977, and Frances Scott, Undertow
Review of photo-books and sketches by modern and contemporary artists evoking the landscapes of the Orkneys.
April 2020