Wandering around the work of this year’s DJCAD graduates before the award plaques go up is a new and somewhat freeing experience. A dauntless spectator may attempt at a few guesses, but this year the work is so varied in media and approach that it’s even difficult to label it under course names; deep reverberating sounds and extensive processes radiate from the Art Philosophy and Contemporary Practice students whilst the Fine Art students’ work oozes complex ideologies. The Time Based Art & Digital Film work is sprinkled throughout the building, granting this year’s Degree Show a cohesive feel that fits well with showcasing such a close knit, collaborative year.

Helen King

In one of the Crawford building’s bright, open rooms, Helen King’s (APCP) immaculate blueprints peek out from behind the massive concrete slab that both greets and blocks you upon entering. Coming to notice how precariously the piece balances causes a tinge of doubt towards the supposedly stable walls around you. Combat this doubt against the blueprints, and they begin to act as a warrant for the Brutal Modernist architecture tropes; old-school, time consuming processes take precedence over new technologies and a long spent thought becomes the documentation and justification of one side of a polarized opinion. The concrete proves itself, standing tall in the foreground.

Sandra Schneider

Juxtapose King’s solid concrete slab with Sandra Schneider’s (Fine Art) evocative study on language; Schneider’s clicking tongue and slow, purposeful poetry fill the room as much as any matter, concrete or human. The vibe is more like a 70s living room and feels like a living, tactile set of a Svankmajer film. Tongues burgeon from the unassuming, floral wallpaper like moulding mushrooms and, although the soft light from the lamp and dark wood may make you feel at home, illusions of puddles and wet patches deter you from taking a seat. The subtly dominating sound of a trickling leak (or ‘bubbly saliva’) give the feel that this room, a metaphor for language itself, is weakened and weakening and the voice plays the part of the foundations and the leak causing all the destruction.

Veera Krouglov

Fulfilling Dundee’s recent appetite for graphic, psychedelic murals, Veera Krouglov’s fun-filled room contains all the characters you would want to meet on a dark night. The life-size doodles and miniature ceramic creatures invoke a childishly mature personality, as though Krouglov has managed to embody the exact behind-the-scenes sensibility of concealed adult humour in a kids TV show.

Sean Forsyth and Ewan T Gibson

Hazel Holloway deploys the term ‘physical empathy’, exploring her bodily self-awareness in restricted material work, and Eve Kerr’s filmed performance ‘Clay Kavala Graha’  displays a metaphoric extraction of artistic intuition through pure material. Shifting from materiality to the screen, ‘Elsewhere’, a beautiful short film by Sean Forsyth (Fine Art) and Ewan T Gibson (TBA), brings forth a celebration of the landscape on our doorstep through the ingenuity of unexpected interaction between a Fox and a Crow. The strong array of films this year is not to be missed on the big screen, showcasing on Wednesday the 25th of May at the DCA.

Kieran Milne and Thomas Stephenson

As far as guessing games go, the RSA Awards are a tough one to call. One room stands out as a tough competitor, housing the work of Kieran Milne and Thomas Stephenson (both Fine Art). On Milne’s side of the room, light streams in from the big old windows into a space as sleek and calm as an office in the Netherlands. Serene tones of Riso green prevail throughout the publications, houseplants and wall pieces, and exit signs act as an invitation for escape through the black kissing gate in the foreground. In Thomas Stephenson’s work, the name ‘wood burning stove’ manifests literally, at first glance beautifully and traditionally constructed, yet a strong satirical warning emanates from within; an uncompromising illustration of the destructive passivity we undertake in the daily living of our lives.

One thing that shines throughout this years’ Degree Show is an unwavering awareness of the artists’ surroundings, into which each work proclaims a corner of it’s own. An undoubtedly outstanding show from the graduates, Duncan of Jordanstone School of Art and Design will keep you roaming for hours. It’s open until the 29th of May and the work’s above are just a small selection from the many, many memorable works on show from the emerging talent that is the class of 2016.

Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design continues until  29 May in Dundee. Find out more information online here.

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

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See more Degree Show reviews on Central Station here.

SCOTLAND

 /// ABERDEENSHIRE

until 28 May | Seventeen
Under New Moons, We Stand Strong
Under New Moons, We Stand Strong sculptural exhibition comes to Seventeen in Aberdeen, with a special edition of Urban Knights.

until 29 May | Peacock Visual Arts
The Brutalist Playground, Assemble and Simon Terrill 
Exhibit exploring post-war design for play, as part of Look Again Visual Art & Design Festival.

until 25 June | Grey’s School of Art
Degree Show at Gray’s School of Art
Exhibition of Painting, Contemporary Art Practice, Three Dimensional Design, Fashion & Textiles, Communication Design and Commercial Photography.

21 May – 14 June | Newave Gallery
Ade Adesina ‘Awake’ Solo Exhibition
Bespoke limited edition prints by a multi-award winning artist.

18 June | Peacock Visual Arts
PMC Silver Jewellery Making Workshop
Led by our resident jewellery expert Renee, this workshop lets users experiment with Precious Metal Clay.

///DUMFRIES & GALLOWAY

28 – 30 May | Various
Spring Fling
Scotland’s premier open studios contemporary visual art and craft event – this year featuring 94 artists, makers and designers.

 /// DUNDEE

until Autumn 2016 | The McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery & Museum
Draw the Line: Old Masters to The Beano  
The exhibition shows the vast and all encompassing range of creativity expressed in drawing from Dundee’s nationally significant fine art collection.

/// EDINBURGH

until 21 May | Ingleby Gallery
Kevin Harman: No Man’s Land
Positioned somewhere between painting and sculpture these large format abstractions are at once seductively beautiful and challengingly physical.

until 31 May | Arusha Gallery
Ilona Szalay – Queen of Swords
Ilona Szalay’s oil and resin on wood paintings trace a path through a world of conflict and power play, a place of rigid hierarchy and fierce competition.

25 May – 13 July | Summerhall
Statussignal
Hamish Chapman, Jordan Munro and Jordan Pilling present an exhibition acting as a level playing field upon which three boys come out to play.

26 May – 31 July | Summerhall
Imagining Faith by Isabel Rocamora
This work centres on her 22 minute film triptych Faith: an intimate observation of the act of worship of the three monotheistic religions in Jerusalem.

7 June | Summerhall
Cultures of Prayer: Faith to Faith in Conversation
Panel discussion to coincide with Isabel Rocamora’s exhibition ‘Imaging Faith’, with Rev. Dr Harriet Harris, Rabbi David Rose and Sohaib Saeed.

throughout the year | Various
Screen Academy Scotland Courses
Professional short course training (screenwriting, cinematography, film, TV & cross-platform production & image & sound editing).

throughout the year | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Centre
Writing Courses
Courses in Novel Writing, Poetry, Short Story Writing, and Screenwriting.

/// GLASGOW

until 29 May | Street Level Photoworks
Catrine Val: Political Letters
New collection of staged photoworks around the neglected canon of women in philosophy, including some new work specific to Scotland and the theme.

until 20 May | Many Studios / Project Space
Fátima Rodrigo, UNAP
A piece of video/sculptural work that examines the problematic socio-political relationship between higher education and the Peruvian government

until – 29 May | Street Level Photoworks
Mari Hokkanen: Set & Setting
Every image in Set & Setting is a scene on its own presenting a story of different allegories and world phenomenon.

until 22 May | MANY Studios
The Heart of the City
A solo exhibition by Fatima Rodrigo (Peru) as part of Glasgow International Festival 2016.

until 5 June | CCA
Intermedia, The Women’s Unit
Outcome of a year long residency at Glasgow Women’s Library by Mandy McIntosh, influenced by projects like Judy Chicago’s Womanhouse.

until 22 June | Tramway
The Net Effect
Thinking about a future in making, curating or teaching Art? Discover this new visual arts group for ages 16-25.

until 10 July | CCA
Jerwood/FVU Awards: ‘Borrowed Time’
Two moving-image works by selected artists Karen Kramer and Alice May Williams.

until 14 May | Cyril Gerber Fine Art
Scottish Horizons
A new exhibition of watercolours and drawings by well-known artist Tom H. Shanks RSW RGI PAI.

until 31 May | Glasgow Women’s Library
Palestinian Embroidery
Exhibition of workshops by Claire Anderson and documentation of Palestian women’s embroidery co-operative ‘Women in Hebron’.

21 – 22 May | Street Level Photoworks
Photobook Design Weekend
Turn your photographic project into a high quality 8×10 photobook.

25 May – 5 June | MANY Studios
Trading Stories
Poet Tawona Sitholé harnesses a breadth of stories from The Barras from yesteryear to the present day.

23 June | CCA
Eavesdropper: Hanna Tuulikki performance
Artist, composer and performer Hanna Tuulikki works with voice and gesture to create immersive spaces that unearth relationships with places

28 May – 9 July | Hillhead Library
Departures
The nine participating artists responded in disparate ways to the broad theme of migration.

29 May | Who Art Thou
Drypoint Etching Workshop – with Mobile Print Studio
In this workshop you will learn the art of Drypoint Etching and create an edition of your own. Materials included & all levels of experience welcome.

2 – 4 June | CCA
Cryptic Nights: Therefore 2 – Anna Lucia Nissen
Enter an immersive audio-visual experience combining sculpture, video projection and live music devised by artist Anna Lucia Nissen.

3 June | CCA
SWOU: What do sex workers want?
Screening of three short movies exploring the diverse realities of sex workers around the world, followed by a Q&A with sex workers and allies.

4 June – 31 July | Street Level Photoworks
Govan/Gdansk
New exhibition linking the shipyards of Govan in Glasgow and Gdansk in Poland and their post-industrial decline and resilience.

7 June | The Butterfly and the Pig
Quotidian Issue 2 Launch
celebrate the success of Quotidian: a literary magazine’s Issue 2 and… *drum-roll* the launch of our second print edition! How exciting!

9 June – 2 July | Compass Gallery
The Golden Age: 90 Years of International Film Posters
Planned to coincide with the Edinburgh Film Festival 2016, this exhibition will include many rare, collectible and international original film posters.

21 – 23 June | Tramway
A Bit of Bite
A brand new show about the role of young people in contemporary politics.

25 June | The Glasgow School of Art
Transitions Out of Fine Art Education
Fine art staff from across the UK will come together with students, graduates, academics, and industry professionals to share practice.

28 June – 3 July | Various
Glasgow Comic Festival
A week-long festival of talks, screenings, performance and exhibitions at CCA and across the city, and Comic Con at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

31 July | CCA
MAP: Voicing the Archive
Audio recordings of past MAP contributions, voiced by their authors and installed at a listening station in the CCA and Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

12 – 18 September | various
Illustrious Glasgow
Glasgow Doors Open Days is working with illustrator Rosemary Cunningham to share 10 stunning illustrations of Glasgow buildings.

First Saturday of the month | The Lighthouse
Repair Cafe
On the first Saturday of every month our team of fixers will be on hand to help you fix your broken items, in MAKLab, Gallery One.

ongoing | Crownpoint Studio
Corridor Exhibition
Exhibition by VAU Members, view by appointment only.

ongoing | The Botanics
Art Classes in the Botanics
Weekly tutored classes in Glasgow Botanic Gardens, for anyone wishing to develop their artistic abilities.

ongoing | The Hidden Lane Gallery
Margaret Watkins: The Kitchen Sink (And other classics)
A major retrospective selection of some of the classic images which established Margaret Watkins as one of the most innovative artists of the 1910s & ’20s.

ongoing | 306 White Studios
Silk Screen Printing Workshops
Be your own designer for the day, learn silk-screen printing here at Shapes Of Things Ltd & create your own bespoke product every Wednesday & Saturday.

///HELMSDALE

until 19 June | Timespan
VIK PRJÓNSDÓTTIR
Icelandic design collective showcase their textile work in an exhibition that brings together contemporary design and traditional craft.

///HUNTLY

26 – 28 May | TBC
White Wood Forum: Art and Sustainability
Discussions centre on social and cultural perspectives of sustainability: local and global understandings and lived practices around the world.

///KIRKALDY

until 5 June | Kirkcaldy Galleries
Shelters
Festival of Architecture exhibition examining ‘shelters’ using examples from Lloyd Kahn’s US Shelter Publications to contemporary Scottish.

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ELSEWHERE

///BIRMINGHAM

11 June | St Barnabas Church
Clipping the Church by Tereza Buskova
Sign up to be involved in an art piece adorning a Birmingham church with ornate baked bread and encircle it with a living garland of 100 people.

///LINCOLNSHIRE

14 May – 25 June | 20-21 Visual Arts Centre
Liz West: Our Colour Reflection
The installation will transform the interior of the former St John’s Church building housing the gallery by using over 700 mirrors.

/// MANCHESTER

19 May – 18 November | MadLab
WordPress courses
Beginner, Intermediate, and advanced wordpress courses led by co-founder Mike Little.

25 – 26 June | MadLab
Hands-on with the Internet of Things
Everything from picking the right prototyping platform and means of device-device communication, through to different network protocols.

/// OXFORDSHIRE

5 – 7 August | Braziers Park
Supernormal 2016
Supernormal is a three-day, experimental arts and music festival taking place at Braziers Park in Oxfordshire.

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Do you want your event added here? Read this blog to find out how.

Hello, My Name is Paul Smith is an in depth exploration of his world, allowing visitors to discover his process, his inspirations, and his genius. The exhibition follows the designer’s progress from the early 1970’s to the present day with many insights and highlights demonstrating what makes him such a prominent character in the fashion world and beyond.

Among the many examples of his iconic garment designs are his designs for shops and the original Paul Smith multi stripe Mini car. Walk into a replica of Smith’s office and recreation of his design studio to discover where the magic happens including his own collection of books and materials he draws inspiration from daily.

The exhibition is supported by Sony and The Herald, Creative Scotland and Glasgow City Council.

More: Website

TRG3 is a project series from The University of Edinburgh’s Talbot Rice Gallery. The project showcases pioneering work and provides opportunities to young and emerging artists from home and abroad. Those involved in the programme have access to Edinburgh University’s resources and support from the expert curatorial and technical team to help make new ideas a reality.

So far the 2015 programme has included works from Steven Anderson, Jordan Pilling, and Michael Poetschko.

With a potential budget of £1,500, this opportunity is open to individual Scotland based artists or collectives working in any medium.

Details and conditions of application can be found on their website.

Deadline: 30 October

More: Website | Twitter

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Find more opportunities in our weekly bulletin here.

The theme paradise may at first seem a limited starting point and one which will lead to cliched outcomes; this obstacle has led the artists to think of new ways to approach the concept – giving a fresh take on it. The work is inquisitive, informative and provokes questions surrounding the theme. Some artwork more direct in terms of addressing the artist’s ideas and some more subtle.

Emma Hislop

Emma Hislop, who is soon to embark on a degree at GSA in Sculpture and Environmental Art, is investigating the encapsulation of a personal paradise. Quoting her directly: “My work has centralised around the idea of…what I hold dear, if this can be preserved and if in doing so does the preservation alter the personal paradise. Meaning that this memory of personal paradise place has never been truly real and is an illusion. The place I explore is that which is what I call ‘home’. As I live between my parents and partner’s parents, I have no real place with him that is ours and can be truly comfortable except in those personal, most private moments. This is a journey of the encapsulation of my most dear of places and an attempt to hold onto them as much as possible.”

Object-making is an important part of Hislop’s practice, as well as documenting this process. One of her pieces titled Paradise Capsule is a “One of a kind artist made capsule…made exclusively for a ‘perfect stranger’ and consists of trinket boxes containing handmade objects. These objects, or rather miniature sculptures, began as personal, vivid experiences and they now embody distant memories and feelings.” Although based around paradise there are more underlying concepts in Hislop’s work; she also investigates what a drawing can be and paradise in relation to personal obsessions.

Raya Mitchell

In contrast to Hislop’s work which takes on mainly three-dimensional forms, Ryan Mitchell’s current work consists of print, paint and photomontage. She often works across a broad range of media and disciplines such as the above, sculpture and film. The work that will be exhibited as part of Paradise, aims to playfully examine and highlight the conventional notions of paradise that we are exposed to through a variety of different outlets, be them sincere or suspect. In other words, questioning whether we have predefined perceptions of paradise.

Mitchell’s process began by collecting old Kodachrome slides and newspapers which were then combined to create photomontages. These then led to photo etchings and paintings. You. What awaits you? is a painting that explores the relationship between the objectification of women and conventional perceptions of paradise. Female figures whose heads are replaced by flowers become objectified and our attention diverted to their bodies. The analogy between the female figures and the flowers reflects the conventional and old fashioned notion that women are ‘delicate flowers’ – pretty ‘things’ to be admired. The flowers also allude to the idea of a blissful, paradise environment; in this instance the female figures symbolise a ‘gateway to paradise’. Other work that will be on show includes a series of photo etchings and photomontages.

Freya Wilson

Freya Wilson, who is also soon to start her degree at GSA in Painting and Printmaking, mainly focuses on ‘using traditional materials in interesting ways.’ Her love of paint is apparent to anyone who has seen her work. However, more recently Wilson has began to incorporate text and poetry into her practice. A poem she has produced as part of her work for Paradise derives from ‘a feeling you have in a certain place or at a certain moment. For me I enjoy hearing birdsong in the morning, and compared it to my own understanding of singing – the awareness of breathing brings its own sense of paradise.’ On the night of the opening on 31 July, Wilson will perform a poetry reading to accompany her paintings.

Although only three of those partaking have been mentioned there are many more whose work will be exhibited, they are as follows: Claire Mcginlay, Angus Robertson, Kevin D’Arcy, Lorna Pollock, Megan Gallacher and Rachael Docherty. Each bring diverse responses to the theme, especially given the wide range of backgrounds and degrees they are soon to embark on including Painting, Sculpture, Fashion and Textiles. You can find out more about each of them on their blog here.

Paradise will be at the VoidoidARCHIVE gallery, Glasgow from the 31 July – 2 August with the preview on 31 July (7pm – 10pm). Following the preview is an after show at The Poetry Club (10pm – 2am) where Kyle Webster & Lewis Morton (Dark Partials), Robby Brown & Adam McCaffery (Ensoul) & Ryan Shybani (Renegades of Funk) will be bringing you a mixture of funk and electronic.

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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Find more events in our weekly bulletin here.

This exhibition is a sequence of journeys: points of departure and arrival, presence and absence. The work on display is an exhibition of clusters and parallels, of architectural and spatial details examined: shapes, lines and curves, inside and outside, ‘choreographically’ reported on. It takes account of an observational – in situ – process that seeks to find the essence of its subject: a building, its layers, its sonic vocabulary, and its materials. In combination the building’s surfaces and flow, the movement of people through the space, sound interrupting or contaminating space, voices transported around the building – folding spaces and acoustics. It makes use of the changing environments from entrance to basement to external balcony and conjoining spaces like stairwells, raised platforms and sunken dance floors. It seeks to investigate the data that images – of any kind – transmit (architectural blueprint, sketch, photograph, illustration, medical diagram). It looks at the purposeful uses of the information images hold: subtle evocation, spatial illusion or exacting measurement. And what the viewer ‘draws’ from that information: from precision to emotion. The exhibition is a conscious arrangement – though once that finds an affinity with the improvisational – that suggests a heightened awareness of time spent in a building. An acute vigilance of being alone within a place and letting its multiple synchronised or discordant narratives unfold. The subject of the exhibition isn’t the Pavilion itself but rather the artist’s place within it. The artist’s pursuit has been to find the building as a collaborator, forming or articulating its own language at the end of an ongoing visual conversation.

Drawing by Ally Wallace

Ally Wallace works with installation, drawing, painting, sculpture, video and animation in direct response to specific sites, buildings or locations: an architect’s office, science laboratory, or here a seaside Pavilion, dance hall, leisure facility and social hub. He employs these non-gallery spaces to host self-initiated residences and in turn the exhibition of a close scrutiny, the inspection of their subject, materials and purpose.

This exhibition describes the habits of a journey, its lengths and changes from a studio in the East End, to Glasgow Central to Rothesay, Isle of Bute, on road and rail, and then across water, then returning and repeating. This conjoining of pace, time, surface and movement is embedded in the exhibition: lining up the abstract and the figurative, then an absence of figures, then passages of slowness and stillness, then moments of illusion, details close-up and far, the building’s brief and long narratives, its temperature. Held within the exhibition’s entirety is an invite to contemplate, and to relive the memory of the building’s experiences, alongside a mirroring or recollection of the occupying time of Wallace’s experience as its artist-in-residence.

Seaside Modernity Installation view by Ally Wallace

Seaside Modernity Installation view by Ally Wallace

The exhibition’s installation stages an intuitive response, in successive and joining passages, like a poem, diary or home movie. Colour and shapes, small details in pencil, or broader washes appear in interruption and intrusion; displays appear visible and then become invisible. Parts of heating systems, curved plastic warped or melted window panes, doorways or projector screens and decorative velvet rope stands are recruited into the project as rests, tables, frames and props. A lectern for the Society of the Women Citizens of the Isle of Bute becomes an appropriated object, a host for an exhibition text. Close by are marine and military images, reminders of the building’s origins from 1938 and evidence of its slow water sea air rot, its decline – its inherent vice – of the mischief of entropy, flaking, peeling, cracking, falling.

Sketches by Ally Wallace

 Sketches by Ally Wallace

Wallace’s marks and observational processes bring to mind the paintings of Raoul de Keyser, the Belgian artist who died in 2012, and in particular to works like Come on, play it again, nr. 7, 2001, 3 Hoeken III, 1971 and VISP, 1968. Their painted gestures are a description of the lines, decorations, details, hues, colours and surfaces of everyday life. This behaviour that Wallace and de Keyser share finds character in projection screen suspensions, the bringing together of overlapping or exaggerated lines, the highlighting of prominent curvatures, the illumination of small details, the extraction of curiosity and curious features. And in the short-lived exhibition in the Pavilion the line of detail and accuracy flowing from solidity to abstraction, evidence of time spent, of a conscious flow of lived experiences: alert then slow, monotonous, then enthused and sharp and repeated.

These processes and works further bring to mind the work of Toby Paterson, and in particular his installation Ever Growing, Never Old, at The Modern Institute, Glasgow, 2009, and the sculptural works and images Asymmetric Snowflake, 2007 and Inchoate Landscapes, 2011. The isolated object, rendered in detail and in spatial illusion while purposefully engaging with an object’s intention finds resonance with the paintings of Julie Roberts, for example Gynaecology Couch, 2011. The sonic spatial portraits, that are part installation, drawing and sculpture are similar to the works of Trisha Donnelly, in particular her show at Modern Art, Oxford, 2007. While in moving image the Berlin-based experimental works in 16mm film bring to mind Ute Aurand especially In Die Erde Gebait (Building under the Ground), 2008.

Seaside Modernity detail by Ally Wallace

Casts by Ally Wallace

The building, designed by James Carrick of Ayr and opened in 1938, commencing a new process of restoration is referenced slightly in Wallace’s installation. The Pavilion’s Modernism and relationship to Scottish architectural history and its idiosyncratic placement in the seaside town of Rothesay are further postscripts to Wallace’s residency. These are the silhouette lines that the building is able to articulate anyway. It was designed to give the effect of sunrise, a pleasure building, a destination for Glasgow’s holidaymakers in the International Modernist style. What the artist does is give voice to its unnoticed or nearly unobserved existence: the lines of external hard flat surfaces with soft camp white drapes, the rhythms of techno music that circulates its ancient bones, the swirling air and thud of bullets in its hidden rifle range, the voices that drift like clouds through its halls and passageways and the honeycomb terracotta sinew that bolsters its elegant serenity.

For more from Alex Hetherington, see his current Modern Edinburgh Film School exhibition MOTHS at Summerhall, Edinburgh. Full details on Central Station here.

More: Website | Twitter

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Find more events in our weekly bulletin here.

I’d have never thought I would end up founding a contemporary art gallery right in the middle of the countryside. I thought I was as urban as a dirty bus-stop outside a kabab shop. But then suddenly it happened.

If I’m honest it started as a solution to a problem – that I have an archive of nearly 9,000 books and art works from the international avant garde which I needed to find some storage space for urgently and looking around in the city, I suddenly realised I was facing huge rents that I could not afford.

And then a friend – thanks Megan – pointed out this old school house in a village just 14 miles south of Edinburgh. It was in a former Knights Templar bailiwick (where the fabled Templar gold, spirited away from Paris in 1320, was supposedly hidden between an elm and an oak tree) and had been empty for years. After a visit or two I realised it was an amazing opportunity!

So I went in and negotiated a deal with the factors, moved my collection into two big rooms and suddenly had the insight that I had loads of space left over. Especially if one took into account the four cubicle and two shower old fashioned concrete toilet block that reminded me of my own school days in Denny freezing my bollocks off in the outhouse buildings of the 1960s. There are 2,500 square feet of old school rooms here (one complete with blackboard), a 1,000 square metre garden and a car park big enough for 8 – 10 cars.

I suddenly remembered that I didn’t own 8 cars never mind 10.

So LUST AND THE APPLE was conceived. Every available space would be used to create what I thought could be a very special art gallery showing risky and challenging contemporary art continuing the work I had done at Summerhall as the curator there for the last three years. I built a 9 x 5m white internal space in one room to allow a more traditional hanging and then I started to consider a programme of artists for the coming year. Initially I decided to show three artists every quarter but I am now more likely to exhibit four or more each time as the artists are inspired by the desire to use all of the spaces including the roof and car park.

Here’s the thing – the best side to having your own gallery is that you can put on whoever or whatever you want. My opening shows were Tim Sandys, Maris and Kenny Watson (all of whom I have worked with before) and in May, the gay new York icon Cary Leibowitz will create a new installation out of tartan football scarves, alongside other initiatives by Mike Ballard from London, Edinburgh’s own Alex Allan and the New Zealand artist Elke Finkenauer; each taking over bits of this rather fantastic place. There’s a BBQ opening on the 15 May.

For the Edinburgh Festival, the famous conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner has created a new outdoor work created especially for the gallery, Denmark’s art duo PUTPUT will be creating an artist’s greenhouse in the garden, David Connearn will most probably be making a gravel drawing in the car park (although we have an offsite project for the fields nearby which may happen if we can raise the money) and Cisco Jimenez (a very significant Mexican artist) will be showing paintings and ceramics in the white gallery. There will be other artists too soon to be announced including I hope one other very well known name. We may well be running a daily art minibus from Edinburgh for the first week too.

Other artists are planned – Jonathan Monk, Maurizio Nannucci, Gregor Schneider, Christine Borland have all indicated that they are likely to work with LUST AND THE APPLE in the future if we can find the right project. And I will be showing many emerging Scottish and UK artists (much as I did at Summerhall) as I want to help the next generation of graduates get a foothold in the contemporary art scene.

Finally – this is all done out of my own pocket. I cannot see any reason to approach Creative Scotland as in my experience of them, they are deeply bureaucratic, inflexible and cowardly about contemporary art projects. If you happen to know a rich private sponsor then do email me – I could do with the help. But in the meantime I hope to make LUST AND THE APPLE a significant part of the Scottish art scene even if it means I have to live off the apples from the tree found in the garden here. I will eat them lustly.

Lust & The Apple’s upcoming opening of four exhibitions featuring Cary Leibowitz (NYC), Mike Ballard (London), Alex Allan (Edinburgh_ and Elke Finkenauer (New Zealand) will be on Friday 15 May. There will be a minibus service from Edinburgh for £8 return and all are welcome for drinks, art and BBQ (weather permitting). These shows will continue to run until 19 July.

Read more about Paul Robertson’s career on Central Station in his My First 5 Jobs article here.

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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From time to time we feature galleries and spaces that showcase & encourage grassroots artists. Browse through more of our Featured Venues. 
Contact us to talk about a feature on your venue.

The Lumen Prize is a digital art prize and global exhibition open to artists across the globe. Entrants are eligible to win a place on the 2015 Lumen Prize Exhibition, which will travel to venues in Europe, the US and Asia, as well as one of eight cash prizes starting at US$3,000.

All works are reviewed by Lumen’s International Selection Committee which is made up of academics, gallerists, artists and art historians from around the world. The top 100 works chosen by the ISC will win a place in the Lumen Prize Online Gallery and be eligible for the People’s Choice Award – a US$250 prize chosen by public vote.

These 100 works are then reviewed by the Lumen Jury Panel who choose the top 25 works that form the 2015 Lumen Prize Exhibition as well as the 2015 Lumen Prize winners. The winners will be announced in a Gala Ceremony in London in September 2015.

For more information and to register, please visit here.

Deadline: 8 June

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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Find more opportunities in our weekly bulletin here.

The Glasgow School of Art is currently showing a selection of design and fine art work from The Glasgow School of Art’s 2014 Degree Show until 26 July. Based in the Burgh Hall in Dunoon, the exhibition features works from a selection of the graduates, some of whom lost their work in the Mackintosh fire.

Co-curators Theresa Moerman Ib & Colm Docherty said:
“The title of this year’s GSA in Dunoon show is borrowed from one of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s watercolour drawings made in 1896. It reflects the unique process involved in selecting this year’s graduates for the exhibition due to the fire that damaged and destroyed a significant part of the Mackintosh Building and the Fine Art degree show on the 23rd of May 2014. Some works we were able to view physically, some survived only as photographic representations, some were lost entirely, while others had to be described to us verbally by department tutors or the artists themselves. By partly seeing existing work and partly imagining what the selected artists would be able to present, we worked diligently to curate a show that provides a visual and mental space for reflection on the events that have affected the entire GSA community over the past weeks. At the same time, it is a show that celebrates the resilient spirit of the graduates as they continue to make their mark beyond the physical boundaries of the art school itself.”

Remnants, Static, Bottle, Stone by Nicola Massie (Painting & Printmaking)
Screenprint on paper, image transfer on glass bottle and stone, various objects in resin.

Theresa Moerman Ib continues:
“At first glance, the works selected for this exhibition are modest and quiet works, small islands in a sea of white. But if you take your time with them and lean in close, you’ll realize that they’re screaming out loud. None of the works have been shown in public before, and they have either survived the fire, been recreated after the fact, or were made immediately before and after the tragic event. Each work bears testament to the fact that when artists hit a brick wall, they wince for a while, then dust themselves off and find innovative ways to climb over it. Dunoon Burgh Hall has kindly provided a stepladder to make that journey a little easier, and we are all grateful to be here. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to work with such inspiring makers – without their resilience and hard work, there would be no exhibition. A friend of mine noted this morning that the show looks like “a complete triumph over adversity”. I couldn’t agree more.”

Negotiation of Space (A Door Opening and Closing) by Melissa Maloco (Fine Art Photography)
Carbon dust, artist’s paper

All images by Theresa Moerman Ib courtesy of GSA.

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As part of The Tetley’s opening programme, A New Reality: Part 3, documentary photographer Stephen Iles will show a series of new works which chronicle The Tetley’s conversion. The exhibition, entitled Between Space, will be on display until 17 August. From office block to contemporary art space, Iles’ work explores the spaces where art is shown or made, examining the interim time between exhibitions and shifting moments that occur during re-development. Objects that initially appear unconnected are paired with the places they inhabit:

“Concentrating upon their transitional states of flux, Iles uses photography as a mirror to point back at the art-world like an endless reflection. Using each site as his laboratory or studio, Iles builds a surface tension questioning how we see and understand art and its’ spaces. Steeped in conversations surrounding the history of art and most notably the Arte Povera movement, Iles’ allows the specific location to become irrelevant, instead seeking to reactivate the space by searching for the moments in-between.”

See Between Space at The Tetley until 17 August. For details of the exhibition, see the Tetley’s website.

For more from Stephen Iles, be sure to check out his My Process feature here. Want to know more about The Tetley conversion? Check our our featured venue piece here.

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Find more events in our weekly bulletin here.