Catriona provides a useful resource to those seeking hidden gems and well known works. A good example of this is her familiar stomping ground in Edinburgh. Want to take in all of the Antony Gormley series 6 Times? The blog shows all six, including the striking cast Number VI standing at the end of an abandoned pier in Leith.

Antony Gormley, 6 Times cast Number VI

Among the more mainstream or historically significant pieces on the well-tread tourist trail, the collection highlights hidden and temporary works that could easily go unnoticed. Temporary sculptures The Leaf People, situated near Deanhaugh, have been appearing for years now and are there to be appreciated by local passers-by.

The Leaf People

Find locations of the Shutter Project, like this one by Fraser Grey, giving a new lease of life to the shop fronts after hours.

The Shutter Project, Fraser Grey

Art on Your Streets reflects on each city having an aesthetic and gives the reader the insight and tools to explore what each city has to offer. Check the site for all locations including Glasgow, Amsterdam and Singapore.

More: Website

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For more creative delights we’ve Spotted on the web take a look here.

Michael George Inglis is a visual artist. His blog, Spaceboy1966, is a collection of his past installations and exhibitions. One example is his work is cathedral – a visual narrative exploring scottish belief systems and highland myths which was on display along 65 metres of Inverness last year (some of it you can see in the images above & below).

Look at his blog & see more of Michael’s work here.

Other projects from Spaceboy1966:

degüello // public art project – narrative trail

transmit at axolotl gallery

A body of work by Liz Bradshaw which explored cybernetics as a metaphor for knowledge: or more precisely, for the idea that everything can be said through a series of zeros and ones.

Find out more about the project, and about the artist here.

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 http://tinyurl.com/ya67g5w

When you start to read into these lovely objects the first thing you find is that they are ‘current maps’ ie that they are a literal picture of the different movements of water around island groups. I suppose that interpretation of any object like this is akin to archaeology…a creative choice. I like the version laid out in Varieties of Unreligious Experience

Here is a long and convoluted tale about the search for the truth of these charts. The interpretation that emerges is that these are not conventional charts in the sense of being ‘pictures’ of anything, rather they are family mnemomics that are passed down through generations and incomprehensible to anyone outside the clan. The only clue to how they work that could be uncovered was that they relate to the way that ocean waves bounce back off particular pieces of land and the way those wave mix with others to create complex patterns – reading these patterns is the key to finding your position at sea.

The way we understand space and place is intensely personal – it makes sense to me that this understanding be passed down by and to those closet to us – after all these are the people we experience things with and share an individual descriptive language with. I love the idea that this shared language can be distilled into a tactile object that can be carried and held.

Find out more about Matt Baker here.

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Hidden Spaces – a month of blogs by members about their hidden space – whether they be real, imagined, unbuilt, cut-off from the public, demolished, spiritually significant or politically sublimated. Read more from the series.

So far – so good, but for me the territory becomes more problematic when the concept of ‘finding’ is introduced…..for artwork built around the hidden quite often means that the art causes the hidden to be found. While the act of revealing can deliver an initial high, this is often followed by the drive to possess or capture. While David Nash’s influence on me has waned I still hold precious James Joyce’s statement in ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ that the true work of art is defined as one that does not excite a desire of any kind (I’m still looking for the actual quote…see below).

Some of my practice is very ‘quiet’ and ‘unannounced’ – I am often asked ‘what if people do not see it, or cannot find it?’. I am interested in the act of seeking  ….it  is not overly important for me whether someone finds the initial object of their search…..rather their experience of the process and the unexpected things that might be discovered on the journey.

Erratic Cairnsmore of Fleet National Nature Reserve – permanent installation 2009. On finding Erratic you are invited to draw out the pulling handle and drag the sculpture to a new location – Erratic is in remote and open landscape…it’s position is not defined.

When the Rothko series for the Seagram Buildingwas still in what is now Tate Britain, I had a very deep relationship with the room in which they were hung – I could never guarantee finding it – for me, it was a secret or hidden room. I was not interested in getting a map, rather the finding or not finding was in some way ‘meant to be’ I gave over my destiny to the search and what I found on the way and/or the finding of the Rothkos (cf also the Joyce and Nash quotes… though Google has spoiled that game somewhat).

A good recent example of working with the hidden was a work by Ginny Hutchison in a project I curated in public space in Inverness. Ginny marked the path of the sun over a series of consciously unremarkable spaces

In going looking for the Seven Sunsets people made their own unique discovery of the city even if very few ever found all of the ‘work’.

Find out more about Matt Baker here.

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Hidden Spaces – a month of blogs by members about their hidden space – whether they be real, imagined, unbuilt, cut-off from the public, demolished, spiritually significant or politically sublimated. Read more from the series.