GROUP SHOW
LOCATE
New Street Exhibition Space, Edinburgh, until Tue 10 Apr 0..
Locate is an eclectic mix of painting and installation work by fourth and fifth year students from Edinburgh College of Art. Housed in the Bongo Club and New Street car park. the exhibition showcases the usual range of talent from the nonsensical to the quirky to the surreal.
The central motive of the exhibition is fun albeit with a macabre bent. The best works are Mary Trodden's seasonal egg figures. With their woolly heads and spindly legs planted in Plasticine. they manage to exude cool. Katie Bradshaw's peephole allows you to view a seemingly benign corridor space with a door slightly aiar emitting light. But from Alice in Wonderland to Bill and Ted in Hell to Jack Nicholson in The Shining. when has a corridor or door been harmless?
Entering the car park, it is hard to see where the art is. It's completely at one with the environment. Jake Bee's signs are humorous twists on contemporary signage. ‘Private Posterity Keep Out' is an astute, witty observation and definitely a sign of the times. One sign missing though is 'Beware of approaching vehicle heading straight for you'. Take care; it is a car park after all. Catherine Street 's work looks like red blobs of molten wax stuck to the wall. But closer inspection reveals distressed-looking cherubs, little love angels stuck in a loveless purgatory.
This exhibition relies on your imagination and sense of adventure. (Isabella Weir)
III A ‘ . r,5;
Jake Bee’s humorous twists on contemporary signage
GROUP SHOW PIPPO
Lloyd Jerome Gallery, Glasgow, until Wed 2 May 00.
Four female painters, based in Glasgow. stage their yearly group exhibition. evoking a welcome sense of springtime and friendship. Last year's In Glass Loopholes was shown in the more spacious environs of the lntermedia Gallery. but this setting allows for a more intimate look at recent works by Jenny O' Boyle. Samantha Murray. Victoria MOrton and Julie Scott.
The exhibition opens with the silvery appeal of Jenny O'Boyle's small abstract canvases. composed of sheer layers of graphite. shine and powder. The first. Whisper has a blank centre. while Resonance consists of elusive phrases such as 'Iight tilted‘ that emerge or hide in the shimmering
ON-LINE GALLERY VISIONON
www.visionon2001.co.uk
Q
Katie Exley’s work forms part of VisionOn’s first cyberspace exhibition
The possibilities offered by the internet tend to diVide members of the art world. On the one hand, techno- celebrationists herald it as a decisive innovation which will liberate art from cultural isolation and smears of elitism. Recalcitrant Luddites meanwhile dismiss such chatter of freedom through the net with bullish contempt. In practice. the split has manifested itself in sites crammed with hi-tech thrills — which often take ages to download — or purely commercial sites. hungry for your credit card.
VisionOn. a new internet site dedicated to showcasing Glasgow-based artists. aims to avoid falling into either trap. Initiated and run by Karla Black, the site will show work by three artists each month, with the intention of building up a comprehensive catalogue documenting the work of the city's cultural workers.
'The intention of VisionOn is to give artists the use of a new context. and the opportunity to respond to how the internet works.‘ says Black. It will avoid the pitfalls of all-out commercialism or flashy hi-tech gimmicks. Ambitious about the possibilities offered by the site. Black is hoping. once its profile has grown, to ask for proposals over the internet from artists in other countries.
The first cyberspace exhibition features work by Mr Tayto & Mr Tayto. Katie Exley and Hayley & Sue Tompkins.
(John Beagles)
Victoria Morton’s sensuous mash 0! colour
wash. Nearby. Samantha Murray presents a series of four studies in deep blue. capturing coral reefs. seascapes and light-filled skies. Murray's accompanying text. ‘Here. version 3' describes a thought process “like building landscapes' which is apt for describing this abstract yet elemental work.
From sparkling granite and sea waves. the exhibition moves to irrepressible life forms by Victoria Morton. Monon is one of Glasgow‘s
most rapidly rising stars. with a recent sell-out show at Sadie Coles HQ in London raising her profile further still. Known for her large and luxuriantly colourful abstract paintings. Morton shows a modest selection of one small painting. Nature Model and four delicate collage drawings. This remarkable painting bursts with colour and texture. as fluorescent yellow riots with earthier pinks and smudgy ochre. Morton‘s considerable skill in balancing loose painted sections with meticulous
drawn detail is exemplified by this composition, a sensuous mash of colour held in check by a mesh of delicate dots and black felt tip lines. The final painting of the show. Julie Scott's Fantasy Life. offers an unwelcome return to reality. A flock of grey pigeons rise against a virulent red background at odds with the delicacy and romantic charm of the other works. Perhaps Scott's fantaSy life is of a more urban bent than that of her collaborators. (Sarah Lowndes)
Art
INSTALLATION 60 SECOND
INTERLUDE
Market. Glasgow. until Sat 14 Apr 00..
In 60 Second interlude. the first in a series of proiects at Market examining the contenr porary urban andscape. Michael MCGraw manages to condense a complex dissertation on the subject into a few deceptively simple images.
The first work — from which the show takes; its title 7 consists of liglittioxes depicting two street intersections in New York. The images are mounted on top of each other, presenting a time—lapse snapshot of a minute's worth of street actiVity, and at the same time. creating illusory three dimensions. The layers don't stop there, eithei: on top ol contemplating the relationship between space and time on a crowded city street. the aerial viewpoint suggests
covert CCTV
surveillance.
This last theme is taken to the level of a direct intervention in the McGraw's Market- commissioned ‘Proposed Sound Projection lor Urban Complex'. With an architectural model and plans. McGraw suggests a system of loudspeakers and microphones positioned on lamp—posts in the vicinity of the gallery. transmitting and receiving in real time. relaying snatches of conversation and traffic noise to new locations.
It remains unclear whether this is meant as an act of pointless surveillance or is the same rumination on time and space as 60 Second Interlude. rendered in sound rather than images. Either way. McGraw's first solo show in Scotland is long overdue.
(Jack Mottram)
29 Mar—12 Apr 2001 THE LIST 77