Le Voile Persan by John Duncan Fergus
DRAWING
LAURENCE FIGGIS
Transmission, Glasgow, until Sat 29 Oct .0.
Laurence Figgis' drawings. collages. writings and cut-ups tell a story or at least they appear to. At the centre of this show of new work is 'The Great MacGuffrii'. a sprawling. dialogue-free comic strip. with panels that seem to iriterweave rather than progress along a narrative line. Other smaller drawings work in the same way.
Elements from the drawings are collaged in potentially significant formal arrangements. There are characters (a man with a bifurcated branch growrrig out of his head. a woman who is. we are told. the titular heroine) and recurring tropes (winding trees. staged performances and an apparently sentient washing machine). But at no point does it become clear what these almost people are doing in these places. with these things. Works containing text do little to unravel the mystery. Incomplete sections. full of elisions. are culled from a work of fantasy fiction. complete with 8 'False Bride' and a 'Monster of Virtue'. very possibly telling the same story that fails to unfold in the drawings.
the ‘MacGuffin' is. of course. Alfred Hitchcock's coinage for a plot devrce required to advance the telling of a stOry. but one. which if exariiiiied closely makes little sense. And, in flipping sterytellirig on its head by making the lvlaCGul‘fin his central Character, Figgis has done mOre than conjure a slim joke for film buffs. He has Crafted a cohesive. beautifully rendered little world. as sinister as it is charming. around the absence at the heart of a narrative. (Jack Mottraiii)
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PAINlING AND PRlNlS JESSIE M KING coo
THE SCOTTISH COLOURISTS: INTIMATE FRIENDS 00 The Hunterian Gallery, Glasgow, until Sat 29 Oct
For someone who believed in fairies and claimed to have second sight, Jessie M King wasn't shy of a bit of talent or lacking in competitiveness to win illustration commissions. An admirer of Aubrey Beardsley and a contemporary of William Morris, the Glasgow School of Art graduate's work was primarily commission-based, though between projects she would often draw pictures that caught her imagination. Mostly illustrating for children’s books, her sparing use of colour restricted only to pale washes, gives way to spidery detail, and starry prints which are as dainty as the fairytale women she depicts. But by 1909 her style changes significantly, where she begins to paint on a larger scale with strongly abstract landscapes of her Scottish home in Kirkcudbright, colouring the countryside with an unexpected cheerfulness.
But despite a tenderness of style, her delicacy is sometimes cluttered and fussy. Her knights and beauties are certainly quaint figures but have none of the sexual prowess or the personality with which Beardsley endows his characters. It's also sad that her work on display is so limited by the exhibition space, for a talented crafter who worked as a designer of wallpapers, fabrics, book covers and jewellery as well as illustration.
Downstairs, the Scottish Colourists offer fewer surprises. The work of Fergusson, Peploe, Cadell and Hunter has become so much a part of Scottish culture that it is difficult to view from a fresh perspective. Fergusson‘s essentialised view of a fecund women surrounded by nature in “Fleur et Fruits’ has dated badly and seems tedious, but Cadell and Hunter‘s adoration of the lowly subject of still life vibrantly encapsulates the range of the Colourists.
Reconfiguring perceptions of ‘natural’ colour and light, the Scottish Colourists are undoubtedly significant, and these works selected from the Hunterian’s permanent collection once again demonstrate the extraordinary sense of spontaneity and confidence that these four men possessed. But the show falls short of demonstrating why these paintings have little more than sentimental value. (lsla Leaver-Yap)
DltAWlN< ‘r. l’AlN l iN(i ANl) INSIAI l Al l( )N GANG SHOW The Embassy, Edinburgh, until Fri 30 Sep 0.
llie iiiotto ‘l WI“ not draw a tliingy‘, is branded on the wall ol the gallery. and this; humorous sketch by l “on lvlunioe sets the tone for most of the work lll this year's nieiiibeis' exhibition. i.'£t(ill initiate of the l- nib; ssy was ll‘r\.ll(‘(i to sulinirl one work. and Willi more than ft) sketches. paintings and installations wrapped around the three rooms. it's encouraging to see the presence and productivity of so many artists in l dinburgli.
But this means there is no quality control Some of the work is liaplia/ard arid juvenile; sarcastically diawuig like a 1? year old rarely makes for posterity Many of the pieces are more reliant on the Wittiriess of their titles than on the strength ol the work itself: 'tie Dream of the Scottish Art Scene' by Billy McCall sounds better than it looks. regardless of its excuse of irony But even so. these post art school in jokes sit alongside iiiucli liner work. Sarah Heatlie Siiiitli's siniple wooden sculpture is a map of tlie iiiipoitance of everyone in her life, charted iii sticks that rise up like laiidloiiiis in the centre of one of the l()()lll§$. Around the rest of the gallery it's reassuring to see a show so liee ol the usually ubiquitous iiiediurii of photography.
there is a great kind of equality iii the hanging of the, exhibition. oxen if it doesn't make for consistently good art. (lsla l eavei Yap)
fiep ti o, r can THE LIST 91