The Society of Scottish Artists was founded in 1891 by a group of thirty artists including Patrick Geddes and Katherine Cameron, who shared an idea to form an organisation to promote and encourage experimentation and the adventurous spirit in Scottish art. The Society’s exhibition policy has long been outward-looking – in 1931 it presented the first UK exhibition by Edvard Munch, who became a member of the Society.
‘We wish to reflect the diversity and incredible creative output of members from Scotland and beyond. We are an outward-looking Society with a proud history promoting contemporary artists at all stages of their career and providing a platform for diverse perspectives.’ – Frank To & Luke Vinnicombe, SSA Co-presidents
The SSA’s 126th Annual Exhibition brings international and local artists together to showcase the work of Society members, invited artists and new graduates as well as paintings, prints, sculpture, installations and video, selected from almost 2,000 open submissions.
‘Beneath a serene and feminine surface, I depict the human form, exploring the boundaries of figurative painting… reconstructing the pictorial ways of communicating the female body’. – Meghan Josephine
Touch II by Meghan Josephine is a stunning, surreal, sensual study of six women, naked or scantily-clad, expressing a nonchalant sense of freedom, the scene bathed in an ethereal, golden glow. This is clearly reminiscent of the compositional style of Paul Gauguin’s paintings of Polynesian women, enchanted by their exotic beauty. Édouard Manet depicted a controversial vision of femininity in Le Déjeuner sur L’herbe: the female nude enjoying a pastoral picnic with two fully-dressed men was seen as scandalous, indeed erotic, in 1863. The woman’s gaze is inviting and seductive as she proudly flaunts her naked flesh.
Blending classic tradition with modern manner, Josephine invites us to be a voyeur and study the underlying narrative of gender issues and feminine sexuality. The girl on the left poses in confident manner, gazing directly at the viewer; others lie back as if sunbathing, one clutches her breast, while another strokes her friend’s hair with a caring, caressing touch.
Originally from Ohio, Michele Marcoux has lived in Scotland for more than half her life, and themes around home, memory and nostalgia are evident in her art. Caryatids at Rest is based on a Polaroid photograph from 1975 – Caryatids were maidens in ancient Sparta, who worshipped the goddess Artemis, often sculpted as architectural figures.
This vividly expressionistic portrayal of two young women bursts with summer warmth in a lush green garden, as they lounge languidly in the sunshine. As Marcoux describes, ‘these figures symbolise the mystery that young women possess often without realising it’. Their faces are intriguingly left blank, no eyes, mouth or nose, echoing the style of portraiture by Vanessa Bell, who represented a person’s character through physical form and emotional mood. The use of a bold colour palette in blocks and streaks with textured layers is akin to old peeling wallpaper – the evidence of past lives and stories.
Kate Cameron Reid formerly worked in the professional fashion industry on Savile Row, London. Her installations are primarily autobiographical, often utilising personal belongings or found objects as a metaphor to draw the viewer into her work, recreating a narrative such as Broken Glass. A tall frame is suspended with threaded sharp shards of fractured glass, sourced from abandoned houses in the Highlands.
The finely-cut and shaped pieces are sewn together with neat cross stitches, akin to bespoke tailoring; repairing the cracked window, it almost seems as if we can now peer inside the old house and see the people who lived there. ‘Each work is a fragment of time, depicting memories, emotions and life events making reference to experiences of widowhood, motherhood and community’. Such a tangible sense of nostalgia and cultural heritage.
Mary Morrison lives on the Isle of Harris, where she explores the unspoilt natural environment, studying a personal relationship to the landscape – ‘memory places, the geography of the mind, journeys, edges, tidal lines.’
Tidal Progression IV depicts the curving contour of waves lapping on a beach in microscopic detail. The thin line where the sea touches the shore glows with a translucent light below the surface of the rippling water over the tiny grains of sand.
A similar approach is captured in Tidal Progression I, which distils the reality of the seascape with crisp, cool clarity of focus and soft layering of oil and beeswax for a textured, fluid sheen. With delicate, lyrical artistry, they are like a Hebridean haiku with magical minimalism.
Janette Sumner lives near the coast and in the foothills of the Pentlands, and the colour, textures and abstract values of these landscapes are the starting point for her work: ‘The coast has always held a great source of strength and freedom for me, so wandering and waiting for low tide has become something of a fascination. ‘Connections’ was inspired by the tidal waters at the Firth of Tay, especially the beautiful light which settles on the water at dusk… its connections with the river, the mountains and the sea.’ – Janette Sumner
This mesmerising maze of shadowy shapes, sharp edges and curving lines seems to be a haphazard, abstract pattern in a wild splash of white, coral and blue. But the finely-textured surface reveals the imagery of rocky terrain, moss-green shoreline, swirling cloud, translucent water and shaft of sunlight. Janette often interweaves collage for layering and depth; here a scrap of paper with the title, The Tay Bridge, from a vintage Scottish travel book, is embedded into the paint to enhance the character of the landscape. Perceptively and imaginatively observed to evoke the softly shimmering, ebb and flow of the Firth with a meditative, atmospheric sense of place.
One of the contestants on Sky Arts Portrait Artist Of The Year 2024, Imogen Alabaster says, ‘It was one of the most exhilarating, challenging things I have ever done – painting alongside talented artists was just wonderful.’ Her sitter was the actor Saskia Reeves, whose portrait had to be painted in just four hours.
Alabaster specialises in oil paintings that stretch between abstract expressionism and realism, particularly focusing on portraits. ?In We Know Each Other, her partner Steven is portrayed lying in a totally relaxed pose, on the sofa one evening: such a totally relaxed pose, arm stretched behind his head, gaping T shirt to reveal bare skin, focused attentively on his phone. Amazing detail for various textures – blue, perhaps suede, sofa, herringbone throw, clothes, glasses, hair and skin: ‘My use of colour is intuitive and poetic, skin is not just pink or brown… a billion speckles and glimmers of light.’
Reflecting their shared interest in music, the title is from Olivia Newton John’s song ‘Physical,’ and this homely scene captures ‘a fleeting moment of joy, peace and love’ with such charm and spontaneity. As one of many SSA Award winners, Imogen has been offered a solo show at Upright Gallery.
Valediction is a portrait series Amy Odlum created for her 2024 degree show at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, exploring a theme on mortality and the fragility of human life. This is based on personal experience, through the distress coping with her father’s terminal illness.
This is an exquisite portrait of Amy’s father, meticulously painted in oils, with the crisp clarity of a photograph. The precise use of light and shadow highlights the delicate shine on his face, fine detail of skin, tattooed hand, faint grey stubble and glistening eyes, as if close to tears. Valediction is the name of poem by Louis MacNeice which describes the Troubles in Northern Ireland, a link to her father’s homeland in Omagh. This painting is a most endearing, sensitive tribute to their relationship at this time when they have to contemplate bidding a final farewell. The sadness in his facial expression says it all, without words – parental love will never die. Amy has been awarded the prestigious J & W Gordon Smith award of £2,000 for this Valediction series of portraits.
Hans K Clausen is an artist and sculptor who has curated The Winston Smith Library of Victory and Truth to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the first UK edition of George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four: ‘It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking 13’.
Visitors are invited to pick up and read some of the 1,984 different copies of the book, donated and sourced from around the world, some in mint condition, or dog-eared, tea-stained, inscribed, annotated and graffitied art works, as they browse around this interactive library and engage in literary conversation. A graphic version was presented by Orwell’s son Richard Blair, and there’s a 1940s typewriter, the same model Orwell used. 75 years on, Orwell’s warning about political dictatorship suppressing personal freedom is more timely than ever. Such an imaginative, thought-provoking cultural concept.
Admission: £6, £4 concession, under-16’s and SSA members free, and free entry for all on Mondays.
With thanks to Viv Devlin for this review.
