Today is World Book Day, a celebration of all things written across the globe. The relationship between writing and art is a complex but ever present one. The two have been entwined since man first put pigment to wall in the cave. He was, after all, telling a story .
Kilmorack Gallery artists are a literary bunch. A few years back, Tony curated a show on Art and the Word. The artworks that arrived in hanging week were like a secret window to the bedside tables of each artist.
Alan McGowan chose Faust as his inspiration. Using Goethe's dark, powerful words, he created paintings in his own language, that of charcoal and paint. For those of you who saw these paintings, I'm sure you will recall the sheer power created when words and visuals joined forces. Like all good paintings, a digital image only tells half the story, but it's better than no story at all. We still have enquires about those paintings today.
Henry Fraser's work often has words in the painting itself, scratched into the painted surface like whispers. Spending time with the paintings you forget they are there until something jogs your memory, perhaps the words come in from another source and you remember them, or one day you just look deeper.
The relationship between words and painting can be harder to see on the surface, or it can be more manifest. Peter White's book - titled just to the bare minimum - has blank pages, and while Peter might be inspired by a certain poem or set of words while painting, he leaves the pages blank, like the title, for you to fill with your own interpretation.
I remember Lotte Glob's ceramic books that she wrote secret words on and then threw into the sea. We will never know what was written on the brittle pages, and as they return to sand at the bottom of the sea, the words will fade in memory.
This April we will have an exhibition on the theme of humour. Artists working with humour are harder to come by than those who use writing, though we have amassed an interesting selection so far. Tony is soon to arrive in the gallery with a new artist's work he has just been to visit. Robert Powell is a young, Edinburgh based artist, who first caught my attention with an obscure literary reference.
At university, studying Scottish literature, I wrote my dissertation on the many artistic collaborations of the poet George Mackay Brown. A phrase lifted from one of his letters comes to mind today: 'The arts have a lot to give to each other.'
Ruth Tauber,
Gallery Manager
Kilmorack Gallery artists are a literary bunch. A few years back, Tony curated a show on Art and the Word. The artworks that arrived in hanging week were like a secret window to the bedside tables of each artist.
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Nacht (night)
Alan McGowan
compressed charcoal and mixed media
But, ah, this prison has my soul,
Damnable, bricked-in, cabined hole,
Where even the heaven’s dear light must pass
Saddened through the painted glass
Hemmed in with stacks of books am I,
Where works the worm with dusty manage,
While in the vaulted roof on high
The smoky ranks of papers range:
Goethe’s Faust
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Alan McGowan chose Faust as his inspiration. Using Goethe's dark, powerful words, he created paintings in his own language, that of charcoal and paint. For those of you who saw these paintings, I'm sure you will recall the sheer power created when words and visuals joined forces. Like all good paintings, a digital image only tells half the story, but it's better than no story at all. We still have enquires about those paintings today.
Henry Fraser's work often has words in the painting itself, scratched into the painted surface like whispers. Spending time with the paintings you forget they are there until something jogs your memory, perhaps the words come in from another source and you remember them, or one day you just look deeper.
The relationship between words and painting can be harder to see on the surface, or it can be more manifest. Peter White's book - titled just to the bare minimum - has blank pages, and while Peter might be inspired by a certain poem or set of words while painting, he leaves the pages blank, like the title, for you to fill with your own interpretation.
I remember Lotte Glob's ceramic books that she wrote secret words on and then threw into the sea. We will never know what was written on the brittle pages, and as they return to sand at the bottom of the sea, the words will fade in memory.
This April we will have an exhibition on the theme of humour. Artists working with humour are harder to come by than those who use writing, though we have amassed an interesting selection so far. Tony is soon to arrive in the gallery with a new artist's work he has just been to visit. Robert Powell is a young, Edinburgh based artist, who first caught my attention with an obscure literary reference.
At university, studying Scottish literature, I wrote my dissertation on the many artistic collaborations of the poet George Mackay Brown. A phrase lifted from one of his letters comes to mind today: 'The arts have a lot to give to each other.'
Ruth Tauber,
Gallery Manager
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