Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh
1 - 21 June 2021
Magnetic North
Open Eye Gallery
34 Abercromby Place, Edinburgh EH3 6QE
Phone: 0131 557 1020
Email: [email protected]
Click on an image to enlarge it and to see the price and other details.
Open Eye Gallery
34 Abercromby Place, Edinburgh EH3 6QE
Phone: 0131 557 1020
Email: [email protected]
Click on an image to enlarge it and to see the price and other details.
Magnetic North
“Like everyone else I have been unable to travel far in any direction in the last year but if I had been it would be to the North: that is the source of my work and, like a compass needle, the direction I am always drawn to.
Apart from not being able to travel, lockdown has not been very much different in terms of the day to day routine for many artists including myself who are accustomed to work in a fairly solitary way. In that I have been fortunate.
One of the things I have missed though is the experience of visiting galleries. I am so pleased that the Open Eye will be able to welcome visitors to this show.
If we had any doubts about the value of experiencing art these have surely been dispelled by the pandemic. It seems that for many of us isolation has intensified the desire to appreciate art in all its forms.
Unless artwork is made for the computer screen there will always be a need to experience the physical piece rather than its virtual reproduction. Like many artists I labour at getting a particular quality, working on a surface till the colour and texture satisfies. My work is often three dimensional, but even pieces that are largely on a flat plane are intended as objects in themselves as much as images that represent something other.
Once I am able to travel I will head north to the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness and stand in the room overlooking the harbour surrounded by the works of Ben Nicholson and Alfred Wallis. I will see the fishing boats tied up and the sun glinting off the sea through a Barbara Hepworth sculpture. I will look at the paintings and listen to their ’surface noise’.
Alex Malcolmson. May 2021
“Like everyone else I have been unable to travel far in any direction in the last year but if I had been it would be to the North: that is the source of my work and, like a compass needle, the direction I am always drawn to.
Apart from not being able to travel, lockdown has not been very much different in terms of the day to day routine for many artists including myself who are accustomed to work in a fairly solitary way. In that I have been fortunate.
One of the things I have missed though is the experience of visiting galleries. I am so pleased that the Open Eye will be able to welcome visitors to this show.
If we had any doubts about the value of experiencing art these have surely been dispelled by the pandemic. It seems that for many of us isolation has intensified the desire to appreciate art in all its forms.
Unless artwork is made for the computer screen there will always be a need to experience the physical piece rather than its virtual reproduction. Like many artists I labour at getting a particular quality, working on a surface till the colour and texture satisfies. My work is often three dimensional, but even pieces that are largely on a flat plane are intended as objects in themselves as much as images that represent something other.
Once I am able to travel I will head north to the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness and stand in the room overlooking the harbour surrounded by the works of Ben Nicholson and Alfred Wallis. I will see the fishing boats tied up and the sun glinting off the sea through a Barbara Hepworth sculpture. I will look at the paintings and listen to their ’surface noise’.
Alex Malcolmson. May 2021