Summer Exhibition
Kilmorack Gallery
by Beauly, Inverness-shire
01463 783 230
www.kilmorackgallery.co.uk
Until August 4
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| Sea Island by Lizzie Rose |
It’s easy to spot the Kilmorack Gallery... just look for the big Helen Denerley lizard scuttling up the wall of this former church just outside Beauly.
For the last 15 years, the gallery’s founder, Tony Davidson, has been flying the flag for Scottish artists, particularly – but not exclusively – based in the Highlands. All within the confines of a well preserved interior of an 18th century Highland kirk.
The gallery opened on June 22, 1997, and since then, has shown work by artists such as; Kirstie Cohen, Helen Denerley, Henry Fraser, Allan MacDonald, Peter White and the late Gerald Laing.
This summer’s show at Kilmorack continues the tradition of working with artists whose work always packs an emotive punch.
New to the gallery, is Tain-based painter, Pat Semple, who is showing five new works, Borders-based Kinetic sculptor, Sam Wade, poetic stone-caver Mary Bourne, and Lizzie Rose, whose strong lines bring power to her emotive landscapes.
Established Kilmorack artists who are back for this celebratory exhibition include Alan McGowan, who has produced a fine body of anatomical drawings (with a new book to go with it), Eugenia Vronskaya, who has found new inspirations in the studio and in India and a new large scale painting by Joyce W Cairns.
Robert McAulay’s new works includes studies of trees, while Helen Denerley (whose daughter Ruth now works in the gallery) puts a moo into the proceedings with a life size cow.
There is also work in bronze by Gerald Laing, who died last November. Davidson used to work with Laing at his studio near Inverness, helping to create the large bronze sculptures for which he was famous. The connection with Laing and the other artists he represents, comes from a very honest place.
“Kilmorack has been a wonderful resource for the artists I’ve been able to take on-board,” he acknowledges. “I’ve tried to be as straight as possible with them, for artists and dealers are in the same boat. We both want to put on an exhibition that people will never forget and we both want to sell enough work for there to be another exhibition in the future. It’s a very privileged relationship.”
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Gospel Hall Studio Footdee by Joyce W Cairns – oil on panel - 184cm x 122cm