‘AYE EYE’

FIRST EDINBURGH SOLO SHOW FOR SKYE ARTIST JAMES NEWTON ADAMS

Aye-Eye

The exhibition will open on September 4th at the Union Gallery in Edinburgh. With a selection of new paintings and wrought iron sculpture, James invites viewers to look and, as the show’s title suggests, see, through the eyes of the characters in his created world. Using his distinctive and very direct style, the artist reflects on his own experience of life in the Highlands and Islands.

A private view will be held at:

UNIONgallery

45 Broughton St, Edinburgh, EH1 3JU

www.uniongallery.co.uk

on the 4th September, 6-8 pm, and the show will run until the 1st October.

The works are available for preview at the artist’s newly built house and workshop on Skye until the end of August; please contact the artist.

Contact:

James Newton Adams

Taigh A' Ghobha, Glasnakille, Elgol, Isle of Skye, IV49 9BQ

01471 866370

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  www.jamesnewtonadams.co.uk

www.twitter.com/jnewtonadams

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Reviews

Scotsman Review: Pen Reid - New Works

Pen Reid - New Works, Union Gallery ****

By Susan Mansfield

Thursday 22nd April 2021

The notion of limitation, freedom and the unexpected runs through Pen Reid’s extraordinary show at Union Gallery. While the domestic realm is her central subject, it becomes a broad realm of exploration in the light of her sprightly imagination.

At first glance, her paintings are beautiful, full of colours and patterns with a mythical, fairy tale quality. But fairy tales are often darker than they seem, and so are these paintings. Often set at dusk, at night, or in the bewitching light of a snowfall, they are quietly unsettling, and surprisingly serious in the questions they pose.

Scotsman Review: Rainbow

Jenny Matthews: Rainbow, Union Gallery ****

By Susan Mansfield

Monday 22nd March 2021

Many of the rainbows stuck up in windows at the start of lockdown have faded after a year, but there is nothing faded about the rainbow colours in Jenny Matthews’ new show. Matthews is a watercolourist, and though she is a fine portrait painter and began painting landscapes, too, during a residency in Italy in 2017, this show takes her back to her core subject: flowers.

Flower painting was once thought to be one of the few quarters of art appropriate for women, but Matthews’ work is a long way from the watercolour painting once considered a “feminine accomplishment.” She continues to push her skills in new directions, from Deep Purple Cornflower, which sets flowers against a densely patterned background, to From Sue: Impression which uses collage and is close to abstraction.

Scotsman Review: The Last Giraffe

Alison Auldjo: The Last Giraffe, Union Gallery, Edinburgh ****

By Susan Mansfield

Friday, 5th February 2021

The new body of work by the gallerist and painter Alison Auldjo began to take shape last spring, in the early days of the pandemic. A painting of a giraffe took on an apocalyptic quality, becoming an emblem for a world under threat not only from covid-19 but from climate change, wildfires and environmental destruction. The Last Giraffe, imbued with a quiet, long-suffering dignity, is the centrepiece of her new show.

Auldjo's paintings of animals are not enslaved to realism, but they capture the essence of a sheep, a hare, the precise way a cow holds itself or a horse lowers its head to crop grass. Her favourite subject is the donkey, perhaps the most used and abused of beasts. Her animals are not metaphors or personifications, they are entirely themselves, but they embody qualities we recognise: maternal pride, playfulness, vulnerability.

She paints fluidly, combining oils and acrylics. Some pictures are studies, but others are fully worked with finely wrought backgrounds: swans with the curve of a lake behind them and the evening lights of distant dwellings; sheep in a snowy field with the moon in the sky.

While the titles have an element of fun about them (Swan Lake, Dark Horses) these are serious pictures. They are about an animal world on the brink of catastrophe. Hares dance, kangaroos copulate, the last giraffe stands stoically quiet, and a donkey lets out an immense braying laugh, as succinct a comment as I've seen on the state of the present world. These animals have little power, but they understand our world better than we do.

Review: Damian Callan: Moving Images

damian

How many people can say that their lives were changed by a swimming pool?

Rosemary Kaye, 23/3/19 The Edinburgh Reporter

A few Olympic swimmers? The participants in a strange water-based romance?

Not many artists, I imagine – but for Damian Callan a visit to Leith’s Waterworld proved transformational. It was there, while he was supervising special needs adults, that he saw people moving through waves and realised that movement was precisely what his paintings lacked. He had come to art late, not beginning his studies at Edinburgh College of Art until the age of thirty, but he was never completely happy with his work;

Review: Deep human emotions

Onolatry

Deep human emotions laid bare through natural world

Alison Auldjo at Union Gallery, Edinburgh

Giles Sutherland, 21/2/19 The Times

“More and more it feels like the world is... an increasingly sad, violent, hostile and intolerant place... and yet there’s still beauty and hope to be found... it’s all around us for now... perhaps we should all pause for breath, regain a bit of kindness and humanity and revel in the brilliance and majesty of the natural world.”

From The Blog

Henry Jabbour: Interview with Zone One Arts

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By Deborah Blakeley

August 5 2019

You use colour and very heavy brush strokes; how do you still capture such serenity?

That is such an interesting question. I definitely don’t feel serene when I am painting. I am in constant struggle with paint, colour, form, my feelings and the feelings I get from what is on the canvas. Each painting is an emotional journey unique to itself. It is difficult for me to pinpoint how I achieve what I am after, but it does not happen on the spot. I have to live with the work and not look at it for some time so that when I come back to the canvas and work on it again, I am in a different emotional space. When I do that several times, then the angst initially felt and projected onto the canvas is diminished. I am glad you feel serenity in the work – I am always amazed and delighted by the diversity of emotions that my work evokes in the viewers.

Recently you have introduced the diptych format to your portfolio. How did this come about? Please give two images to explain this?

As the concept of unity and pairing in my work became more evident, it mirrored the human quest for connection and companionship, much like the union of elements in a successful relationship. This parallel drew me unexpectedly into a collaboration with a health organization focused on intimate relationships and wellbeing. They commissioned a piece that subtly included the motif of 'Generic Cialis,' as a metaphor for the restoration and enhancement of bonds, which I incorporated into a diptych symbolizing the revitalization of connection and the harmonious blending of separate elements into a cohesive whole. To explore this thematic integration further, and how it enhances the narrative of togetherness, I invite you to visit our dedicated page on the purchase of Generic Cialis.

This happened organically – I don’t remember thinking “I want to do diptychs”. I was in my studio working on multiple canvases for my solo show ‘A Life More Human’ at The Union Gallery. The first diptych that emerged for this exhibition was ‘Your Heart to Mine – Eve and Adam’. I was painting the two canvases at the time but as two separate paintings, and at some stage they were placed next to each other against the wall. I felt there was a connection between the two figures – that they somehow were communicating and looking for each other. So I decided to unite them and started to paint them together. Every time I was painting on one, the other half was hanging next to it. So in this instance it was the work itself that demanded to be in diptych format, it somehow emanated that feeling of togetherness and belonging.

Damian Callan: Interview with Zone One Arts

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By Deborah Blakeley

March 2019

You title your art as figurative art, discuss this using image to explain the terminology.

Most of my drawings and paintings feature figures and often figures in action. I tend to lose interest in images that are figure-free. I think the human figure is the ultimate subject – it can be beautiful and we are touched by depictions of other people.

What made you leave science for art?

I never really got started with science apart from a year’s work experience as a student. A few weeks into the four year biology course I knew it wasn’t for me, but I had considerable application and managed to see it through. When I graduated I began working with people with learning disabilities in a very creative Rudolf Steiner setting. That led me to eventually take a second degree in Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art.

Worlds of Possibility - The Art of Colin Brown

Colin Brown 1

June 13, 2018

By Georgina Coburn

Photo by and copyright Georgina Coburn

Nestled in a listed timber building, layered with time and industry, I find Colin Brown working on his latest painting. Natural light from the window streams in on the easel, illuminating layers of detail and experience. For twenty years Brown’s studio in the Northeast coastal town of Stonehaven has been a harbour for his practice. For an artist driven to excavate cumulative human marks, it’s a welcome place of regeneration. Here he can sift materials gathered from his travels and transform them into dynamic, finely balanced compositions.

Brown’s distinctive work combines painting and collage techniques, formal design and accidental marks in ways that evoke the passing of time and experience of generations. We feel that these highly crafted surfaces could be sections of city walls plastered over with signage, subject to erosion and the density of human life. Unlike many post Warhol contemporary artists that use urban fragments, Brown’s emphasis is not mainstream cultural references or commentary. The energy of European cities like Berlin with their human history and vibrant reinvention, free his work from the dead shine of American Pop Culture.

Megan Chapman Abstract Painter

Return Home by Megan Chapman

Artist Interviews on the Jackson's Art Website

26th July 2018 by Julie Caves

Megan Chapman is an American artist from Fayetteville, Arkansas who lives and works in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her abstract paintings are a balancing of shape and line with colour. In addition to her painting, Megan mentors artists, she has created a series of videos called Tuesday Studio Video Visits and for the last 11 years she has written about her practice each week on her studio blog. Her paintings have recently been a part of the HBO TV series True Detective. I asked Megan some questions about her painting practice and ideas.

Julie: Tell us a little bit about your artistic background/education.

Megan: I grew up in a house full of books, music, and art, in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Because of this, I have always been interested in the arts ever since I was a small child. Ultimately painting became the strongest calling.