28 July 2022
This month we will be heading to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery for their new exhibition Counted: Scotland’s Census 2022. We will be joined by the curator of the show Louise Pearson. Louise is curator of photography at National Galleries of Scotland. She has previously worked for Royal Collection Trust and the National Library of Scotland. Louise is currently working on a collecting project funded through an Art Fund New Collecting Award based around Scotland’s 2022 census with the aim of diversifying the National Galleries collection.
In the year of Scotland’s Census, NGS are exploring who lives in Scotland today, who came before us and who will come after us. Inspired by the questions asked in the census, Counted: Scotland’s Census 2022 considers the complex notion of identity. How is this shaped by our religion, occupation, health, ethnicity?
New acquisitions by photographers working in Scotland today including Kieran Dodds, Arpita Shah and Danny North are presented alongside 19th-century photographs by Thomas Annan and Hill & Adamson, offering comparisons between past and present generations of Scots.
28 July 2011 at 6pm
A visit to the studio spaces of David Forster and Michael Craik to discuss their current practice in contemporary painting.
David Forster’s landscapes refer to the traditions of the 18th and 19th centuries. Though the scenes depicted are topographically correct, Forster subtly alters the light and colour to create a fictionalised reality that conveys the authority of photorealist document. Whilst exploring the romantic narrative of landscape, Forster’s work presents the industrialised wilderness of farmland, the well-trodden solitude of the British uplands, and the tame sublime of the country park.
Michael Craik is fascinated by modernist architecture and creates abstract oil paintings which have been described as a ‘contemporary minimalism for an urban audience’. His most recent works focus on the geometry of squares or hexagons and are painted on aluminium panels to create works which evoke perspective and create a play of light which recalls the buildings from which the patterns have been drawn.
Patriothall Studios is parts of WASPS which has grown to become one of Scotlands largest arts organisations, providing studio space to over 750 artists each year at 17 locations throughout Scotland.
