Art News Keeping you in the picture Craft & Design Hand-made for you & your home Art Books Read all about it! 29 May 2020 Issue 115 Art & Travel Leiden & Amsterdam in the footsteps of Rembrandt Profile Dovecot Studios Manager & Master Weaver Naomi Robertson Photo-Spread The Super Ordinary Life of photographer Yasumi Toyoda Art & Health Love the arts, live longer Marketplace Original artwork & posters for sale 2 | 29 May | Issue 115 29 May | Issue 115 | 3 Arts News

Inverleith House Gallery at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh has been named as a joint-recipient of the £150,000 Outset Transform Award. This will see Inverleith House become Climate House and enter into a three-year partnership with ’s Serpentine Galleries for artists to engage with ecology ON THE COVER With his Super Ordinary Life series Japanese scientists to create contemporary photographer Yasumi Toyoda finds a sense of wonder in the most mundane moments of art which is embedded in the natural world. In 2021 Climate House will everyday life. highlight the global risk to biodiversity through an immersive installation PUBLISHED BY Instant Publications Ltd., in collaboration with Australian artist Keg de Souza. www.rbge.org.uk 0131 661 0765, 07968 191032 PUBLISHER Christie Dessy, [email protected] EDITOR Ian Sclater, [email protected] hile many people BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Katrina Merrilees WEBSITE EDITOR/SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER have used lockdown David White, [email protected] EDITORIAL & AD DESIGN/PRODUCTION Ian Farmer as an opportunity to www.uprightcreative.com W WEBMASTER David Marek, [email protected] bake bread, some are using it to ART BLOGGERS Julie Boyne, Andy Miles, Leo Sartain, Joanna Zuchovska make art, with Vincent van Gogh © 2020 Instant Publications. Reproduction in whole or in part is forbidden without the written permission of the Publisher. a particular inspiration. Boston’s Instant Publications does not accept responsibility for unsolicited material. Teri Culletto has used herbs and vegetables to adorn her focaccia WWW.ARTMAG.CO.UK with sunflowers on a loaf she calls Artmaguk @artmaguk @artmaguk Vincent van Dough (the American pronunciation of Van Gogh helps), rtist John Robert Smith has while chef Tuan Rizwan has used Acompleted a series of oil ike many artists, Senja Brendon paintings showing how musicians Lwas only days away from the bands of red and yellow peppers have found an unusual way to play first of three solo shows planned to recreate the dramatic sky of together, socially distanced. Depicted this year, when everything was Edvard Munch’s The Scream with in rowing boats on a loch under a full cancelled. She is now splitting a carved eggplant to make the moon, they express the need to be her time between improving her tortured figure (pictured). together to do the things we love. online material and experimenting Available from Artisanand Gallery in in her Argyll studio. She says: Aberfeldy. Pictured: Blood Moon “Early on in the lockdown I read www.artisanand.co.uk that it would be better not to count the hours, but to make the hours count.” Accordingly, she has been getting up at 4am to welcome the day. She says: “It truly is a magical time and has given me so much inspiration for new work. It is also wonderful to be able to create without a brief and to let the paint lead the way.” Pictured: Heaven Sent, watercolour www.senja-art.com

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he new online exhibition at he Glasgow School of Art the Moy Mackay Gallery has launched Graduate Tin Peebles is Blossom, TShowcase 2020, a digital featuring first-time exhibitors at platform of works by final year the gallery Margaret Evans and undergraduate and postgraduate mosaic artist Katy Galbraith along students. You can then follow with new work by Janet McCrorie, graduates’ progress as each Fiona Millar, Ludmilla Kosmina and digital Showcase is updated into Moy Mackay. Working in pastels, 2021. The platform will show a watercolours and oils, Margaret wide range of work, including orthumberland artist sketchbooks, writings, video, Mary Ann Rogers has audio and images and students Nteamed up with A. J. will be able to link from the Ludlow, makers of hand-crafted platform to their own websites watercolours, to produce an and social media accounts. exclusive set of six paints in Pictured: Work by Painting and 40-millilitre pots – the same Printmaking student Samantha Storm Pots by Julie Whatley palette Mary Ann uses for her Harley. www.gsa.ac.uk 30 May - 12 July paintings of farm animals and wildlife. Presented in a tin with www.scottishpotters.org guidelines for use, they make an Check website for unique ceramic art ideal gift. www.marogers.com/ to inspire & purchase shop/artmaterials Evans is also an internationally respected tutor and author of teaching art books and DVDs. Inspired by the landscape and flowers, Katy Galbraith makes ‘decorative art’ as well as mosaics with a more practical purpose, such as mirrors, table tops and heck out the Events section garden items, incorporating of the Scottish Potters recycled materials. Pictured: Fiona C Association website to see – and Millar, Pink tulips. buy - members’ work in the Land, www.moymackaygallery.com Sea and Fire Online exhibition (May 30-July 12). The SPA is open he Royal Scottish Academy is launching an exhibition of work to all practitioners in the medium, Tcreated by Academicians during lockdown (June 4-July 12). While both experienced potters and Academicians with home studios have continued to work relatively newcomers. Pictured: Mini-pots unaffected, others have found unused corners of their homes and by Fran Marquis. gardens to work in while their studios are closed. As a result, the www.scottishpotters.org exhibition features some works done with the simplest of media – pencil or pen on paper. All works are for sale. Pictured above: David Mach HRSA, Floating Forth, courtesy Royal Scottish Academy. www.academiciansgallery.org

6 | 29 May | Issue 115 29 May | Issue 115 | 7 Art Books Read all about it! Grinling Gibbons Master art movements, such as Cubism, Pop Art, Surrealism Carver, by Paul Rabbitts, and de Stijl, will help you to try your hand at pub. Shire Publications Once creating your own quirky pictures mimicking famous described as the “Michelangelo artists, from Picasso-style portraits and Kandinsky- of Wood”, Grinling Gibbons like abstracts to Mondrian-ish colour fields and (1648-1721) was one of Britain’s Matisse-y collages. most renowned and prolific carvers, able to transform wood 100 Sculptors of into something magical. His Tomorrow, by Kurt work can be found in some of Beers, pub. Thames & the country’s best known buildings, such as St Paul’s Hudson Identified over Cathedral and . Packed with the course of a year- detailed illustrations of Gibbons’ work, this pocket long search through book will appeal to those interested in architecture, a variety of sources, carving, statuary and the baroque. including online calls for entry, art fairs, Instagram The Great Spectacle: 250 accounts and experts’ Years of the Royal Academy recommendations, Summer Exhibition, by Mark artists from almost Hallett & Sarah Victoria 40 countries were jury-selected as today’s most Turner, pub. Royal Academy exciting emerging sculptors. Illustrated by quality of Arts Since 1769 the Royal reproductions of each artist’s work, the amazing Academy’s exhibition rooms diversity questions the very nature of sculpture have been crowded for two today. months each year with paintings and sculptures by many of Britain’s leading artists The Golden Age of and over the years these spectacular displays have Dutch and Flemish attracted millions of visitors. Illustrated with works Painting, by Norbert by many of the great names of British art, this history Wolf, pub. Prestel The of the world’s longest running annual exhibition of 17th century was one of contemporary art tells how many treasured artworks the most prolific eras in were first shown on the walls of the RA. Western art. Driven by newfound prosperity, I Could Have Done That!, the mythical Golden illustrated by Guy Field, pub. Age found artists such as Michael O’Mara Books How Rembrandt, Vermeer, Rubens and Van Dyck catering many times have you looked to the increasingly wealthy merchant classes. Some at an artwork and thought, “I of the most enduring works created during this could do that”. Well, here’s your period of enormous artistic output are luminously chance. This fun guided drawing reproduced here, accompanied by revealing essays series to some of the foremost on the interplay between history, culture and art.

8 | 29 May | Issue 115 29 May | Issue 115 | 9 Craft & Design Hand-made for you and

your home 3 1 2

6 Photo: Alaisdair Smith Photography Photo: Susan Castillo

4 5

1 Inspired by origami and geometric forms, Kate Colin 4 Continuing a craft which dates back to the third works with paper to make hand-folded lighting and millennium BC, Helen Miles meticulously makes wall art. When illuminated, her bold, sculptural work site-specific mosaics for indoor and outdoor settings is radically transformed when the intensity of colour from design to installation using natural stone, is brilliantly revealed. www.katecolindesign.com unglazed ceramic and vitreous glass tiles. www.helenmilesmosaics.org 2 Sally-Ann Provan creates bespoke, hand-made hats, headpieces and millinery for weddings and other 5 A past Graduate of the Year at the Scottish special occasions. Her hats have graced the heads of Fashion Awards, Lauren Smith specialises in hand royals, the Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, embroidery inspired by retro design, patterns and mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins, broadcaster and colour. Each piece begins as a painting and is finished presenter Edith Bowman and many others. with stitch and embellishments. www.sallyannprovan.co.uk www.laurensmithstudio.co.uk

3 After studying Textile Design at Gray’s School of Art, 6 Ursula Bevan Hunter of the illustration and print Emma McDowall switched materials to something design practice Little Axe makes hand block-printed more concrete. Literally. Her vessels, home wares designs for wallpapers and textiles for output onto and art objects are decorated with imaginative a range of materials. Pictured: wallpaper from the colour combinations and each piece is entirely Endangered Animals series unique. Pictured: Lilac emerald plant pot www.littleaxe.co.uk www.studioemmaconcrete.com

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Located in a small, 17th century it is a short walk to the modern Amsterdam dwelling, the Young Rembrandt Rembrandt Bridge over the Rhine, Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam Studio is where he served an the river which gave him his name. some time in 1631 or 1632, lured apprenticeship with the painter Leiden’s municipal museum by the demand by property Jacob van Swanenburg, who had of local history and the fine and owners to fill their homes with studied painting in Italy. There is decorative arts, the Museum art. In modern parlance, he was an a seven-minute video ‘hosted’ by de Lakenhal (the former cloth overnight sensation and he quickly Swanenburg in his reconstructed hall, the centre of Leiden’s textile became the foremost Amsterdam studio in which he talks about his industry) reopened in spring 2019 painter. famous pupil’s skills and discusses after a major refurbishment of The Rembrandt House on painting materials and techniques the 17th century building and the Jodenbreestraat is where he of the time. addition of new exhibition spaces. lived and worked between 1639 With a remarkable lack of It has several early Rembrandts, and 1658. With a 17th century foresight, Rembrandt’s birthplace notably The Spectacles Salesman inventory as a guide, the house Local boy was demolished to make way for (1623-24), painted when he was has been meticulously refurbished the apartments which stand there 17, and History Painting with with furniture, art and objects today. A memorial plaque on the Self-Portrait (1626), as well as from the period. wall marks the spot. However, it is works by his tutors Jacob van The house holds a virtually worth dropping by to see a fine, Swanenburg and Pieter Lastman complete collection of makes good Rembrandt-themed sculpture in and contemporaries such as Jan Rembrandt’s etchings, selections the small square by the German Lievens, Gerrit Dou, Lucas van from which are on permanent artist Stephan Balkenhol. From Leyden and Jan Steen. display. There are also temporary here too you can see a replica www.lakenhal.nl exhibitions of work by some of his windmill similar to the one contemporaries and pupils along Rembrant statue at Lakenhal Rembrandt’s parents owned and with Rembrandt-inspired work >>> Museum in Leiden

THE CHARMING In the 17th century Leiden Commissions were plentiful, was the largest city in Holland particularly of portraits, and TOWN OF LEIDEN after Amsterdam. Today it is still Dutch painters such as Frans Hals, GAVE THE ART WORLD full of Dutch charm, with over Johannes Vermeer and Jan Steen THE PRE-EMINENT 3,000 historic monuments and rose to fame. However, none rose grand townhouses evoking the higher than Rembrandt. ARTIST OF THE DUTCH prosperous atmosphere of the Leiden honours its most GOLDEN AGE Dutch Golden Age, a period of famous son with a number of great wealth for Holland (then landmarks. You can see some of embrandt Harmenszoon known as the Dutch Republic), them on the Rembrandt Route, van Rijn Rembrandt (like when cities which sent trading a two-hour walking tour which Leonardo and Titian ships to Asia, Africa and the links all authentic Rembrandt before him, he took to Americas were among the richest locations in the inner city, such as Rusing only his first name) was born in the country. his birthplace, the studio where Upper left: The Latin School where Rembrandt Art also flourished, not least he studied and the Latin School received an education in the Classics in Leiden in 1606, the ninth child Lower left: Entrance to the new extension of the of a miller, and it was there that because the nouveau riche were where he was educated. Themed Lakenhal Museum he first started drawing, sketching keen to display their wealth on signs along the route describe the Above: Rembrandt van Rijn, The Spectacles Salesman, the walls of their new mansions. city in Rembrandt’s time. c.1623-24, Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden and painting. Right: Stephan Balkenhol’s sculpture opposite the site of Rembrandt’s birthplace 12 | 2922 May | Issue 114115 29 May | Issue 115 | 13 Art & Travel by current artists. Demonstrations of etching and paint preparation show how Rembrandt and his apprentices DAVID worked (you can stand in the MARSHALL very studio where the great man ‘Changing Seasons painted), and a workshop lets Italy & Scotland’ visitors try their hand at their own etchings. Online exhibition extended until 30 May Rembrandt was declared bankrupt in 1656, brought down by a tangled love life which required him to pay the equivalent of alimony, an insatiable appetite to acquire expensive, exotic Entrance hall of the Rembrandt House in Amsterdam collectables and, crucially, a change in taste which made his artistic mass grave. most famous and monumental style less fashionable and thus www.rembrandthuis.nl painting, The Night Watch (1642), lowered demand for his services. The Rijksmuseum possesses depicts an Amsterdam militia. The house is as close as you the largest collection of Taking nine kilos of paint to can get to Rembrandt the man. Rembrandt paintings in the world. complete, it hung at one time [email protected] You can’t even visit his grave. He It is also the most representative in the Amsterdam Town Hall. glasgowgallery.com was buried in a pauper’s grave collection, with works from every Before that, it was even bigger, @glasgowgalleryltd and twenty years later, as was the decade except the 1650s. but because it did not fit in the custom, his remains were dug up Hanging in the magnificent intended place, a section was cut and disposed of in an unmarked Gallery of Honour, Rembrandt’s off! ww.rijksmuseum.nl

Visitors admire The Nightwatch in the Rijksmuseum. Photo: Erik Smits

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With his blog and Instagram series Super Ordinary Life, Japanese photographer Yasumi Toyoda challenges us to notice more in our surroundings and to reconnect with a sense of wonder in the most mundane moments of everyday life. By concentrating on colour, form, texture, emotion and context, we can all find countless “super ordinary” sights around us. www.superordinarylife.com

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different artists, every tapestry ovecot Studios was London which took three years is different. You never get Destablished in 1912 by the to complete; and a large tapestry complacent or bored. Every 4th Marquess of Bute, recruiting with Alison Watt for the Theatre Weaving magic piece is a new challenge. We weavers from William Morris’ Royal Glasgow. think of ourselves as a fine art workshops in London to produce The company has also worked Dovecot Studios Manager and Master Weaver Naomi Robertson studio. We cross the barrier large tapestries for Mount Stuart on pieces by Eduardo Paolozzi, Sir between craft and fine art. House, his home on the Isle of Peter Blake and R.B. Kitaj (If Not, ’m happiest when I’ve the next decision. It’s also dead. By blending, say, colours We see ourselves as an equal Bute. Not, at seven metres square their got a bobbin in my quite physical, although it of blue together, maybe putting partner with the artist. We Today the studios collaborate biggest tapestry to date, which hand. I’m a maker. I like maybe doesn’t look it. You’re a purple in, it makes it ‘sing’. It’s pride ourselves on having a with leading artists to create hangs in the in I collaboration with artists. The tapestry interpretations of their London) and is currently working to use my hands and I always moving all the time, so I’ve almost like an artist mixing paint. have this need to create. It got quite strong arms. My It’s not the artist that chooses artist doesn’t just send us their work. These have included: Chris on a piece by the American artist feels like coming home when hands have a few bumps, but the colours, it’s the weavers. We artwork. We talk to them, we Ofili’s The Caged Bird Sings, Walter Price. I’m weaving. I love the tactile the wool keeps them soft. sample before we start to get an get to know them and they a three metre high by seven Dovecot Studios also has element, the expressiveness. I like We don’t dye our own wool. idea of what we’re going to use get to understand what we metre wide work in three pieces three exhibition spaces, which the energy it brings me. I can just We buy in commercially dyed and, as the tapestry develops, we do. We look into their work, for the Clothworkers’ Hall in later this year will host Mid- shut myself off and get into it. pallets of wool. That way we tweak them. We don’t believe so often incidental marks London which was shown at the Century Modern, postponed From the outside, everybody get a bit of guarantee of light what we’re doing is a copy. We’re that an artist will make we before being due to Coronavirus, and in 2021 thinks we look quite calm and fastness, plus it means we can doing an interpretation and have to decide whether we’re installed (“a massive moment for a retrospective exhibition on the serene, but I always describe it always repeat a colour of we run what we would like is that the weaving them in or leaving us”, recalls Naomi Robertson); weaver and the studios’ former like a duck paddling furiously out. It’s easier to repeat rather tapestry becomes a piece in itself. them out. So we’re analysing The Leathersellers’ Tapestry, artistic director, the late Archie underwater, thinking about than having to dye it ourselves So it’s a new artwork that we’re things in a very different way. an epic, 52-square metre frieze Brennan. to the same tone. creating. And because we don’t We start at the bottom and tapestry with Victoria Crowe for www.dovecotstudios.com The other thing is, we always work to the same scale work our way up, so you can’t the Leathersellers’ Company in very rarely weave with just as the piece – usually we like to go back and redo something one colour on the bobbin. enlarge it – that again changes you did three weeks ago. It’s not We might blend six to it from just being a copy of like painting on a canvas, when eight different strands of something that we’ve been given. you can add something in later. wool together within one We’re in a former swimming It needs to be planned. You’ve bobbin to create colours. baths, so there’s a balcony where got to think about the whole That gives depth to the the public can come in at certain thing. We need to make sure that colour and helps to get times of the day and watch us we’re not going to change colour. those painterly marks or work. It helps people understand Once it’s in, it’s in. So we’re nuances, so that you can why tapestries take so long and constantly making decisions. blend from one colour why they’re so expensive. It has Often there are two or three to another easily by just also brought a whole new interest weavers working alongside changing a strand or two. to tapestry. When I first started each other, so we’re always Sometimes we put 30 years ago, it was in the original talking to each other. It’s got to something really unusual building in Corstophine, and that look like one piece. That’s the into a mixture, which makes was very much behind closed art of being a studio weaver. the colour ‘pop’ and brings doors. All people ever saw was We might be able to tell who it to life. If you wove with the completed tapestry. So for wove which part, but you flat colour, if you dyed people to actually understand shouldn’t be able to. The mark- every colour perfectly to the process really helps their making has to be uniform. It’s the colour you wanted, the understanding of the medium. got to look like one hand. tapestry would look quite Because we work with

18 | 29 May | Issue 115 Working on the The Leathersellers’ Tapestry 29 May | Issue 115 | 19 Art & Health Love the arts, live longer

trip to the theatre, a “Leisure and pleasure activities accessing emotional support and museum or an art gallery that people don’t think as information which helps people Acould help you live longer. health-related do support good age more successfully. And the more often you get that health and longevity,” said Daisy The research looked at data culture fix the better, a study Fancourt, an associate professor given by more than 6,000 adults suggests. at UCL’s Research Department of in England age 50 years and older, Researchers from University Behavioural Science and Health who were taking part in a wider College London (UCL) found that and an author of the study, study on ageing. How often an people who engaged in the arts published in the British Medical individual engaged in art activities more frequently – every few Journal. was measured at the start of months or more – had a 31 per She added that engaging the study in 2004 to 2005. cent lower risk of dying early than with the arts can act as a buffer Participants were then followed those who did not. Even going to against stress and build creativity, up for an average of 12 years, the theatre or a museum once or which allows people to adapt to during which time deaths were twice a year was linked with a 14 changing circumstances. It also recorded using data from the per cent lower risk. helps people build social capital, NHS. >>>

IAN MCKINNELL Abstract Photography www.digitalartontherun.co.uk

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“We also thought that a and support healthier lives lived WHO paper said that everyone greater sense of purpose could longer.” should have the chance to take play a role,” she said. “If this Another report, by the World part in cultural activities and (study) is added to the larger body Health Organisation, found that that the study added weight of evidence, we are getting an both receptive participation, like to growing concerns about the increasingly rich picture on how visiting a museum, and active decline in arts subjects in schools arts can benefit health and it’s participation, like singing in a choir, and universities. not about one single outcome. It had health benefits. can have wide-ranging benefits An editorial accompanying the

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22 | 29 May | Issue 115 29 May | Issue 115 | 23 Marketplace

vocative landscapes by une Carey RSW RGI PAI is a ESimon Rivett from his recent Jmultiple award-winning artist Borderlands series of the Scottish whose work has been featured Borders in which he captures the in numerous solo and group graphic rhythms of the fields and exhibitions in the UK and abroad. walls, using colour and shape to Her work is in many public and create works which are full of private collections, including the Royal Bank of Scotland, ‘Winter Borders One’, watercolour on paper harmony, playfulness and joy. ‘Winter Borders Three’, watercolour on paper Oxford University, BBC Television, Highland Region and Dundee District Council.

‘Forbiden Love’, gouache & acrylic

‘The Night Pool’, acrylic & mixed ‘Winter Borders Two’, watercolour on paper media on ntimate figurative paintings panel Iby Kevin Low from his Women and Men series. For several years a photographer of stage performances, Kevin’s understanding of lighting, drama and the precisely chosen ‘Sweet Thoughts of You’, gouache moment have resulted in a resonant collection of images. ‘Pink Dress’, oil on panel

‘Pink Shorts’, oil on panel

‘Lilac Skirt’, oil on panel To view our full selection & prices go to WWW.ARTMAG.CO.UK/SHOP

24 | 29 May | Issue 115