Anya Gallaccio, Victoria Crowe, Karólína Lárusdóttir & John Johnstone

A recent visit to Scotland enabled some brief visits to galleries which included the following:

NOW is the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s dynamic three-year series of contemporary art exhibitions. The fifth installment in the series is centred on a major survey of work by Anya Gallaccio.

The Paisley-born artist, who was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2003 and was a prominent figure in the Young British Artists generation, is renowned for her spectacular installations and sculptures. Using all kinds of organic materials, including trees, flowers, candles, sand and ice, she creates temporary works that change over time as they are subjected to natural processes of transformation and decay. Gallaccio also makes more permanent artworks in bronze, ceramics, stainless steel and stone that attempt to capture or arrest these processes. Exploring themes of change, growth and decay, some of the other artists appearing in NOW are French artist Aurélien Froment, sculptor and installation artist Roger Hiorns and Scottish artist Charles Avery.

Among the works on display from Edinburgh-based Froment are a 200-metre length of rope which changes colour gradually from one end of the spectrum to the other, and a film collaboration with Canadian poet Steven McCaffrey that documents the worsening of the Tapestry of Angers, France’s oldest surviving medieval tapestry.

For his video Apocalypse, Froment was inspired by the largest tapestry in the world: the Apocalyps of Angers. It represents the story of the Revelation to John on Patmos and depicts the power of God’s word. In his film, Froment presents the text of Revelation through the filter of Jean-Pierre Brisset’s (1837-1919) poetry. Just like Brisset went in search of the origins of the French language, Froment researches the grammar of primal sounds and applies them. His films thus blends texts and tableaux from the apocalypse, resulting in a flood of meanings and symbols.

Charles Avery views his work as being divided into two areas; atomic and mystic. His ‘atomic’ works are abstract and geometrical and his ‘mystic’ works consist of figurative pencil drawings. Avery prefers to exhibit them together in order to explore questions raised in metaphysics, mathematics and philosophy. He is particularly interested in the work of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, from whom he took the idea of an atomic and mystic approach to art. Avery’s drawings are made entirely from his imagination, and although they appear to be part of a larger, unknown narrative, they are completely improvised.

In 2004 Avery embarked on a project called The Islanders, which was conceived as a way to explore, consolidate and give direction to his art and ideas. The Islanders is a painstakingly detailed and diverse description of a fictional island in drawing and painting, sculpture and texts. A recent Galleries acquisition, a fascinating installation from Avery which continues to explore this painstakingly-detailed project, is exhibited for the very first time.

'Victoria Crowe: 50 Years of Painting' at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh is a retrospective for one of the most vital and original figurative painters currently at work in Scotland. Crowe says of her paintings, “I have worked mostly from landscape and have always been interested in Russian culture and painting — particularly the multi-images in Russian icon paintings.' Vicky Allan writes: 'The landscapes of Victoria Crowe tell a story. It's there in the trees – the loss of her son to cancer, the impact of her shepherdess friend and the growing global awareness that nature may be more fragile than we have thought.'

At the Castle Art Gallery in Inverness I saw prints by Karólína Lárusdóttir. Originally from Iceland, Karólína's prints and paintings are evocative of a childhood filled with native characters and customs. Karólína's grandfather owned the first grand hotel in Reykjavik, Hotel Borg, and many a childhood holiday was spent there, providing a lifetime of inspiration for her work. Prints are often populated by chefs and chambermaids or people taking tea or soup. Their faces are unsmiling, yet expressive and intense but never dour, relating to one another as if in silent understanding. In other prints we are privy to a strange ceremony or gathering, where angels are occasionally present; scenes that are part of the mysterious world of adults and their subtle exchanges and inscrutable conversations as witnessed by a child.

There I also found out about another of Scotland’s leading figurative artists, John Johnstone. Johnstone's early work was influenced heavily by the work of artists such as Soutine and Kokoschka. When John combined these influences with his fascination for the human figure, a distinctive and powerful style emerged. This work was concerned with death, social injustice and inhumanity These early works mark a strong contrast to the more light-hearted caricature paintings for which he is well known today. He writes, “My paintings seem to be expressing something either serious or amusing about life. They depict people acting out minor dramas. Gesture, composition, characterisation and setting are important. There is an element of gravity in them, but the humorous side probably eclipses that aspect.” Johnstone's work includes several Biblical paintings from Adam and Eve to the Temptation of Christ.

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Belle and Sebastian - Another Sunny Day.