Christmas Exhibition 2012

Joseph Pearces Bar, 23 Elm Row Edinburgh. Exhibition Preview Sunday 25th November 11 am - 12.30 pm

I am pleased to invite you to the preview of our new show in Joseph Pearce's Bar.

Our Christmas Exhibition is a charming collection of paintings, driftwood, paintings on driftwood and all sorts of gems in between!

From Miss Shilling’s little creatures at £15 to Mike Dix’s £1200 new bumble bee brought all the way from Dundee … (the previous one sold within a week!), there is something to suit every pocket and style.

Also presenting work by our new artists Bea Green and Jacqueline Warburton.

I hope to see you there!

"Bath with a friend hanger", by Dagmar Shilling £34 

Small ship painting, by Dagmar Shilling £20

Say it with art. Support your local artists and surprise a loved one with a one-off piece this Christmas.

Festival Exhibition 2012: Olympic Reflections

Joseph Pearce's Bar, 23 Elm Row, Edinburgh.
From Sunday 12th of August 2012

As it usually happens, once I start thinking about writing something, it starts growing and all I read afterwards seems to be falling into place. It is no coincidence, and it happens to all of us according to Arthur Koestler in “The Act of Creation”.

These days have been strongly marked by the Olympics. Some BBC journalists had been accused by viewers of being very hard while interviewing sports men and woman taking part. They refer to “failure” and “disappointment” when they should have congratulated them instead. This attitude would not surprise author Oliver Burkeman, who believes that the “positive thinking” culture has led to us being terrified of failure, instead of embracing it together with the uncertain nature of life as a necessary step in any endeavor. Neruda said that the triumph of the real man rises from the ashes of failure.  I started wondering about the untold fights and failures in the paths of some of the medalists and how many of them would have risen from their own ashes and overcome fear and the possibility of losing only to secure a long and cherished goal. I thought of Andy Murray and his patiently carved route to the top. Recently I have been fascinated by the ideas of Philippe Petit in Cheating the Impossible in the theme of being able to domesticate patience in the pursuit of a goal.

Once again, as if serendipity was an invisible hand turning paintings into thoughts, I came across the work of Daniel Young. A young artist who, inspired by his late grandfather's dementia, created a narrative where a young boy finds a black stone that turns him into an old man; the stone symbolizing the loss of youth and memory, among other things. To me, his works are a visual example of the creative potential of our hard times and the beauty that lies in the ability to embrace it all, the good but also the sad.

I am happy to welcome his paintings while sad to have to say farewell to those of Aremy Stewart soon. She presents her last collection of works before she leaves us for the Netherlands at the end of the month.

Join us this coming Sunday 12^th of August to celebrate a beginning, and an end, and everything in between.

Vanessa Davila 

07986595585

vanessa@delicartessen.co.uk

The exhibition runs until the end of September (excluding Aremy Stewart works)

and also includes works by Ronnie Buchan, Jacqui Higgs, Christine Morison, 

Dagmar Shilling, Mike Dix and other invited artists.

Bees & Birds, by Aremy Stewart, 
mixed media on panel 
£125 each £200 for the pair.

"Family Matters": 5th anniversary party and exhibition

Whitespace, 11 Gayfield Square. Edinburgh. Private View Friday 25 May from 6.30 to 8.30 pm

"Do you remember when they fitted in these? They grow so fast and then you realise they have outgrown their clothes…and their shoes."

I’m sure you have heard this many times before. Mummies everywhere talking about their kids. And maybe that is why artists from close and afar insist on immortalising that first pair of shoes. As a tender attempt at defeating the implacable pass of time.

Well, they are right. Delicartessen is 5 years old this month and I simply don’t know where the time has gone.

I am sure that the same feeling applies to Mr Javier Jimenez-Ugarte, Spanish Consul in Edinburgh, who has also out grown his shoes and is leaving this city to take on the Embassy of Spain in Sweeden. We say farewell to him with gratitude and wish him the best for the rest of his journey.

In the last 5 years we have written about the weather, volcanoes, and coincidences; against all odds events, the weather again and, above all, JOURNEYS.

Some take a lifetime and some happen in an instant. Some happen in remote places, like Marton’s photographs around Thailand and Malaysia , while some happen locally, like Christine’s driftwood pieces reflecting the adventures of the waves in Fife, or Dagmar’s depictions of the depths of night life in Edinburgh .

Often the most powerful journeys are those that happen close to home and inside, the trips of the soul. Like Neil Macmillan’s journey around the North West of Scotland.

Or the journey of Aremy Stewart, both outside: leaving the States to come to Edinburgh , and inside: starting up a new family.

This exhibition is inspired by the idea of family, of growing, of the different stages in life. Delicartessen’s birthday gift is having a growing family of international artists and presenting their beautiful explorations of the human bond.

As for birthday wishes…let’s hope that the coldest May of the century will give way to the hottest June ever yet… Even if it’s against all odds.

Join us to celebrate our 5^th anniversary and launch of our new exhibition on Friday 25^th of May from 6.30 to 8.30 pm at the Whitespace.

There will be shoes, wine, tapas and good wishes all round.

"Take Your Time": Photographs by Marton Zsichla

Joseph Pearces Bar, 23 Elm Row. Edinburgh. Opening Sunday 11th March 2012 - 11.30 am

Do you remember those old, time consuming childhood games of “spot the difference”? Don’t you have the feeling that everything now goes too fast…? “Click”, “Send”, “Book”, “Go” E-books. On-line shops. City breaks. We move too fast. We live too fast. We even travel too fast! And some experts are even worried that these speedy actions will change forever the way our brains work. Documentary Photographer Marton Zsichla took his time traveling through South East Asia . He spent two and a half months soaking his senses in the day to day lives of the inhabitants of Thailand , Cambodia , Laos , Vietnam , Malaysia and Burma ( Myanmar ). Observing, capturing, and spotting differences…it all takes time. As Marton says, “all these countries seemed very similar at first, but when you spent some time in each of them, you realized that they are all very different…” Art forces you to discipline your senses…to stop, perceive, learn and share. If you've got some time this Sunday, join us and indulge your eyes in the stunning beauty of this journey. You will soon be rewarded with a hidden treasure, a gift brought to you by the photographer. Him taking the time.

Christmas Exhibition 2011

Joseph Pearces Bar, 23 Elm Row. Edinburgh. Sunday 18th Dec 2011 12pm - 15th February 2012.


I don’t know about you, but the truth is that among lunar eclipses, gloomy economic forecasts and home-grown hurricanes, the Bawbag affair put a smile on my face.
Call it Scottish idiosyncrasy or pure banter, but turning a negative into a positive, dark into light, tragedy into comedy, seems to be an art in itself.
An art that is priceless in times like these.
Artists can often practise it and have a laugh at the surrounding world because their creations exist “per se”. They are not subject to the laws of the demand. And thank goodness for that!
And one who’s really been about turning dark into light, literally, is Saint Lucia , who’s just passed marking the point where we get a minute of extra light per day.
So there are other reasons to smile.
Dagmar’s new humorous works, where colourful, oversize insects, butterflies and frogs have been superimposed onto gloomy cuttings of this year’s news are like a chronicle of the year we are about to leave behind. But with a funny twist.
Again, call it self-indulgence or idiosyncrasy…
Or a breath of fresh, hurricane air!

Vanessa Davila 07986595585
vanessa@delicartessen.co.uk


Join us for the launch of our Christmas exhibition, this Sunday 18th of December at Joseph Pearce’s Bar, 23 Elm Row, Edinburgh.
Between 12 pm and 1 pm.
Prices start at £26 and we’ll be giving away a free limited edition mug with every purchase.
Only this Sunday.
With best wishes for Christmas and the Year ahead.

No One's Land: An Encounter of Spanish and Scottish culture, past and present through art

This is the newsletter sent to our clients on the event of our annual exhibition at the Gladstone Land Gallery, in the Royal Mile. For the second year in a row, Delicartessen secured funding from the Spanish Consulate in Edinburgh to celebrate an encounter of Spanish and Scottish art.

The exhibition was, after conclusion of the week, transferred to Joseph Pearces, our regular venue, in Elm Row, as part of our Edinburgh Festival exhibition 2011, where it would stay until mid September.

"No One´s Land"
The Gladstone Land Gallery, The Royal Mile. Edinburgh. 1st -8th August 2011. 10 am till 7 pm.

A few months ago I attended a conference by Marjorie Trusted from the V&A Museum in London, organised by the Spanish Consulate in Edinburgh.
It explored the fascination of Picasso for Velazquez and his painting of “Las Meninas” (which Velázquez had originally painted in 1656 and Picasso would reinterpret 300 years later). The talk highlighted Picasso’s motto that in art, little is original or new, and it provided renewed inspiration for this exhibition, which pays tribute to the circularity of cultural iconography; where symbols and images are repeatedly recycled over time.
Picasso was, in his days, accused of being “all over the place”; a “chameleon” absorbing other artist’s influences and styles but lacking his own. But he would argue that this need for belonging to a movement or school was limiting.
His rootless nature was probably related to an emotional “middle place” too: where he felt quite alienated from his country of origin as the authoritative regime took its course in Spain; yet still a foreigner in his adoptive and beloved France. No sense of belonging here or there. In No One’s Land.
He affirmed that “art is the elimination of the unnecessary” and in his search for simplicity he kept reducing reality, emptying the superfluous and transcending the idea of belonging to achieve universality.

“No One’s Land” echoes themes of land and identity and therefore, we present representations of the artists’ immediate realities. Yet, even when differences emerge (i.e. Highland cows as opposed to bulls) the common nature of the themes that arise among both Scottish and Spanish artists, the new reinterpretations of classical themes: (i.e. Las Meninas, still being revisited by artists near and afar); reaffirms this idea of “no one’s land” or, if you prefer, “common land”, in the sense that the relevant human emotions and reflections that fuel the arts inscribe in a universal language. A language that Picasso spoke loudly and clearly. And which still resonates to this day.

With the support of the Spanish Consulate in Edinburgh, Tapa Restaurants and the Council of Alhaurin, Malaga.
Click here to download a pdf version of the printed catalogue.

The advertisement announcing the exhibition at the

Edinburgh Festival magazine.

Compliments of ellustration.net designs.

Aftermath: Still Life. Photographs by Neil Macmillan

This is the newsletter sent to our contacts for the celebration of our 4th anniversary and the launch of our new exhibition at Joseph Pearce's:


...I’ve always wondered why in art you often have to choose between images and words. They say that an image is worth more than a thousand words but I recently saw an exhibition which combined both to great effect.

And the same applies to visuals and music. As Picasso said “To draw you have to close your eyes and sing” and many great artists have been great music lovers too. I am now remembering an article by Tim Cornwell that I read recently in the Scotsman about John Campbell Mitchell’s studio, which had been left untouched for 80 years and included a couple of pianos because apart from being an accomplished painter he was very keen on music too.

And music can compress a lifetime in a second, take us back to a previous moment… suspend us in time. Doing acoustically what a still life achieves visually.


Neil’s photographs are lost in time, still life impressions of derelict houses he found in the West coast of Scotland, the Outer Hebrides and the Highlands, during a very meaningful family journey. As he says: “Many of these pictures were taken on a final holiday with my dad who was in the last stages of cancer at the time. Despite the sadness of the trip, it was also filled with moments of happiness too as my dad truly loved Scotland and we saw the best of it on this trip."

His images speak (without any need for words) about the pass of time, human frailty and possibly even war. Houses abandoned in a rush, left in the spur of the moment, maybe with a promise of a return (like a kettle still waiting on the stove…) exactly like John Campbell’s studio. They tell (silently) about Neil’s personal story of a farewell journey and his coming to terms with an announced loss. But they are also “still life impressions” in the literal sense that, no matter what, life always renews itself. Like birds nesting in an abandoned chest of drawers and Nature claiming back what is hers and closing a circle that includes birth and death. As Picasso also said. “Every act of creation is first an act of destruction”.


So when I heard Phamie Gow’s “War Song” by chance, it sounded like Neil’s photographs…it was the perfect acoustic complement for the exhibition. I went back home and listened to the composer's reflections on Moments of Time, and felt that both, images and music were talking loudly the same truth, so why not have both?


I am pleased to invite you to our 4th anniversary celebration and the launch of our new exhibition:

Aftermath: Still Life with photographs by Neil Macmillan

This Sunday 8th of May from 11.30am till 1pm at Joseph Pearce’s Bar. 23 Elm Row, Edinburgh.
Complemented with music by Phamie Gow and Moments of Time


I hope to see you there!

This is a video featuring the photographs included in the exhibition, with music by Phamie Gow played during our launch. Phamie joined us for the preview and was a delightful guest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9j46InzypM

The exhibition will be on show at Joseph Pearce's bar, 23 Elm Row, Edinburgh, until the 30th of June and listed as part of the activities of the Leith Festival 2011.

Sea life, City life

Sometimes things appear to have nothing in common, or even to be opposites at first sight. Natural vs. urban spaces, day and night… Moreover, as humans, we have been fascinated by the apparent duality and conflicting nature of our world from the beginnings of the time. Yet, as things unfold and we look more carefully, we often find links and relations under the surface.

So, what is the link between Scottish artist Christine Morison’s driftwood mirrors and clocks; and German artists Dagmar Shilling's paintings on urban night life?
It's not only a “c” sound, although it's through a metaphor and words that this show ties together.

Christine’s pieces pay tribute to the slow, almost imperceptible but constant crafting effect of the sea and the passing of time and they are full of shells, and natural elements; while Dagmar's urban, fast, mixed media scenes, pick up in images where the English language refers to animalistic, sea-inspired creatures to depict nightlife scenes. So, she has taken expressions like “to drink like a fish” literally and transformed them into pieces where fish or octopus looking creatures feel in their element in the city. And Dagmar’s, “what goes around, comes around” emphasises the recycled nature of Christine’s pieces.

And what has gone around and comes around again is “The Colour Red” photographic exhibition.
After winning the BHF annual competition with her photography “The Tunnel”, Gillian Hayes has proven she’s got what it takes to become a “big fish” in the photography scene.

Her work illustrates the duality of our rational and irrational nature. An interest that was exposed in early mythology through the metaphor of the Master and the Slave, where reason is the master, destined to exercise a firm control over the dangerous emotional impulses dictated by the body.
This vision assumed the superiority of reason before passion, as the latter was seen as a more primitive, animalistic trait, associated with the body; needing to be controlled through superior reason.
From that point of view both elements would be in constant conflict. As if again, natural (instinctive) and human (rational) forces were to be in a constant struggle. This conflicting duality characterized the ideas of Descartes while in the XVIII century, the Scottish philosopher Hume, the highest exponent of the Empiricism movement, affirmed that emotion was somehow made by the same “material” as rational thinking: -the origin and game of passion is subjected to a regular mechanism; and therefore passions are as susceptible of exact analysis as the laws of movement-
And Gillian’s collection seems like a Scottish contemporary re-interpretation of Hume’s ideas: 14 photographs where the notion of passion, represented by the colour red, is measured and controlled in quantities that vary from 1% to 95%; combining the photographer's creative talent with her precise technique.
By controlling the amount of red in every picture, she has achieved a little “whole” in each one of them, where none is pure energy, neither pure technique nor reason, but a beautiful combination of the two. Just like us.

Because today we generally accept that we are a combination of both, reason and passion, heart and mind, and we no longer live them as antagonist forces. We are back to Plato, who already defended that the rational and irrational ingredients of our nature are the two necessary sides of the same coin.
We celebrate both sides of our nature and believe in a healthy balance between them as the key for emotional intelligence, and happiness.

So bring on the opposites and dualities: The deep sea of emotions tempered by the neon lights of reason.
Join us this Sunday 20th March for a double act:

3.30 - 5.30 pm the launch of Sea life, City life at Joseph Pearce’s, 23 Elm Row, Edinburgh
And 6-9 pm for the return of The Colour Red exhibition at Sofi’s Bar, Henderson Street, Edinburgh

I hope to see you there!!


"Balancing Act" by Dagmar Schilling, £300


"Small Boat" mirror by Christine Morison £50

The Exhibitions run until the 30th of April.

Opening Times.
Joseph Pearces Bar, 23 Elm Row, EH7 4AA Edinburgh
Opening times: Sun-Thu 11:00-00:00
Fri-Sat 11:00-01:00
Sofi's Bar, 65 Henderson Street, EH6 6ED
Mon - Sat: 12:00 - 1:00
Sun: 13:00 - 1:00

There is Heart at the end of the Tunnel...

"The Tunnel" Winner of the British Heart Foundation Photographic Competition.
Artist: Gillian Hayes
(exhibited as part of "The Colour Red" exhibition at Joseph Pearce's Bar between August 2010 and February 2011)


Every once in a while a piece of work speaks to me. It might be that I'm
wandering round a book shop when I feel a tap on the shoulder. I turn
and nobody's there. But then I look up to find some words are flying in
the air and I know that I'm taking that book home. There is an important
message waiting in those pages.

But it's all too personal, and what speaks to me may well tell you
nothing at all.
There is always the shadow of a doubt when selecting art for an
audience. Independent of its technicality and accomplishment in terms of
measurable talent, to me it is in its meaning that its true value
resides. In its ability to speak and resonate for days, or even years;
Or in its opening a door to a revelation that seems to have been forging in your mind over aeons. As if coming from a previous life.
Like a sudden click. Yet, it feels like a gamble, every time.

That is why I was slightly surprised when photographer Gillian Hayes
approved of my writing a very personal interpretation of her work for
the newsletter.

"The Colour Red" photographs spoke to me from the start. She had seemed
to summarize in 14 shots a passage of transit, a journey to reconcile
mind and heart as in sense and sensibility, inspiration and work. They
spoke to me about the blending effect of cultural encounters, that
things are often not black or white but something in-between. They spoke
to me for days about the changes in my perception, having lived in
Britain for 8 years; and even longer about issues on identity, diversity
and equality.
They even spoke about the transition from multiculturalism (where
identities are taken as fixed and immutable objects) to interculturalism
(where ideas of oneself and the other are in continuous transformation
thanks to our constant interactions) that I had witnessed while
researching for a Phd. All in 14 shots and all in just one click.

But then, these photographs went on to speak to other people. People
with other experiences and backgrounds and perspectives; and one of them
"The Tunnel" has won the first prize at the British Heart Foundation
Competition. For the artist, the prize means well-deserved recognition.
To me, the subtle triumph of a piece of work transcending the personal
and tapping into a universal truth. One that exceeds the barriers of
language, culture, age and class. That's the power of art in its
multiple forms, in images and in words. As in these by the artist
describing her piece:

"The service tunnel, an area mainly unseen and hidden in the depths of a
building, full of pipes, wires and gizmos endlessly and faithfully
chugging away to keep the building running smoothly above. This reminded
me of the role of our heart, which also works endlessly and faithfully
away in our bodies without rest, to keep everything in check."

Simple, yet meaningful words and an image that spoke loudly. And which, it
happens every once in a while, were widely heard.

Mini Christmas Fair at the Village

Last Sunday 12th of December 2010 we took part in a Small indoors Christmas Fair at the Village, South Fort Street, Leith.

The lovely lounge of the Village was filled with hand-made, enviromentally friendly pressies provided by small local businesses and starting at £2.
There were 5 stalls and items for sale included home preserves, natural beauty products, bespoke, vintage cake stands, cards, recycled bottles and jewellery, etchings and prints.

We also had home cooked spinach & smoked salmon croquettes & spanish tortilla to welcome the visitors who, despite the weather, braved the conditions to come to see us.

We hope it will turn into a regular, monthly event for 2011 where "art can be the meeting point" at the (local) Village.

Festival Exhibition 2010 Newsletter: "The Colour Red"

Starting, Sunday 22nd August 2010 11 am-12.30pm
Above: "15% Red" by Gillian Hayes

When Gillian presented me with “The Colour Red” series, my heart skipped a beat.
I could immediately relate to red as a colour of passion and energy, the Spanish football team and this warm summer. On the other hand, red is the colour of blood, violence and destruction. However the significance and relevance of this collection of 14 photographs where the power of red is measured and restrained went beyond this.

When the World Cup started I was agonising with the game of the Spaniards…”kick…tackle…shoot!”
My “red”, temperamental side was struggling to understand what I judged (or misjudged) as a lack of energy and strength. I saw their technical “pass and move” game as weak. It was an English friend who then insisted that “they will go all the way”. To me, it was as if, paradoxically, the English and other teams showed the passion that my fellow citizens were missing. I could relate more to that style of game and what journalist Tom Lappin called a “primitive approximation to football”. It felt as if the red team was more tempered, more “British” in their approach… as if they had swapped their cultural stereotypes. I instinctively reacted against that patient, technical game. And so did some British citizens, as Lappin pointed out “BBC sports commentators remain deeply suspicious of anything that looks like patience, delicacy or thought”.
Well, so did I!
What amazed me was finding these qualities “out of context” or “in the other team” which suggested that things are never black or white or, as in this case, red and black.

On the other hand, this colour brought ideas of aggression to mind, a past that if you’re Spanish, you can’t dissociate from red. The colour of the blood spilled in a conflict that often confronted members of the same family and that, like blood cells of an open wound, stays alive in the memory, and often expresses through art.

Red also reminded me of the blood of that noble animal, the bull, which has shared the Iberian landscape from the beginnings of time. And despite red being movement and energy, when it came to bullfighting, in my mind it only reinforced aspects of brutality, blindly anchored in the safeguards of tradition. Like a vestige of the very same cruel nature that had allowed a civil war to tear a country apart.

Then, only a few days after I had taken Gillians’ project under my wing, and a few months after we had put on an exhibition that showed beautiful bulls without the fight; comfortable and powerful in their own land, the “party” was forbidden in Barcelona as the result of public vote.

Something seemed to move. The energy dimension of red suddenly triumphed over the aggressive, darker one.

All in all, an exhibition that negotiates passion with reason, intensity with measure…echoes previous reflections about the balance between the right and left hand side of the brain, sense and sensibility, mind and heart.

To me, it also talks about a journey, all that is Spanish or British and everything in between. A place where both opposite sides have a place and a time. Where we can meet halfway and find a bit of ourselves in the “other team”.

Join me this Sunday and find your own place between the 1% and 95% red progression of these stunning 14 photographs by Gillian Hayes.

"New Values" Exhibition in Zaragoza, Spain

In June 2010 Delicartessen took 7 British artstis to a joint exhibition with Galeria Artelibre, Zaragoza, Spain. A sample of the best emerging talent to be found in these shores.


Images in poster: "Hector de Heroe" (inspired by a famous traditional tune for fiddle) by Rosie Newman, and "The Boatyard" by Jacqui Higgs.




Below: "Siberian Irises" by Gillian Smith

Leith Festival 2010 "Flower Power: A Tribute & an Invocation"

Icelandic singer, Björk, had sang a lullaby live to help the volcano go to sleep and it seemed to have worked... So in June 2010 we were doing our bit and launching an exhibition to invoke all forces of nature for a summer of sunshine on Leith!
This collective exhibition inspired by and for nature, brought together stunning flower photographs by Liz Tainsh and bold paintings by Sarah Roberts. From the intricate and delicate etchings of Enrique Cid to the exuberant blossom of Ritchie Collins, there was something for every taste...and every pocket: with prices starting at £55 for a limited edition etching.

To celebrate the Leith Festival we offered a 10% off everything on show until the 20th of June.

Reinventing...in images

This beautiful XVII century building hosted an encounter between Scottish and Spanish art.



The exibition proved that, despite the artists’ diverse cultural
background and geographical distance, a visual vocabulary can sometimes meet halfway.
Shoes, horses, bulls, dancers, musicians, castles...were some of the emblematic and powerful images that seem to survive the passing of time but are continually reinvented and reinterpreted through art.

It's all about bulls...reinvented.

Image on left: "Matador" by Elise Chisholm


"We love Elise’s “animal-friendly” bullfighting scenes. They still contain this emblematic, culturally-charged icon of Spanish culture, but animal and human are depicted in a much more balanced way than in traditional bullfighting scenes.
Bulls have always been present in Spanish art. From the bulls painted by pre-historic “artists” in The Altamira Caves, in Northern Spain; to those depicted by Goya; or Picasso’s Guernica and The Bull. Not to mention the oversized bulls logos of a well-known sherry brand, looming on the horizon of Spanish hills (as featured so memorably in Bigas Luna’s Jamón Jamón)
But these new take on an all familiar subject not only reflects the general British sensibility on the theme; but also an emerging voice among a generation of younger Spaniards who, while being proud of bulls, are not so proud of bullfighting"

Image above: "Bull Run" by Elise Chisholm.

We wrote this only 2 months before bull-fighting was forbidden in Barcelona as the result of public vote...

Below, the beautiful hand-painted ceiling of the exhibition space






In the center of the table, carnations and thystles representing the Spanish-Scottish connection.

And below, the view from the building

onto the Royal Mile

Easter 2010: Reinventing Cultural Iconography

Image left: "Quijote" by Enrique Cid


Between Monday 29th of March and Sunday 4th of April , we held an exhibition at The Gladstone Land Gallery, in the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, with the collaboration of the Spanish Consulate in Edinburgh.

Below: "Summer Bull" by Adriana Sanchez.


The newsletter/invitation to the private preview, read like this:

Behind Every Shoe lies a Human Truth...
Our minds work with images, and images precede words. That’s why Dr. Iain R. Edgar, who lectures at Durham University, started using a pioneer research methodology to interview people. “Imagework” encourages subjects to use their imagination and create visual images about different situations. This allows them to engage the right side of their brain; where our values, perceptions and unconscious associations reside.

As a research methodology it has proven to be highly successful. However, it is one of his collateral findings that resonate within the background of this exhibition. He realised that as humans we share a range of visual images irrespective of our individual experience. As if we were all equipped with a visual vocabulary that has been forged over aeons of evolution. It is what anthropologists’ study in relation to myths and psychoanalysts use to interpret our dreams and other unconscious expressions of our minds.

As an example, he found that train journeys were common metaphors for “transit”, “process”, “movement” and “growth”. These and other images remind us that, despite diversity of life in a complex world, we are all rooted in a common place: by the human condition.

In the exhibition, hosted in a beautiful 17th Century Merchant’s House, there are bulls as perceived by Scottish artists and reinterpreted by Spanish ones since Goya. It offers an interesting sample of culturally meaningful references that will expose difference and commonality.

What lies beyond Rosie Newman’s and Marta Ratti’s fascination with shoes, might be what they both associate with them: their childhood, their kids’ early steps, or growth, perhaps.
But what fascinates us, is what all those images tell. That despite all our differences and distances, there is a common land for humankind, where we can be closer, even in subconscious ways.

And to prove it…here is a shoe.


Image: "Ballerina Shoes" by Marta Ratti

I would like to thank Mr. Federico Palomera, Spanish Consul in Edinburgh, and Professor Iain R. Edgar, who came all the way from Durham, for their attendance to our private preview.

"Love of Art": Newsletter & Exhibition

By the end of January 2010 we sent this newsletter announcing the launch of our "Love of Art" exhibition on the 14th of February.
It was also the first Newsletter of 2010:

"Some say that this will be a year for learning...
and finding some truths about ourselves, and that, under the influx of Saturn, those lessons will come at a price.
X-Factor finalist Joe was singing “it’s not about getting there quickly, but only about getting there” again and again over Christmas and so, I adopted learning and hard work as my New Year resolutions.
Now, with St Valentines round the corner I’ve remembered that I recently asked someone very close about his love success, and he said…”I’ve learnt to be wary of anything that comes too easily and doesn’t involve hard work”.

Having heard friends many times mention “hard work” when talking about difficult relationships, his words provided a different perspective on the term and I thought that in art, as in love, the Lady Gaga’s “wanting everything as long as it’s free” can only leads us to a “bad romance”. That both, love and art, need a combination of vision and determination, attraction, but also hard work.

So after the right hand side of the brain has done its part, provided the intuition and inspiration; it’s time for the left hand side to come into action and add a plan. Here comes finding the materials, the drive and the time to solve the gap between ideal and material. Or as Michael Bubble would sing it: “to work to work it out”. In other words, to overcome the distance between platonic and real, and in doing so, to deal with the limitations of it all because, as Anne Klauser says, “who wants to create nothing but perfection, creates nothing”.

But then, for those who dare to take their chances, sometimes reality goes beyond fiction.
Last Sunday I witnessed a truly special moment when a friend sang Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” to his wife in their first anniversary.
The moment still resonates in my memory and so this Sunday, whatever lessons Saturn’s got lined up for the year ahead, I’ll be whistling, as the song goes, that “it might be again my turn to win some…or learn some”.
Join us this Sunday, St Valentines’ Day, to celebrate our artists’ hard work and a love of art!

Presenting Sophie Hamiltons’s quirky retro illustrations and Conchita Machlaughan’s advance of a Scottish-Spanish affair that will culminate in an Easter Exhibition.

Artmag Feb - March 2010

December 09 Newsletter: I would wish you a white Christmas...

...but white has never been my colour.
I never understood why in the Spanish IT consultancy where I used to work, we called those drafts with new ideas “white papers”. As if a fresh start wasn’t hard enough; facing a blank page (or canvas) called “white” emphasises that terrifying moment before anything takes place. The moment of nothing, the empty space, what is yet not there.
The whole idea of whiteness, in relation to creation, is just off putting.

Instead, I would like to focus on what is about to happen. And call them simply “ideas papers”, or “butterfly papers”, to encourage those ideas to fly. Or maybe, “dream papers” to bring in the lightness of what doesn’t necessarily have the pretension to become real. Or, better still, I’d call them “recycled papers” not because of their ecological value, but to stress the idea that pure originality doesn’t exist; that any new creation is actually re-creation and re-elaboration, drawing inspiration from the past.

So, while the “white paper” seems to be detached from the world, like an orphan, a beginning and an end in itself; bullying the shaking author with the written version of “if what you are about to say is not more beautiful than the silence, do not say it”; the recycled paper is warmly received into the world. It assumes its tiny place into the Universe, it puts the writer in their place and lightens up the burden of having to take that small but huge step of …CREATION.

And while the “white paper” gives you only the one chance, and demands a line at a time to make a perfect final piece; the recycled paper invites you to stain it, cross it out and, often, go back to the beginning and start anew. It is part of its circular charm, as mastered by outstanding creators like Picasso, who used to do dozens of drafts before arriving at a masterpiece.

So, like an artist friend who uses only second hand canvasses, I now try to use anything but white paper. I use the back of old shopping lists and bills. Outdated post-its and “to-do” lists: “lived paper” that is already part of the cycle. Borrowed paper or adopted paper, humble, unpretentious paper…even forgotten paper.

But no, never white paper.
So, when time comes, let me wish you a colourful Christmas instead!



The new exhibition at Joseph Pearce's Bar presented the warm, Mediterranean palette of artist Fee Dickson.

Artmag Dec 09

In Christmas 09 Artmag published the suplement "Buy Art for Christmas" which featured one of Kate Lloyd's solder & acrylics fish.

Autumn 09 Newsletter & New Exhibition

In October 2009 we sent this newsletter inviting everyone to attend the private preview of our new exhibiton on Sunday 11th:

Okay!! ...So it was not the summer that we all had expected. The crows were wrong, wrong, wrong. And so was the Met Office, which had forecasted a warm and dry summer.
Instead of a “BBQ summer” with temperatures above 30, it turned out to be wetter than average. In fact, there were 42 wet days with Dumfries and Galloway, home to Edwin Slater, one of our regular artists, registering its wettest August since rainfall records began, back in 1914.

But then, who wants predictions when it is often unexpected things that make life exciting and make us smile? As Sarah Duncan says, there is nothing like accidentally putting a dry-clean only top into the wash and discovering it comes out perfectly, or spotting a new green shoot in a plant you thought was done for. For me it was finding that my Spanish cooking book does not have the recipe for “Tortilla de Patatas” as surely, if you are Spanish, you are expected to know how to cook it from birth!, or finding a huge feather in the toilet of an airplane (during my last easyjet flight to Madrid).

Yes, things are more appreciated when you don’t expect them at all, when they are out of context. Like having a brilliant idea while waiting for the bus, or having a shower. Apparently proximity to water is very inspiring, says Henriette Anne Klauser. It’s something to do with the negative ions as they stimulate brain activity associated to creativity.
So be pleased for the rain.

I wonder whether this has something to do with the amount of talent in these wet-lands which exceeds the reservoirs of galleries and has flooded cafes and restaurants near you…to get you by surprise.
Just like a warm sunny day at the end of September when you were getting ready for more rain.

Join us this coming Sunday to see what our artists have been up to during all those 504 hours of inspiration and tons of negative ions.



Below: "The Auld Kirk", by Edwin Slater, mixed media.