One of my favourite paintings in the world hangs in the Gothenburg Art Museum.
As I remember it, it is placed in a gallery on one of the upper floors, maybe the third or fourth. You head upstairs and leave the staircase in an amble, turn a corner and there it is: Nordic Summer Evening (1889-1900) by Richard Bergh.
It’s a vision of a woman and a man, looking from a balcony over a still lake, all light and slight tension.
There are trees of deep, Nordic, green, and gentle reflections cast upon the water. You happen upon it and it is large and stunning.
I’m quite unsure why it so affected me, but it did. The colours; the characters and the scene, imprinted into my visual memory.
The impression lingers on.
Sometimes when I turn a corner in an exhibition, or a gallery, I wonder if the next painting, or sculpture, might wound me in a similar way.
It raises the importance of how delicate exhibition design is, and where and how works might have their fullest impact.
It reminds me that all artists ask themselves how best they may puncture a person with what they show.
It used to be that one may have to go somewhere like Gothenburg, from Aberdeen, to have such an experience, or perhaps that was the perception.
Gothenburg, Bilbao; Lisbon or Florence, European Capitals of Culture, the lot.
The good old ‘nothing ever happens here’, and a view that we just couldn’t see Aberdeen like that. I hope that has now been blasted into smithereens.
Aberdeen is now a place you can be struck by exquisite art
Aberdeen is now a natural place to turn a corner and have hope that you can be struck by such exquisite and engaging art.
In the last decade, we’ve brought Nuart and Spectra on ourselves, turning the city centre itself into a granite palette; we’ve also invested millions in our Art Gallery.
Like Gothenburg Art Museum, which sits atop Kungsportavenyen, Aberdeen Art Gallery now commands attention, both within and from without.
Away from our City Centre, but tethered by partnerships and relationships, as well as the trusty number 1 and 2 buses, is Gray’s School of Art.
On Friday the 2023 degree show opened, kicked off by Dean Libby Curtis.
‘Neon Futures’ as the show is titled this year, may both refer to the flash at the front of the city’s art offering, but also the long, bright, roots, which the creatives working in our city have laid, for now and for the decades to come.
Gray’s Degree Show is particularly strong this year
There are plenty of corners to turn throughout Gray’s School of Art, and as I twisted around the exhibitions on Friday I considered what impressions might happen upon me.
I am always partial to a good painting, and usually, I find this is where the work I connect with most lies at the Degree Show. This year is particularly strong, I think.
I found beautiful, delicate, wood-carved birds, and precise, picturesque still life, so beautifully painted that I felt I could have put my finger onto the canvas and lifted out an item, fully formed – a doll, a shell, a bow or a ribbon peeled from the image.
To turn a corner and find two ladies, bent over and flashing their behinds, a small dog holding a sign that says ‘Let Them Eat Cake’ in front of them. A different, distinct impression from the one I had in Gothenburg, but a strong impression nonetheless, from one of the best paintings in the show.
When I turned the corner to it I cracked and smiled. That the best art doesn’t take itself too seriously and can make you laugh, is something often forgotten.
In the next room, a large triptych of Archibald Simpson’s, complete with pints of Tennents, liveliness in the faces around the table, the stillness in the dregs, all visible. Wonderful work.
Like I said, painting was particularly strong, and there isn’t quite room to mention every canvas, or tactile off-canvas work, that I loved or liked.
In CAP (Contemporary Art Practice), Fashion, Photography, Communication Design and 3D design there was more spectacular work.
A swamp table, with a wonderfully succinct explanation, ‘the artist thinks about: bacteria, fermentation, licking…’ and more. A ‘Pawn Shop For Values’ with the slogan above, ‘NO WEALTH BUT LIFE’. I agree.
That such creativity and beauty can exist right under our fingertips, a short bus journey or drive down Auchinyell Road, or walk along the Deeside Line, is heartening.
The thing that struck me most about the Degree Show this year was the light, humour, and joy.
In other years the work has been very dark. Paintings with thick textures and lines. But this year, ‘no wealth but life’.
A positive vision for what’s coming. Our neon future, and surprises around the corner.
Colin Farquhar works as a creative spaces manager and film programmer in the north-east culture sector
Conversation