Poster for Exhibition

Paul Sandby 1730 - 1809.

Sandby travelled across Britain and encountered country roads and many city streets as the subject for his art. During his life the number of travellers crossing the country, prompted by trade, business, pleasure or military movements increased, and numerous new roads were built.

In Edinburgh Sandby recorded the rich variety of contemporary life; his sketches of street scenes include shoppers, traders, beggars, soldiers and pleasure-seekers. The imagery was re-used by the artist throughout his career.
In 1760 in London Sandby created prints of Twelve Cries 'done from life' which illustrate the range of produce that could be bought on the streets and the characters who purveyed it.

I was interested in using one of Sandby's paintings, ‘Rare Mackerel, Three a Groat or Four for a sixpence’, to illustrate graphically the hardships an individuals's struggle to earn a living.

Paul Sandby 1730 - 1809., ‘Rare Mackerel, Three a Groat or Four for a sixpence’

Sue Jane Taylor, Piper Alpha Memorial, 1991

Sue Jane Taylor, born in 1960, unveiled this sculpture, made from bronze with gilt and Cottennie granite plinth, in 1991. The memorial, situated in the Queen's Mother's Rose Garden in Hazlehead Park, was to the men killed in the Piper Alpha disaster on 6 July 1998.

With each figure with their back to one another, they represent offshore oil workers. The central figure facing north portrays a mature character. In his left hand, he holds a pool of oil sculpted in the shape of an unwinding spiral form. The black shape in his palm flows into the gold leaf. His right hand points down to the ground, showing the source of crude oil. The carved motif on his helmet, a fish and sea birds design , which symbolises the environment. The figure facing west represents a roustabout drill-deck worker, showing pushing and pulling movements. On his right sleeve is a celtic tree of life motif, the leaves gilt. The figure that faces east wears a survival suit and on his left sleeve is a sea eagle spread winged with a gilt head, native to the North seas. To the rear is a small stone plinth with a cross behind which has an urn of ashes interred within the plinth.

I wanted to include this scuplture to make imaginative use of the castle's display space and also to bring the memorial closer to the edge of the North Sea, i.e. the scene of where the disaster occurred.

Ken Currie Torso Study 1994

Ken Currie

Ken Currie, who was born in 1960 in North Shields, studied at the Glasgow School of Art. He used industrial Glasgow as the subject of his early work, with paintings that followed a linear style and modelled in block-like forms. In the early 1990s, Currie was much affected by political and humanitarian events in Eastern Europe. He began to depict decaying and damaged bodies as a response to his feelings of disgust of contemporary society. Since his graduation in 1983, he has specialised in grim socio-realist subjects inspired from his working class background. Currie examines the brutality and poverty of the urban life in Scotland. From the mid-1990s, Currie focused on individuals instead of crowds, and painted these with haunting, luminous colours.

Ken Currie is an important artist for Dunnottar, because the styles he uses such as applying thick oil paint and beeswax, which gives a sense of real skin, and adds great texture, which contrasts with the raw texture of the castle walls. I put his paintings in the dungeon of the castle as this brings out the grimness of his work to reality.

Gallowgate Lard, 1995-6

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo, a Mexican painter, born in 1907, is well known for the pain and passion in her work. Following a horrific bus accident which left her in hospital with serious health problems for a significant length of time, she carried on painting in the hospital environment. She painted many self portraits because she was alone for a lot of her life in a hospital bed. Her paintings do reflect her emotions and the traumas that she has experienced. For example, painting herself as a deer with arrows all through her body just shows the sort of physical and emotional pain that Frida had to put up with. Also her self portrait (1940) uses symbols that identify her emotions, such as a trapped dead bird which shows to the viewer that Kahlo felt she had no way out.

I thought that her work was extremely relevant to the theme of my exhibition, because her paintings show how she has struggled throughout life with such traumas. They show an emotional journey that has been a struggle for survival at times.

The Little Deer 1946

Self-portrait, 1940

Edward Hopper, On The Quai: The Suicide 1906-09

Edward Hopper was born on July 22, 1882 in Nyack, New York, a peaceful.town 25 miles north of New York City. Much of his artwork has been based on loneliness and depression. Hopper's drawings of the urban landscape of Paris, described the nature of the urban sprawl and its dislocating effects on people. In his rare and important early works of Parisian life, he began his lifelong project of portraying humans detached from nature and society.

What I thought was particuarly intresting about Hopper for my exhibtion, was that there is no communication in Hopper's work. The characters in his paintings are silent, their lips do not move. The characters indicate that they are very detatched .

His drawing, The Suicide shows how this character is struggling for the will to live, and has now given in, making you wonder what had led the person to do this.

Joan Eardley 1921-1963

Three Children at a Tenement Window, 1961

Children at the Window

Three Children at a Tenement Window, 1961

Children at the Window

 

Glasgow Kids, A Saturday Matinee Picture Queue

Joan Eardley was born in May 18 1921 in Sussex. Eardley travelled extensively, basing her paintings on locations such as Italy, France and Catterline (N.E. Scotlland). A series of her paintings were also based around Glasgow tenements where she studied the lives of different children who lived in very poor conditions.

When drawing children she was influenced by Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso, and also, in America, by Ben Shahn whose drawings of urban children have a direct manner and socially engaged edge.

Joan Eardley's also painted a series of long, rectangular panels of children playing in the streets of boarded up shops and bomb damage using photos that she had taken.

Eardley is a good artist to use in this exhibition because her series of paintings from the Glasgow tenements depict the children struggling to get by in day to day life. I used the dungeons of the castle to display some of Eardley's work, because, for example, the painting 'Glasgow Kids, A Saturday Matinee Picture Queue' interprets the overcrowdedness in this city, similar to the hundreds of men who were once crammed into the dungeons of the castle hundreds of years ago.

Deciding on a Theme

Originally I had chosen artworks that were painted of the sea, however, I came across Ken Curries' work in Aberdeen art gallery and was inspired by his haunting portrait, as I imadgined this would look dramatic in Dunnottar. However, this painting does not link with the others, and it is important that the paintings interact with each other by having something in common.

I therefore decided the theme should be based on imprisoned/entrappment and torture/nightmares. Joan Eardley who I have looked at, has done several studies of children in Glasgow,and has looked at tenements in Glasgow. These tenements that rise very high can make one feel trapped, which can relate to the hundreds of men that were imprisoned in Dunnottar Castle hundreds of years ago. This is why I thought Eardley's painting 'Three Children at a Tenement Window' would work well in the dungeons of the castle.

Choosing Artworks

When choosing what artworks I will display in the castle it is important that I choose paintings and sculptures that do not compete with the texture of the castle, but instead bring the castle alive.

 A trip to Aberdeen Art Gallery gave me inspiration and helped me decide the kind of art I want to display. Some of the artists that I thought would work well in the castle were Joan Eardley, who has done a lot of paintings of Glasgow street children and Catterline. I thought the colours and the bold textures in her work would work well with the castle walls. Another artist that I found interesting was Ken Currie. I liked the way the he captrued the horror in his paintings, they are quite disturbing to look at. I thought his paintings would work particuarly well in the dungeons of castles.

Deciding a Location

As this is an imadginary exhibition, it is important that I have the location in an exciting place that is unusual. I have therefore chosen an accient castle which has character and is very interesting. The walls have interesting texture and rustic colours.