UNLV exhibit offers a taste of Scotland

By Kristen Peterson (contact)

Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008 | 2 a.m.

COURTESY IMAGE

"Legless Boy (after Muybridge)," Ken Currie, 2005

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"Wasp Drawing," Derrick Guild, 2008

“The Scottish Show” at UNLV’s Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery is an anomaly, jarring because it’s so different from what we’re used to seeing blasting from gallery walls in Las Vegas.

Though most of the works were created within the last couple of years, the show overall doesn’t have a contemporary feel. Instead we have a return to cubism, surrealism, figurative and narrative art.

The fact that there is no overriding theme makes it a bit bumpy and confusing. With no inclusion of contemporary artists such as Calum Innes, it definitely has you asking yourself, “What’s happening in Scotland?”

Maybe that’s not so bad.

Arranged as the second of UNLV’s international shows designed to launch and cultivate the College of Fine Arts’ Friends of Arts program, the exhibit brought in work from 15 Scottish artists, including such familiar names as David Mach, John Bellany and Ken Currie.

The show bounces from the grim and beautiful photos by Catriona Grant to the meditative portraits by Moira Scott Payne. Grant places a nude female in examination rooms of a dank, old medical institution; Payne traces “data” — magazines, patterns from rugs or clothes — from people’s homes and repeats them in contour lines on plastic sheets that hang like bath towels on a hook.

Eddie Summerton, a Dundee artist, plays with nature by skewing it in illustrations by creating familiar visuals, such as a collection of birds birched on bare branches. The scene is recognizable enough, but look at it and you realize that nearly half the birds or not birds, but bird costumes, draped from the branches, as if the birds’ shifts were over and they had gone home for the day.

Calm Colvin, who co-curated the exhibit, has three works in the show. Colvin deals mostly with national identity and heritage in his digital prints on canvas that are created through a laborious process that combines sculpture, painting and photography: Colvin assembles settings, such as a living room or office, projects an image onto the setting, paints the projection onto the walls and furniture, then photographs the finished product, creating a two-dimensional piece.

Jeff Burden, chairman of the arts department at UNLV and curator the exhibit, says its not necessarily meant to be a definitive survey on Scottish contemporary art, rather a “sample of Scottish work.” “There was no method to the madness,” he says. “I just happen to think these paintings are great.”

But a catalog essay by Tom Normand, writer and lecturer of the University of St. Andrews, describes the show as offering “a reflection on historical identity and the changing nation of the social world, on Scottish ‘character’ and the multiplicity of local types and personalities, on cultural tropes and developing ideas of diverse community.”

A slightly darkly humorous and serious tone overshadows the exhibit. In terms of the narrative and figurative styles, Colvin says by e-mail, “Whilst in Scotland we look to America very much, we also have a strong European influence. The art schools in Scotland have kept their interest in figurative art very much alive. Whilst encouraging other artistic activities, we still teach life drawing. Scotland has a strong literary tradition, and I suspect our love of narrative extends from that.”

Burden, who established the International Visiting Artist Program at Columbus State University in Georgia before taking a job at UNLV, intends to continue with international shows. His connection to Calum came from seeing Calum’s work in Edinburgh in the 1990s. Burden, who has also spent time in Australia and would like to do a show of aboriginal work, has used Edinburgh’s festivals to gauge international art.

Part of his mission at UNLV is to create an international scope. Whether he’ll tap into more high-art fairs, featuring contemporary works, such as Miami Art Basel, has yet to be decided, he says.

“We’re going to continue all options for our gallery,” he says. “The key is to extend this visual language outside of Las Vegas, outside of Los Angeles ... I don’t think everything needs to look like it was made yesterday. Cubism’s timeless. I don’t care when it was done.”