Capturing the Concept - Nicholas Grimshaw

The few photographs and rows of wooden cabinets that occupy the main hall of the ECA do not immediately entice the viewer. But on closer examination the inner thoughts and working processes in this collection reveal an intimate portrait of the meticulous design process of a man hailed as one of Britain’s greatest architects.

The exhibition comprises a collection of Sir Nicholas Grimshaw’s sketchbooks, dated from 1982 to 2007, rangeingfrom initial proposals to Grimshack's private thoughts. Although illustrating the diversity and ingenuity of Grimshaw’s mind they are executed with a pervading sense of order. The books are all identical—A4 sketchbooks, with the same off-white drawing paper and illustrated with the same blue ink—and one cannot help but imagine Grimshaw at his desk realising preparatory sketches for the organic, undulating forms of his masterpiece, the Eden Project.

The sense of order and control that permeates Grimshaw’s sketchbooks recalls the notion of the architect as creator. The sketches depict the architectural process in its entirety: from initial limitations, like the climate considerations annotated on a sketch for Palkovo Airport in St Petersburg, to Grimshaw’s vision of how people will move through his buildings, as described in a plan for the British Pavilion. The totality of design so evident in Grimshaw’s sketches is reminiscent of the Corbusian vision of a utopian world with the architect as its supreme authority, and the idea that through efficient architecture once can achieve an efficient society.

The collection emphasises the importance of drawing within the design process. The sketches provide a portable platform with which the architect can record his thoughts and inspiration, with a sense of immediacy not available in the practice or studio. The consistency in Grimshaw’s sketchbooks results in a narrative of design in which the viewer is invited into Grimshaw’s mind and can trace the development from structural drawings and lists of materials, to the completed buildings shown in high-quality photographs that accompany the exhibition.

Capturing the Concept offers the viewer a rare insight into the primary stages of some of Britain’s most innovative modern architecture, while also providing an elegant portrayal of the process by which the drawn line is transformed into metal and glass.

Charlie Anderson - Interview (Bliss Henderson Gallery)

“I want to reinstate painting’s relevance within contemporary art,” Charlie Anderson tells me when I ask about his motivations and aspirations as an artist. Anderson explains that while at ECA there was an overwhelming shift away from painting towards conceptual art, and that sometimes encouragement of the practice of painting was lacking. Through his work he explores the various possibilities available through painting, testing the boundaries between fine art and street art and how this can be applied to the gallery space.

Dubbed 'graffiti pop art' by the Henderson Gallery, Anderson’s art effortlessly combines a plethora of influences from Rauschenberg and Lichtenstein to Bast and the Brooklyn street-art collective Faille. He employs images derived from all aspects of popular culture, from beer bottle labels to nightclub flyers; these images are juxtaposed to create a collage like aesthetic, which results in a layered and textual quality in his work. This is influenced by his interest in the transience of billboard advertising where the overlapping of the old and new forms a fragmented whole in which the meaning is redefined.

Anderson’s work entices and teases the viewer with its alluring fantastical comic book girls, distorted through the addition of labels such as Versace, Chanel and Coca-Cola. When asked what relevance Pop Art holds today Anderson replies that, as one is bombarded by advertisements on a daily basis, and consumerism is so entrenched within our society, it remains as important as it was in the 1950s. Although the triumph of Pop Art is often considered to have been its effect on people’s perception of what constitutes an artwork, the aesthetic that Anderson has developed through the marrying of styles and influences is hugely effective.

The Henderson gallery, where Anderson's first solo show Bliss is currently being exhibited, is a modest space that offers a platform for young artists to showcase their work. Operating as a commercial gallery, it allows the artists to sell their works in a professional environment, but not tying them into a contract, and thus allowing them the much-needed freedom which is vital in the early development of their careers. Talking to the gallery director, he told me that Anderson’s work was brought to his attention through both his degree show and its appearance on walls around his neighbourhood.

The contrasting elements of fine art and street art present within Anderson’s work are reflected in thecuration of the show, where framed pieces are exhibited alongside bare canvases pasted to the wall, reminiscent of billboards. These contrasts are further enforced through a glass box in the centre of the exhibition displaying the various mediums and techniques exploited by the artist, from acrylic paint to spray cans and stencils. Anderson was also keen to tell me that he had been invited by the gallery to paint the garage outside the space. His instinct is to play around with these influences; to continue where Pop Art left off, challenging what is acceptable within the confines of the gallery space.

Anderson’s latest works use stencils formed through a series of horizontal lines to recreate landscapes, scenes of traffic and alluring women. The works continue the trend of recreating images through fragmentation. They are sprayed onto cardboard, and whilst the images only consist of line, the result is sculptural. These are the highlight of the show, as they feel less derivative of his earlier influences, and while maintaining the concepts that are apparent in the earlier works, they develop a new mode of expression.

Although some of Anderson’s works may seem reliant on his influences, they introduce an effective marrying of styles and continue the discourse started by Pop Art of what exactly constitutes an artwork. With his works already in high profile collections like that of British Airways, and his shortlisting for the prestigious Jerwood painting prize, Charlie Anderson is an exciting prospect for the future.

Drawing for Instruction - Talbot Rice

"We should talk less and draw more. Personally I would like to renounce speech altogether and, like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say in sketches," proclaimed Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, establishing drawing as the paramount form of human communication. Renouncing speech may be slightly extreme, but this sentiment highlights the essential function of illustration as a means of conveying and gaining knowledge of a particular object or concept.

The Talbot Rice Gallery's first show of 2010, Drawing For Instruction, explores this didactic function of drawing across a wide range of academic disciplines, juxtaposing early 19th century life drawings from the Edinburgh College of Art with digital drawings (viewed through 3D glasses) from the School of Chemistry.

The plethora of material explores the role of drawing as a form of communication and thus illustrates its importance within the world of academia. It suggests that aesthetic value can be found in explanatory drawings, something that is displayed in James Turner Murray’s vast canvas of a skeletal horse and rider situated in the lower gallery. The painting that usually hangs in the Royal Dick School of Veterinary Studies explores the contrasts between the anatomy of the horse and the human. With the addition of painterly details such as the wry smile, earrings and gilded tunic motif of the rider, Murray commands the viewer to acknowledge not only the educative but the aesthetic value of the piece.

Upon entering the upper gallery the viewer is confronted with Andrew Kennedy's erotic, surreal and often disturbing sketches, and a plan to reorganize Edinburgh society by William Bartholomew from the archives of the Lothian Health Service; offering an insight into the mind of a psychiatric patient and exploring notions of drawing as a means of therapy.

In an increasingly technological world it is often difficult to discern whether drawing holds as important a role as it did for previous generations. Through its rich and diverse collection and its unusual juxtapositions, Drawing for Instruction reminds us of the importance of drawing as a vital tool for human communication, whether it be in developing an understanding of the human form in a life drawing class or expressing the laws of chemistry on a molecular level.

John Mclean - Sculptures from Painting

Hailed by Jeffery Camp RA as 'the always aware, ever young, ever colourful, ever colour loving, surefire abstract artist', John Mclean’s latest sculptures showcased at Bourne Fine Art certainly testify to this description. Trudging along the grey, dark, rainy streets of Edinburgh, one is immediately met by the vibrant, abstract sculptures of Mclean, which through their plethora of colour and simplicity of form engender a series of weightless geometric planes of colour, suspended in space.

The title of the exhibition ‘Sculptures from Painting’ is an apt description for Mclean’s sculptures, which are predominantly constructed from manipulated etch-primed aluminium. Starting as sheet metal Mclean effortlessly applies the flat colourful forms that float within his canvases. The sheet is then bent along straight lines to create a complex geometric shape, which invites further investigation to perceive the harmonious palette applied by the artist. Viewed from afar these three-dimensional forms appear two-dimensional and the consistency between his paintings, which accompany the sculptures, becomes apparent.

Rather than objects of solid mass, the manipulated aluminium makes use of void and the result is a sculpture that contrary to gaining solidity, seems to float within the gallery space. An exercise in colour and form, Mclean’s sculptures successfully develop his artistic expression that while remaining consistent with his paintings offer an elegant reorganisation of form, which encourages interaction.

The exhibition allows the viewer the chance to explore a side to Mclean that is often sidelined by his paintings for which he is most famous. Through his sculptures Mclean effectively develops his aesthetic and whilst derivative of his painting, their weightless elegance and burst of colour succeed in providing a suitable platform to explore the further possibilities of colour and form within space.

Tessa Lynch - Collective Gallery Edinburgh

"My work can always be seen in two formats, 2D and 3D; this constant push and pull of different dimensions directly references my interests in reality and fantasy", writes Tessa Lynch in her artist biography. This fascination with duality is clearly expressed throughout the body of work on show at Lynch’s latest solo showAlexandrite at the Collective. The exhibition name confirms this, derived from a precious gemstone revered for its ability to change colour from green to red when viewed in different lights.

Through its exploration of a wide range of media from installation to video, performance and prints, the exhibition is ambitious, remaining loosely coherent through the sometimes forced theme of duality. Although there are aspects of the exhibition that are visually enticing and encourage viewer interaction with the work, the overriding theme of ‘duality’ and Lynch’s wish to experiment with such a diverse range of media results in a lack of focus.

In works like the installation that explores the theatrical trickery of Dr Pepper’s ghost, an illusory technique successfully marries together Lynch’s interest in the use of multiple dimensions with a challenge to the viewer’s perception of reality and fantasy. Conversely, the accompanying anthropological video by Clemens von Wedemeyer and the prints that explore the contrast in colour and position of geometrical shapes yearn for further explanation. A video consisting of a series of interviews of people at the Edinburgh International Climbing Arena offers the viewer a running narrative comprised of the interviewee’s responses to questions asked by the artist. The elimination of the questions requires the viewer’s interaction with the work allowing for varied interpretation and response, thus achieving multiple realities.

Although Alexandrite offers the viewer a wide range of work which testifies to Lynch’s confidence with varied media it is this, along with an overbearing central theme, that results in a lack of coherence. Whilst there are highlights in the show which express Lynch’s primary concept, they are accompanied by an array of works consisting of disparate media which are only forcibly held together by this theme. Rather than developing this concept through a consistent vocabulary, Lynch’s insistence on variety results in an exhibition where meaning remains only skin-deep.