UNIONgallery

Monday, 9 February 2015

In the new group exhibition at Union Gallery – Streetlife – there is an enjoyably strange work by the Glasgow-based painter Frank McNab.

It shows a headscarfed woman laden with shopping in mid-air in the void at the centre of a tenement's common stair.

McNab says he's drawn to these spaces – neither quite indoors nor out, home or abroad – but the ambiguities redouble as one starts to wonder whether the woman depicted here is falling, floating or ascending.

Is she even alive? On closer inspection, that cadaverous face suggests she may be a domestic spectre. Or that this vision may be some projection of herself, her wish not – for once – to have to trudge with her quotidian or heartfelt burdens up the turning stair.

The work is titled 'Oh for the Years I Have not Lived But Only Dreamed of Living', which helps a little but doesn't ground the painting in any one definitive interpretation.

I find its blood and nicotine-coloured suggestions touching, creepy and evocative, and it was one of my picks in a show featuring several strong works by both established and emerging talents.

Tuesday, 11 November 2014

The Christmas exhibition, newly opened at Union Gallery on Broughton Street, features work by over a dozen contemporary artists: sculptors, painters and ceramicists at various stages in their careers from around Scotland and beyond.

There is no single theme which unites the pieces on show, so here instead are some thumbnail responses to five of them, to which you are welcome to add your own thoughts on favourites between now and February.

Delightfully rain-splashed is the scene above, titled ‘Hanover Street’, by Henry Kondracki. It looks to me like Festival weather, and perfectly captures the sense of colourful excitement in the city at that time of year.  

It doesn’t feel as if the artist plans to stand still. That bus may take him south to the High Street. That slope may lead him north into Stockbridge. One way or another, some discovery awaits.

Wednesday, 8 October 2014

Reviewed by Rhys Fullerton

For many contemporary artists, getting their work exhibited can often by the hardest part of the process. Owning your own art gallery should make it easier, but for Alison Auldjo, owner of the Union Gallery, this is her first exhibition in three years. Auldjo is an artist in her own right, but running a thriving contemporary art gallery in central Edinburgh can be time-consuming and leave little opportunity to paint. Lifelines is well worth the wait.

Auldjo’s ability to paint landscapes is clear and seems to be second nature. The relationship between the artist, the environment and nature is evident in every painting on display. One of the highlights is one of the smaller paintings on show – ‘Rural Mysteries’. The bleak landscape is scratched into the canvas and the setting sun is almost insignificant, its light and heat won’t be able to win the fight against the changing of the season.

When Auldjo combines nature and people in her landscape paintings, we learn more about the artist and see a deeper thought process.

Saturday, 2 August 2014

‘Kill'em! Strangle'em! Don't let go! Kill'em! Kill'em! Kill'em ALL!!’

So says Chucky in the 1988 horror film Child’s Play, capturing rather neatly the dark territory children enter alarmingly often and quickly with unfettered imagination.

Play can be profoundly creative and amoral. It gives licence to the violence of make-believe. It sets few bounds. It rarely apologises. It is the kitten's enjoyable rehearsal of a kill.

Something of that liberating darkness pervades much of the new work at Union Gallery, a group exhibition by seven artists invited to respond to Child’s Play as a theme by gallery director Alison Auldjo.

I am new to the work of Mary Archibald, and pleasantly unsettled by the rumpled, rottten-potato quality of her effigies. ‘Ma Hoop’ and ‘Ma Ba’ recall the feral qualities of Archibald’s own childhood. She speaks of ‘bringing to life’ these pieces, of letting her inner ‘bad girl out to play’. I found 'The Christening' (above) absolutely terrifying.

‘AYE EYE’

FIRST EDINBURGH SOLO SHOW FOR SKYE ARTIST JAMES NEWTON ADAMS

The exhibition will open on September 4th at the Union Gallery in Edinburgh. With a selection of new paintings and wrought iron sculpture, James invites viewers to look and, as the show’s title suggests, see, through the eyes of the characters in his created world. Using his distinctive and very direct style, the artist reflects on his own experience of life in the Highlands and Islands.

The Stockbridge Edinburgh website has a lovely article about the five year birthday

WORTH THE WALK… UNION GALLERY CELEBRATES FIVE YEARS

Jun 24, 2014

It’s five years since a 31-year old artist took a leap of faith and decided to open a gallery on Edinburgh’s Broughton Street, just when the country was in the grip of a recession.

To mark the Union Gallery’s fifth birthday, owner and director Alison Auldjo is welcoming back many of the outstanding artists who have exhibited with her for ‘Now We Are Five’, a spectacular mixed exhibition which runs from 4 until 29 July.

The exhibition features artists such as Philip Braham, Annette Edgar, Patsy McArthur, Dylan Lisle, Graham Flack, Norrie Harman, Joyce Gun Cairns MBE, and Audrey Grant to name a few.

The gallery has forged a formidable reputation for showing the work of contemporary artists that other galleries might consider non-commercial in terms of too challenging or too provocative.

Woo Hoo!!!...

A wonderful wee video, courtesy of Summerhall TV all about the 5th Birthday show, Now We Are 5! You've only got a few days left to see all of these brilliant works all in one place! (and that place is UNIONgallery of course...) I look forward to seeing you!!

Huge thanks to Summerhall TV and Art in Scotland TV for the video.