Visual Arts Scotland (VAS) was founded in 1924 as an organisation for women artists, and since the 1980s has been a leading platform celebrating innovative arts and crafts. Its Annual Exhibition showcases new work to test-out challenging and ambitious ideas within the context of Scottish and international culture.
The theme for VAS 2025 is The Thread that Pulls: ‘The thread is not a fixed object but a force: a line of curiosity, connection, or compulsion that loops through days, years, and generations. The exhibition considers the thread both literally and metaphorically: as fibre and stitch; as the drawn line; as the invisible tether between people, objects, and memory.‘
Creatively curated and decoratively displayed, there are 420 works (from 2,800 submissions): paintings, prints, photography, sculpture, ceramics, furniture, textiles and tapestry. From around the grand salons of the RSA, I have hand-picked a selection to offer a diverse overview of Scotland’s biggest showcase of visual arts and contemporary craft.
Specialising in acrylic, collage and oils, Sarah Curtis designs decorative landscapes inspired by aerial views while piloting a microlight aircraft over the Scottish countryside. Akin to a vintage counterpane, Turquoise is a bright patchwork of fields, river and low hills abstracted into bold shapes, colour fields and rhythmic textures.
The farmland, as seen from above, is a mosaic of vivid greens and yellows mingled with unexpected pinks and oranges. The pale blue sky is muted, providing a calm balance to the bold opaque and translucent paint with a collage-like feel. The visible brushwork and incised lines accentuate movement and topographical variation.
Simon Lawrie’s paintings are typically inspired by everyday objects (modern still life – coffee pots, fish and fruit), and the Scottish landscape. His creative approach is based on multiple layers of acrylic paint to create a flat surface on which ad-hoc geometric shapes appear to float in space.
In Hide, against the mustard and oatmeal-tinted background, a bright green block stands out within a black linear grid, a scribbled structure contrasting with the surrounding stillness. With the use of blurred brushstrokes, a soft diffused light glows over the scene – spot the tiny orange dot in the centre, all part of the jaunty juxtaposition of mark-making. This is all about refining and distilling reality of place to simple form and colour, his trademark style of visual composition.
Alison McWhirter is so energetic in her use of vivacious colour, dramatically daring with an urge to experiment with a quest for ever greater abstraction. As she says, her paintings are concerned with ‘pure feeling. I am striving to get at the beauty in the things that surround us’.
McWhirter demonstrates glossy layers of oil slicks to focus on the essential colour, tone and texture of paint. Petit Journal, St. Michel, Paris reflects her signature method, thick impasto laid down in confident blocks of saturated colour that feel both spontaneous and carefully balanced. The palette of hot pinks, citrus yellows, vivid greens and a band of orange creates a lively, almost musical rhythm – the compact size of the painting intensifying the movement of the brushwork. It reads as a fragment of place filtered through emotion rather than observation, fitting for a ‘Petit Journal’: more a remembered sensation than a literal scene, exuberant and intimate at once.
Culturally inspired by her dual Scots/Chinese heritage, world literature and her family as a recurring muse, Elaine Woo MacGregor creates paintings which are always captivating and imaginative. No wonder she has been presented at major art fairs from London to Chicago and Los Angeles.
Her recent Silk Road series is based on her art research travel scholarship to China in 2024. Once a critical oasis supporting settlements, the Aral Sea, which fuelled the Silk Roads economy, became a desert due to Soviet cotton field irrigation in the 1960s. In Alone by the Aral Sea, a solitary horse is pictured in a dark, moonlit landscape, a meditation on environmental tragedy and human guardianship. ‘I used dynamic brushwork – colour patches applied with rapid gestures – to create a feeling of tension, inviting you to take on the role of the unseen rider. This piece fosters curiosity about our role in protecting land and water for future generations.’ – Elaine Woo MacGregor
This dreamlike interpretation of Chinese motifs creates a sense of shifting landscape, time and memory. The iconic symbol of a horse – representing power, beauty and freedom – anchors the composition in tradition, while the surrounding forms feel fluid and contemporary. MacGregor’s layering of colours suggests both the weight of cultural history and the transience of lived experience, giving the work an intelligent, poetic quality.
The Scottish abstract artist Peter Kelly is best known for capturing personal sensory experiences of Scotland’s west coast environment.
The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Kelly has borrowed the line, ‘Along the sea-sands damp and brown’ for this painting to depict what seems to be old harbour walls protecting the land from the sea. This decorative design blends lyrical abstraction with a quiet coastal mood using earthy tobacco and deep blue tones, as twilight shimmers on sand and water. The geometric blocks feel weathered, shaped by tide and time, while the loose outlined forms – a precise pattern of lines and oval shapes – echo Longfellow’s imagery. Representing both landscape and memory, grounded yet contemplative, a calm resonance lingers in the salty air.
Studying architecture at Edinburgh College of Art, Charles Young first started making models as part of his Master’s degree to illustrate the structures and histories of the urban environment. An ongoing project is called Paperholm, where he challenges himself to create architectural works out of paper using stop-motion animation, aligning themes of sustainability and recycling materials. Collaborating with The Australian newspaper, he transformed Sydney Harbour into a diminutive hand-crafted paper city-scape.
Light, House (with the Tide), is a finely carved wooden lighthouse – the highly-skilled art of carpentry is exquisite. There’s an intriguing door at the side (perhaps refrain from pulling the handle!), as well as a jazzy green and blue-patterned base resembling the crashing waves of the sea.
Mhairi Corr creates unique, unconventional artwork, primarily paper-pulp figures which evoke a sense of fragility, memory and identity. Using newspaper pulp moulded over armatures yields a flexible, malleable medium, which hardens to something like stone.
Corr’s sculptures often engage emotional vulnerability and this is shown in the cute, quirky persona of Donalda. Standing 48cms tall on a plinth, we can study her round face, black button eyes and tiny ball of a nose; the fierce, piercing stare, looking sideways, conveys a perplexed, baffled demeanour. Defined by deliberate disproportion and a powerful sense of character, the smooth, pale skin of the oversized head contrasts sharply with the speckled sweater and tartan skirt. Donalda’s character is one of stiff posture and stubborn personality, simultaneously humorous in its scale and unsettling in its psychological presence. While she is at first glance a comical doll-like figure, Donalda appears so lifelike, lost in her silent, private world – if only she could talk and relate her personal Toy Story.
‘Colour makes me feel happy using pencils, paint, pastels. I like to draw people. I look at a person. I think about it for a long time. People are very interesting. They are all different.’ – Annie Gutteridge
In her stunning, surreal portrait, Amber, Annie Gutteridge shows an assured and intuitive approach to delve into the hidden personality of this young woman. This is immediately reminiscent of Amedeo Modigliani, who modernised figurative painting (based on African sculpture), with an elongated head, neck, body and blank eyes, the windows to the soul. ‘When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes.’ – Amedeo Modigliani
Annie’s exploration of portraiture has become a route to finding new ways to express her own identity, merging observation with self-reflection. The warm orange/yellow skin tone contrasts with the dark clothing, giving a glowing presence, while her narrowed eyes and gentle smile lend the subject a calm composure. The influence of Modigliani is undeniable in the deliberate distortion of physical features, the swan-like neck, sloping shoulders and almond-shaped eyes. Amber has such an expressive, open face, a kiss curl in her hair, exaggerated rouged cheeks and pursed lips, masking her natural beauty with a feeling of melancholic sadness.
‘My work depicts surreal, playful imagery with a strong narrative – I enjoy inventing my own characters and surroundings, often with scant regard to the logic of the real world. Folklore and mythology have an important influence.‘ – Alice Campbell
The delicate etching by Alice Campbell, entitled Idling, portrays a rather pensive young lady, resting her twisted, distorted head in her hand, in Picasso-esque manner (eg. ‘Harlequin and his Companion’ 1901).
This portrait has a gentle, introspective mood, conveyed through its softly worked lines and the dreamlike pose of the figure. Campbell balances naïve charm with the detail of a patterned curtain and spidery chandelier. Simplified facial features suggest a whimsical storybook quality, while the violin on the table suggests a musician pausing in thought rather than performing. While echoing certain Picasso perspectives, it’s not an imitation – sharing a few stylistic affinities while keeping her own artistic tone. The textures from the etching process and domestic atmosphere give it a distinctly personal, less avant-garde character. Overall, it feels intimate and contemplative with a subtle emotional tenderness.
As part of the theme ‘The Thread that Pulls’, an artist’s focus might trace ‘a long-held preoccupation with a place, material or unravel a personal narrative that refuses to be forgotten’.
French artist, designer and sculptrice, Annabelle Adie has studios in Paris, Italy and Edinburgh, where her creativity navigates between ceramic installations, photography and textile art.
Measuring 115 x 163 cm, What it feels like is a visceral, textured collage crafted from shredded strips of canvas, strung together in a cascading, flowing formation like distressed sails of a yacht. The palette is predominantly monochromatic in shades of off-white and cream, interrupted by flesh-toned pink strands, revealing a sense of vulnerability or bodily connection. The texture is defined by frayed edges and loose threads, the idea of fragmentation and fragility through the unravelling nature of private feelings. As an enigmatic self-portrait of the artist, the underlying message is about preserving the past while facing the future with a sense of renewal.
‘My tapestries play with space and colour to capture moods and connections. Selvedges and stitching make reference to the human history held in cloth, the intimacy between weaving and storytelling.’ – Fiona Rutherford
Also a textile artist, Fiona Rutherford presents a tapestry, Conversation, woven from cotton, linen, nettle and coconut yarns. The purposely-placed rectangles and squares of contrasting materials, ‘deckchair’ stripes against plain orange and ochre, expose a tangle of threads over the thick ribbed fragments of fabric.
Weaving a story means skilfully blending characters and plotlines, ideas and action, just like interlacing threads to weave a tapestry. The clever title, Conversation captures the concept of dialogue – just as the intricate patterns of tartan are a visual language, representing clan family history, tradition and sense of belonging.
?Based in Shieldaig, Torridon, Lisa Fenton O’Brien focuses on sound, video, painting and drawing inspired by the extreme climate and landscape of the Highlands. She uses inks, pigment, watercolour and the weather itself – the heaviness of rain and wind direction dictate mark-making to capture the atmospheric experience of the elements.
As Storm Bram was forecast to batter the UK this week, Lisa illustrates a Force 6 Gale in a simple yet effective ink-blot illustration.
‘I was trying to get the wind to blow the ink when the rain has stopped. The ink is surprisingly heavy and didn’t blow very far at all. Finally, a blast of rain so I stopped after the first splattering and retreated back indoors.‘ – Lisa Fenton O’Brien
The meticulous fluidity and dripping splash of the Sumi ink pattern is blended with actual rain water blown by the gale force wind. The result is just so instinctive and immediate, authentic and raw. Fenton’s art is less about an idyllic ‘Highland postcard’, more about the force and transience of the Highlands: weather, environment and emotional mood.
VAS 2025 is a simply marvellous showcase which will intrigue and inspire, dazzle and delight the viewer, pleasing the eye and enriching the soul – ‘a genuine snapshot of contemporary artists and makers.’
(Exhibition entry is free. Closed 25th-26th Dec, open 1st Jan 12pm-5pm.)
With thanks to Viv Devlin for this review.
