The Many-Layered Wonder Of RSA’s 200th Annual Exhibition | Artmag

The neo-classical Academy building, designed by William Henry Playfair, features a magnificent series of galleries to present this historic showcase of artwork.   

The dramatic design for the exhibition banner and brochure by Sam Ainsley distils landscape into a striking, almost tectonic abstraction. A dark, monolithic mountain rises against a cerulean sky, terrain below flowing in vivid layers as if the earth’s history is compressed into rhythmic waves. The design balances weight and fluidity: the mountain feels fixed and ancient, yet pulses with energy, evoking both glacier formations and tidal movement. This bold, graphic interpretation of the strata of rock is decorative and expressive, turning structure into a kind of visual music – geology in motion.

With a focus on the RSA, National Gallery and the Playfair steps, Omnibus by Henry Kondracki presents a softly atmospheric, vintage vision of Edinburgh. Carefully staged, the horse-drawn carriage trots past and a cluster of figures lead up to towering church spires. Across a hazy skyline, the buildings are rendered loosely in a muted grey palette, observing the scene through emotional memory rather than architectural accuracy. In impressionistic style, light and air soften the edges between stillness and movement – the slow carriage, scattered pedestrians, and the enduring solidity of the city. Edinburgh viewed as both lived space and historical presence.

‘Each painting is a creative leap to unknown resolutions, a chance to balance chaos and order, the intuitive and intellectual’. – Victoria Crowe

In Threshold Between Sky and Sea, Known and Unknown Victoria Crowe depicts a fleeting moment where light and shadow seem to negotiate the boundary between natural elements. Richly atmospheric, the composition is expansive yet intimate as the painting’s title points atdeeper, emotional meaning: the threshold is not simply between sky and sea, but between certainty and ambiguity, presence and disappearance, known experience and unseen distance. The cool palette is restrained and tonal to capture the luminous, liminal quality of twilight, when time itself feels slowed and suspended in a glimmering golden field of shifting perception. The landscape becomes less a specific location than a psychological space – contemplative, transient and quietly sublime.  

Simon Laurie is a master at turning the idea of landscape into a quiet arrangement of weight, balance and interruption. Rain Cloud feels stripped down to essentials: against a broad horizon-like space the blue oval and thick black looping lines act like calligraphic marks. The drifting forms suggest sky, weather, field and coastline without settling into literal description. Solidity and openness are well-balanced through geometric shape with carefully controlled asymmetrical design. This is a structured yet fluid interplay between soft light and bold colour with a pleasing sense of layering – a landscape more about atmospheric sensation instead of place.

With his signature layered and collaged compositional style, George Donald stages a vivid encounter between cultivated beauty and turbulent weather in Back Garden with Storm Cloud. A solitary woman in a purple dress stands within a tranquil environment of blooming foliage while black clouds gather with theatrical weight. The first impression is one of abundance: vibrant colour, dense vegetation as the figure almost floats through this surreal garden, placed like a symbolic motif, a haunting presence from the past. The sculptured storm cloud presents an ominous threat to the tranquil scene, acting as a mirror to an undercurrent of emotional unease, in a lush, lyrical landscape of visual complexity which merges creative ideas of painting, textile and ornamental design. 

The art of ‘Pochoir’ is a refined stencil technique used for art prints and illustrations which look hand-painted with high-quality texture. The Intelligence of the Flowers by Jane Hyslop distils the delicate shape of a water-lily into a graceful botanical illustration. The design is strikingly simple: a floating leaf and flowering stem with translucent yellow petals creating an elegant, fluid movement. The ‘intelligence of flowers’ is revealed in the lily’s natural geometry of clean, crisp contours, the quiet sophistication of aquatic plant life through restraint, balance, and luminous colour.

The flourishing garden in Last Summer Song by Christopher Allan turns tangled vegetation into an intricate, almost musical composition. Densely layered with climbing flowers, seed pods, berries, insects and reeds, Allan carefully orchestrates the vertical stems and winding branches across the scene to the small blackbird perched behind petals. With bittersweet mood, this remembered landscape reflects a faint awareness of transition on this late summer day. The singing bird becomes a fragile emblem of passing time – one final burst before silence as the summertime garden fades through the impermanence of nature.

Laurence O’Toole presents a charismatic scene of two men sunbathing beside a swimming pool, glowing with a polished stillness. The pale turquoise water, clipped shadows and candy-pink flowers create a bright, artificial serenity with quiet observation. One figure reclines horizontally while the other sits upright, looking away, creating a subtle tension between connection and isolation. Their poses feel natural but emotionally distant, as though each occupies an introspective world despite their shared space. O’Toole’s sharp outlines echo David Hockney’s glamorous poolside paintings, focusing on the languor of heat, silence and companionship. Men is an emotionally evocative scene which is quietly melancholic beneath its shimmering sunlit surface.

The small bronze sculpture, Mitherspher by Leonie Siri MacMillan is a fictional sea goddess which, like a female Neptune, is a guardian of ocean currents and marine life. Measuring just 25cm in length, its rising neck and flipped tail create a continuous looping movement with a sense of buoyancy despite the solidity of the material. The delightful contoured shape, with its curious hollow of an eye, combines quirky characters of a dolphin, porpoise, turtle and whale into an ancient, playful symbolic creature. The tactile smooth surface has varied patinas of gold, brown and oxidised blue-green as if weathered by salt water and time; a mythical sea monster washed ashore and beached by the tide.

The psychologically-charged portrait Rebirth balances humour and emotional ambiguity, the figure partially emerging into view through bands of water, mist or memory. Bernadette Doolan’s style is loose and fragile with thinly layered paint and blurred facial features; the woman’s fixed gaze is quizzical as she, perhaps unwittingly, exposes her naked breasts. ‘Rebirth’ can be read as a new identity, the awkwardness of becoming visible again after trauma, change or withdrawal. With a slight glint of humour in her warm eyes, she expresses a sense of acceptance behind her physical unease and vulnerability.

With a brief reminiscence of Cadell’s painting of an elegant lady, The Black Hat (1914), Brace by Kirsty Bell transforms portraiture into a surreal, stylised composition. The woman’s face is partially obscured by an angled hat while elongated fingers and posed, balletic hand gestures introduce a sense of theatricality. With vintage vibes, it recalls a 1920s Vogue magazine photographic image and the monochrome cinematic look of the era. The fragmented, tailored collar and tie makes the figure appear both aesthetically styled and emotionally distant. This is fashion as performance, turning the portrait into a study of identity, elegance and concealment

Taking pride of place in the central gallery is a very smart vintage car – at least a sliced portion of a Morris Minor Traveller which attracts a large crowd who are keen to look – or if it were allowed – to climb inside. Stephen Skrynka’s sculptural work often involves experimental use of materials to explore themes of endurance, repair and renewal, the intersection between art and engineering.

Traveller is composed of glass and mixed-media panels crafted around a Morris Minor Traveller. Designed by Sir Alec Issigonis, the car is famous for its distinctive ash wood frame built around the rear bodywork: production ran from 1953 for nearly two decades until April 1971. Clearly fitting into the RSA’s artistic theme In Time, this is a clever re-imagination of the much-loved classic British estate car which combined practicality and undeniable charm.