Tatha Gallery’s latest Interactions exhibition opened last weekend. I arrived quite early for its opening: it was a quiet October evening, with the blue hour setting in, and waves gently lapping at the shore. The serene atmosphere inside reflected that of the outside: warm light emanated from the gallery, echoing the last sun rays from the horizon; and the pastel-blue hues of forget-me-nots on the paintings reflected the hour of evening.
Upon entering, one is greeted by a woman with a resplendent smile portrayed on a vivid ochre background, adorned with a multicoloured sash that doubles as a dress – Naseem.
Interactions, the gallery’s owner Lindsay Bennett tells me, is about the space between people and how we relate to one another. The exhibition centres around works by four figurative artists from Scotland. The word ‘interaction’ is essentially a metonym for relationships. However, the show goes beyond visually describing human interaction solely – it includes all kinds of characters, such as animals and trees, among others. At the same time, many of the canvases comprise solitary figures – the space that expresses their individuality.
A painting that struck me as very poignant, and a wonderful example of interaction between two living beings was Joyce Gunn Cairns’ The Comforter. It depicts a young person gently hugging their pet cat. The way the person’s head gently leans towards the cat’s discloses the affection between the two. The soft treatment in pencil and oils gives the paintings a graphic quality, and lends an effect of grain in a film strip. This reminds me of old family photos that had a grainy effect that rendered them somewhat hazy, yet continue to evoke affection and nostalgia. This delicate composition reflects the sentimental bond between the two beings.
On the left-hand side, one becomes enveloped in a sea of pastel hues, akin to clouds or candy-floss. The colour scheme continues as one proceeds to other spaces. On this wall in particular, there is a noticeable contrast between the charcoal study of a boy’s face juxtaposed with a vertically-orientated composition of a mother and daughter. Yet, the two works do not clash, due to the inherent powder composition of charcoal that yields its soft quality.
In the painting My Mother Myself hints at another facet of interaction and meaning of closeness. Interaction of mother and daughter – the towering figure of the mother practically envelops the space around the little girl, acting as a shield and protector, but at the same time, perhaps, limiting her in space to express herself. The similar expression of the child’s face and the mother’s, signifies their relationship to one another, but also how the young girl’s only trajectory is to fill that shape of her mother’s mould. The only object that seems to be outside of the grown woman’s influence is her rabbit toy – a symbol of girl’s individuality.
Another current underpinning the show (that is quite unavoidable considering the geographical positioning of the Gallery) is the sea-related one. As one of the artists, Stuart Buchanan, points out neighbouring Dundee’s maritime legacy, including the whaling, jute (utilised on ships) and shipbuilding industries, as well as RRS (Royal Research Ship) Discovery’s expedition to Antarctica in late 1901. Living up the east coast of Scotland near north-east Arbroath, his work carefully reflects local heritage not just through subject matter, such as the skeleton of a humpback whale that appeared on the shores of the Tay back in 1883 (now located in the MacManus Galleries in Dundee), but through surface on which he paints – hessian, which is a kind of rope that lends his works a certain coarseness and ruggedness, echoing the maritime sphere and the area’s industrial production.
Celie Byrne is an artist whose works stand in sharp contrast to everyone else’s – her in-depth portraits brim with the vitality of her sitters. Each portrait diverges from the other – she often sketches out the surroundings, yet fills them in with a solid colour, instead of painting in the details of the surroundings. Thus, all attention is drawn to the sitter – their attire, expression, mood. Each canvas is painted in vivid colours, whether ochre or turquoise, providing a vital quality to the overall show, in a sense, to anchor the exhibition. Considering Byrne’s background in creating large outdoor murals and installations, it reflects on the scale of the paintings (largest ones among others), as well as how her figures appear larger than life, too.
The magnum opus of the exhibition is a triptych of Dr J. Drew Lanham – an African-American poet, author and wildlife biologist. Here, he is portrayed with his own invention – cardboard wings, with which he optimistically attempted to fly. Even though he did not succeed in this endeavour, for Dr Lanham, wings symbolise a dream of being able to take flight. Here, wings could also be a metaphor of a flight of imagination. In this painting, the interaction occurs between the sitter and their creative pursuit.
Ceramic floral vases and vessels are inserted around the exhibition, which ‘shakes the show up’, according to Lindsay Bennett. Amorphous shapes and pastel hues also echo Joyce Gunn Cairns’ colour palette and are almost rendered as clouds.
The common visual impression from the exhibition is its lightness and almost transcendence. The show represents interaction as an intimate and almost sacred act. As Celine, Julie Delpy’s character from the film Before Sunrise calls it, ‘this little space in between’. She further suggests, ‘If there’s any kind of magic in the world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something’ in that limited space. The show extrapolates this metaphor to all living beings: plants, trees, animals and birds. It contrasts the beauty of solitary existence, with more intimate portraits of interaction.
With thanks to Anna Shevetovska for this review.
