It was great to be a Chair and Speaker at the Scottish Society for Art History’s recent ‘Art, Landscape and Space‘ on-line Study Day. I chaired the second session, ‘The Stimulus of Rural, Urban and Coastal Landscapes’. This consisted of papers by Anna McLauchlan of the University of Strathclyde, Dan Brown of Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and Joe Boyd of the Universities of St Andrews and Lincoln.
My Paper
My own paper was titled ‘From THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE to EVERYTHING’S GOING TO BE ALRIGHT: The Grounds of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art‘. It looked at works by artists including Nathan Coley and Martin Creed, installed outdoors at ‘Modern One’ and ‘Modern Two’ in Edinburgh.
Catherine Sargeant
After the study day had finished, I was delighted to see a series of sketches posted on social media, made by the artist Catherine Sargeant as she attended the event. The example above features Claire Robinson of St Andrew’s University Museums, Sally Goodsir of the Royal Collection Trust, Morven Gregor of the Mount Stuart Trust and myself. Sargeant captured us at speed as we spoke over zoom, hence the landscape format of her lively, highly-communicative images. Although not typical of her practice, it was great to see the medium of a webinar providing inspiration for an artist.
Sargeant trained at Edinburgh College of Art and is a professional member of the Society of Scottish Artists. She has explained ‘I use text in my art not as a writer or poet, but as a collaborator. Collating and then creating out of the myriad of words and quotes collected from the differing groups I have worked alongside.’ Sargeant’s work can be viewed on her website and via her instagram account.
Future On-line Talks
For information about my forthcoming on-line talks, please see the ‘Events‘ section on this site, including this feature about ‘Inspiring Women Artists at Marchmont House‘ and also this one about ‘An (Almost) A to Z of Scottish Women Artists‘.
