Making Marks

Beautiful new art in Edinburgh

I had the pleasure of seeing the exhibition Making Marks yesterday evening, at Art’s Complex on London Road. It features six artists, and I was there to support my friends Antonia Gallacher and Jemma Derbyshire. Their work is beautiful, as always, and both are exhibiting pieces which depart from what I have seen of theirs before. For both, it is a successful move.

Continuum.continuous, Antonia Gallacher

Toni has added colour, and now yellow and dark pink draw us in and lift her meticulous ink drawings. I was happy to see flocking birds and interlocking circles returning from her previous work. I genuinely love it; the geometrical abstraction is teeming with life. There is more this time, including Hang #1 and Equilibrium.Pink, two evocative pieces featuring silhouetted cranes.

Meanwhile, Jemma includes no colour this time. It makes a striking difference to the work, usually bursting with blues and purples. The two City Studies are haunting and the collages, which I have admired before, have been given the prominent position they deserve.

City Study #2, Jemma Derbyshire

Monochrome features heavily throughout the exhibition, but interest does not wane as different artists’ work is often hung closely together. The styles are complementary, and it is impressive how coherent the space is as a whole. So the City Studies find their partner in Vivienne Russell’s Undiscovered Landscape.

But Toni’s is not the only colour. Katy Anderson’s fashion-inspired works are fun and exciting. In Dazed and Confused, a tessellating figure made from varying patterned papers fills a large sheet. And the title alone of Hoody on the Run adds mischief.

A lovely exhibition. See it if you can.