Images © David Loftus (2020)
davidloftus.com
I’m currently reading David’s beautifully written memoir Diary of a Lone Twin
You may have heard of the Artist Support Pledge – founded by Matthew Burrows Studio in response to the Covid-19 lockdown and its impact on the arts. The initiative is set to continue post-lockdown. Though I don’t wish to deviate attention from any gallery activities (both The Scottish Gallery and Tatha Gallery have works of mine in stock) I will continue to share around one artwork per week as part of the Pledge on my Instagram account. Each is small-scale and under £200.
The Pledge concept is simple, aiming to generate a circular artistic economy. Once any participating artist reaches £1000 of sales, they promise to buy other artists’ work(s) to a total of £200 (excluding postage) per round. It’s a brilliant idea and it has helped many. So far, I’ve been able to purchase artworks from six other makers. Anyone (anywhere) can purchase works from the Pledge.
Most small-scale works at £200 or under listed on this page count towards the Pledge
For anyone who’s purchased an artwork and is looking for framing suggestions – this page may help
Any additional questions? Email info@davidcass.art
Our oceans need us now more than ever. While it’s true that the Earth has had some vital breathing space during our days indoors; this has had little or no impact on issues such as sea-rise. The window for climate action is closing quickly; we must act now to slow the rising of our oceans for generations to come. I believe deeply that art is a powerful tool in helping to raise awareness. In this blog entry, I’ve compiled a list of recent posts relevant to World Oceans Day. You may also like to look through the digital versions of two book projects: Rising Horizon + As Coastline is to Ocean.
Please also check out the Marine Conservation Society
Without question, the working life of every artist I know (regardless of age, experience or medium) has been affected by the Covid-19 lockdown. Rapidly, arts institutions, galleries, and individuals rose to the challenge: offering open calls, virtual exhibitions, support. One of the most exciting initiatives I’ve seen is Projectroom2020. This online platform was set up by the founders of Art North Magazine during the early days of event disruption. The website has gone on to present a remarkably wide range of online displays: virtual exhibition spaces, filmed works, resource banks, PDFs…
I made an application to present a collection of works focussed on makers who embrace alternative surfaces. I reached out to some of the artists (or, representatives of artists) who have inspired me in my own work, aiming to bring together a dynamic grouping – so that each artist compliments the next, whilst also offering a bit of contrast. We have: Roger Ackling, Roland Fraser, Derrick Guild, Kevin Harman, William Kentridge, Hayley Tompkins and Andrea V Wright; as well as my own contributions of paintings that define each ‘period’ of my practice to date.
Projectroom2020’s Ian McKay has done an outstanding job pulling everyting together. The founders describe the initiative as a “collaborative online gallery project devised to support artists in showing work during the public health crisis caused by ‘Covid-19’ and the need for ‘social-distancing’ and ‘self-isolation’. Ultimately it is about keeping the gears well-oiled … keeping the ‘creative spark’ alive at a time of great personal and social upheaval.”
This year I had planned a few coastal expeditions to work on a photography project set for exhibition next year in Summerhall Gallery (Edinburgh). Quite rightly, these trips have been cancelled, as a result of Covid-19. But I have a new plan. I’m asking if you would like to contribute to the project…
I’m gathering photographs of sea (though images of tidal rivers [such as the Thames] or canals [such as those in Venice] will also work). You needn’t work in the arts to take part, and nor do the photographs need to be taken on a dedicated camera. In many cases, smartphone photos will work. If you live near or regularly pass by a body of water, just send me a snap. But please don’t go out of your way or put yourself at risk. The style and orientation of the image is up to you, all I ask is that the main subject of the image is water.
The topic of the project is sea-rise. I will pair the photos with notes from each location – offering tide gauge measurements or data on coastal change in the area. The aim is to offer relatable sea level information: to help raise awareness on a pressing environmental topic. Sea levels are rising around the world, but they’re not rising evenly.
Submit your image(s) by following the instructions on the webpage linked below. Please send no more than three full-resolution files. By submitting your images, you agree that they may be used as part of the project, and may be minimally edited or sharpened if necessary. Each contributor will be credited. Any questions, give me an email: info@davidcass.art.
The Project: Just over a year ago, I began work on an application to show during the 2021 Venice Biennale [now changed to 2022]. I’m delighted to have been offered an exhibition venue. It’s been a dream of mine to show during the Biennale, ever since seeing the festival for the first time in 2007. The arts organisation I’m working with is a respected one, presenting their shows via the official Biennale programme, so that the venue is listed and artist promoted accordingly. They’re known for their use of alternative spaces – which perfectly suits my practice. More than that, the venue is in Castello – heart of the Biennale district.
Full details remain under wraps for now, but, I can say that the show will explore themes of environmental change. Given that Venice is Europe’s first clear victim of rising sea levels, this topic will be the principal under discussion.
I invite you to take part in my survey Where Once the Waters. The data collected via this survey will help to form the main, large-scale artwork of the show. I’m also calling for sponsors. Following the same method as I did for Perimetri Perduti (in 2015) I’ll list sponsors of the show in associated printed material and online. I’ve set aside a series of paintings which will be gifted in return for sponsorship offerings.
Background: In 2013, I began work on – what was later titled – Perimetri Perduti. The project’s title translates as ‘perimeters lost’, and explores the history of Florence’s 1966 flood. The artworks illustrated the changed shape and lost boundaries of the flooded city. By way of painting, writing and the eventual production of a book, the project drew contrasts with contemporary examples of environmental extremes, whilst also discussing the lost sense of place Florentines experienced.
In order to elevate that project, the book and eventual book-launch exhibitions were funded by generous sponsors – who had followed developments – backing by way of donation. Their support allowed me to present the work at its very best, in prime locations and to a wide audinece: in the British Institute of Florence alongside an exhibition to mark the 50th year since the flood; and shortly after, in Florence’s twin city of Edinburgh the book was presented in The Fruitmarket and Italian Cultural Institute.
I am once more reaching out. The richness of that experience is still with me today. Vital connections were made and endure, and important stories shared.
I began researching for this project as a direct next step from my Florence work: exploring the impact of the city’s ever increasing episodes of acqua alta (high water).
Data collected via my survey Where Once the Waters will help to form the exhibition’s principal, large-scale installation. Enter your details to be included in the artwork.
Following the same method as I did for Perimetri Perduti (in 2015) sponsors of the show will be listed in any associated exhibition material and online. A range of artworks are also available as sponsorship companions – visit this webpage for full information on sponsorship.
Want to know more? info@davidcass.art
In the early days, I’d collect all sorts: pieces of furniture, old 8mm ciné film, photographs, books, jotters, stamps… but I quickly began to refine my searches. I’d look for wooden coffee-grinders, because their drawers have a perfect panel on the base to paint on. I’d buy postcards and letters – always fascinated by the marks left by previous keepers. But by far the most exciting object to hunt down was the humble matchbox.
I became addicted to collecting them. But not just any brands. They had to be of a certain age, they had to be in a certain condition. Their labels had to be discoloured just the right amount. I’ve grown a huge collection over the years, and though I haven’t been back to Brussels in a good while, I still find the odd matchbox nearer home or online.
At first, I created a series of gouache paintings of matchbox labels. These were exhibited in a show called Unearthed, where almost all the surfaces had come from the Jeu de Balle. Soon after, I began painting directly upon the boxes, but this hid the simple litho-label designs and typefaces that had drawn me in the first place. And so, I developed a technique of cutting inserts from recycled card or wooden offcuts.
Upon these miniature planes I painted seascapes, skylines, mountains. I called the original series Gathered Seconds. The images illustrated the travels I made around Europe. These days I’m travelling less for work, aiming to limit my footprint. So I’m painting sea from imagination; focussing on layering and process.
“[Cass uses] old matchboxes as a convenient mini-machine of moving parts, in which card, paper, ink, and watercolour can transform a small quotidian design marvel into a vessel of succinct communication, by which opposites are made into a whole: waves of water on a fire-making device, an almost-obsolete, once common convenience made into a reminder of our present-day plight.”
For artists, a lot is up in the air right now. Funding, commissions, exhibitions, collaborations. We may have spent the best part of the last month indoors, but among my network of colleagues, it’s fair to say that work has accelerated as we grapple with the changing situation.
Shows have been cancelled, postponed or moved online, so modifications are underway. My main focus is still for next year’s Venice Biennale, but I’ve also spent time organising virtual projects, starting a new set of paintings and creating short films – the first of which has been included in The Scottish Gallery’s new YouTube series, Great Scots in Isolation (below).
Last week I held my first virtual studio tour. An important part of my work is inviting interested parties into my workspace, which of course can’t be done at the moment. If you’d like to arrange a virtual visit – via Zoom, Facetime or Skype – please do get in touch.
The Royal Scottish Academy’s Annual Exhibition has moved online this year. See screenshots below and view the dedicated website here.
The group exhibition Traces & Relationships – which was due to open in May at Birnam Arts, Dunkeld – has been postponed and may also move online later in the year. Updates will appear on the timeline page as and when they’re confirmed.
June’s RSA John Kinross at 40 symposium – where I was due to give a presentation on the impact of my 2010 Florence scholarship – has been cancelled.
Salvage will also be adapted, with discussions over a series of filmed talks / virtual events currently underway. More on that when details are confirmed.
Lastly, keep an eye on a new initiative instigated by Art North. Projectroom2020 is a virtual space: a platform for sharing digital exhibitions, artworks, ideas and resources. I’ve been compiling a collection titled Surface. All being well, the online presentation of Surface should go live at the end of the month.
At the beginning of lockdown, I offered free copies of Rising Horizon via my Instagram. A little extra reading material for these days indoors. This proved popular, and while I can’t continue to offer free copies, I have reduced the price of all books on my eStore until lockdown ends. Use the following codes at the checkout:
Between 2010 and 2016 I produced a series titled Gathered Seconds. These matchbox-seascapes are each painted in watercolour and gouache onto found and cropped cardboard or wooden inserts. The series received the Royal Watercolour Society’s top award for innovation in 2012. During lockdown, I’ve gone back to them. These are satisfying works to produce. The matchboxes themselves come from flea markets around Europe, collected over the last decade. Please get in touch if you’d like one.
I’ll sign off with some kind words from Ben Fogle on his recent Everest commission, Summit (approx. 40 x 50cm, oil on wooden printmaker’s tray).
“Climbing Everest was a life-changing experience, and I wanted something to remind me of the mountain. David was the prefect artist to commission for a painting that was both evocative and moving. I love his use of recycled materials and felt confident leaving him to the creative process. The result is perfect.”
2020 is Scotland’s Year of Coasts & Waters, and I’m set to take part in a few shows on the theme this year. Horizon Rising opened in early January. If you’re familiar with the series, you’ll be aware of its concept. In short, the paintings discuss sea-rise.
The Uists are unique, rugged islands. They’re places of culture, community, tradition. They’re also at the face of sea level rise in Europe. We’ve gone from storm to storm so far this year and the effects on these remote islands are plain to see. The machair plains are saturated and floodwaters are yet to drain from gardens, fields and some roads.
But it seems to take a lot to shake the islanders I met. They’re used to living with harsh weather and everyone I spoke to at Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre was aware of the impact climate change will have in this part of Scotland. The gallery and arts centre – pictured here – cannot develop on its existing site due to predicted storm-surge sea levels.
Art students at the in-house art school are almost all creating site-specific works. I held tutorials with several engaging students, including the school’s two BA fourth years – Katherine Taylor and Hector Start – who are each illustrating the island, but from opposing perspectives. While Start is capturing the immense landscape through physical and closely considered oil paintings; Taylor is exploring the world beneath the water’s surface. Often producing works outdoors, Taylor has developed a technique of combining cyanotype with pigment, salt and hand-made papers; producing unique works of depth. Her sketchbooks are packed with experiments created at the water’s edge; alongside research-based studies exploring (among other things) the phenomenon of marine snow (pictured below left, with permission).
As well as meeting with students, I held a workshop and gave a talk. Images can be seen on instagram and a summary transcript of the talk can be downladed here. The workshop focussed on found materials and sustainable studio practices; each participant bringing items for transformation. Artist Kirsty O’Connor worked with me on the day, whose artwork is well worth exploring – particularly her Soul Vessels project (pictured above right, with permission) which poignantly “commemorates personal losses, as well as honouring souls lost at sea in their search for a new home, linking the current migration crisis with people having had to leave Hebridean shores in the past”.
Work on this project began in 2017, directly after my exhibition Pelàda. Pelàda focussed on Venice – another island already feeling the impact of rising sea levels. In the months after Pelàda I stepped away, zooming out to explore the topic of sea rise more generally. The paintings have been created using various found materials, but mostly metals. The first showing of the series was in The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh; and one year later, this re-imagined (and re-arranged) version of the project – with new images of up-close sea surface – sat next to the sea in Lochmaddy | Read more on the overall project here
I
Contrary to popular belief, melting icebergs and sea ice have no effect on sea levels. Like floating ice in a glass, they are approximately 10% above the surface, due to the peculiar fact that ice has lower density than water.
II
The principal cause of change in global sea levels relates to the amount of ice on land, primarily our vast ice sheets and glaciers, 98% of which are on Antarctica and Greenland. These huge ice sheets are several miles high and would raise global sea levels some 65m if they were all to melt. Fortunately, though, this would take many centuries.
III
Over the last century, global sea levels have increased by approximately 20cm. In recent years, the rate of rise has rapidly increased. Most scientists believe that acceleration in the rise-rate will increase in a non-linear manner: this relates to the way ice sheets and glaciers go through phases of collapse which cannot be precisely predicted.
IV
A secondary factor of global sea rise is that seawater expands as it warms. In the last century thermal expansion of seawater has contributed around 8cm to ocean height.
V
In addition to global sea level variations, there are also local factors that influence change. One such factor is that land in different places moves either up or down: caused by tectonic shifts, the compaction of silts and organic matter, or pumping water or petroleum from the ground. Such local variations warrant evaluation both to better predict future sea levels and to design adaptations.
VI
Throughout Earth’s history sea levels have changed more than 100m vertically as the amount of ice on land has altered. The last low-water mark was approximately 22,000 years ago, when sea levels were around 120m below present. The last high-water mark was approximately 120,000 years ago, when sea levels were roughly 7m above present. These fluctuations were part of a natural repeating process that is commonly called the ice ages, a phenomenon that has been occurring naturally every 100,000 years, for almost 4 million years.
VII
We have now broken out of the natural ice age cycles of the last few million years and are in a period of abnormal warming. This correlates almost precisely with elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which acts like a sheet of glass in a greenhouse: transmitting radiant sunlight but blocking the escape of warm air.
VIII
Today, the oceans are measured to be approximately 1°C warmer than they were a century ago. While the atmosphere is also getting warmer, more than 90% of the excess heat is stored in the oceans. Warmer oceans mean that the ice on land will melt until it reaches a new equilibrium.
IX
From geologic history it is clear that even 1°C of higher global temperature corresponds with metres of higher sea level. We are in the early stages of a transition that will continue throughout this century and beyond. Higher sea levels will gradually reshape coastlines all over the world. Even a few centimeters of change are already affecting the short-term flooding brought by storms, heavy rains, and extreme tides. Sea level is the baseline that raises all those temporary events.
X
Recognising this new reality, we need to do two things simultaneously: pursue all means to reduce the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, with carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels as the primary factor that we can control. If done sufficiently at a global level, this can eventually slow the warming. Having already passed a tipping point, we need to start adapting to a new era with a rising sea. We have decades to adjust building codes, engineering, communities and infrastructure, but we have no time to waste.
A scholarship to Italy immediately after graduation evolved into my largest project to date. A period living in Brussels introduced me to the joy of flea-marketing, pushing my use of recycled materials. Time spent in Paris, northern Spain and the Cyclades has made for some of my most rewarding creative experiences. And, while sustainability has always sat at the core of my art practice, it was a residency in the Almería arid-zone that led me to delve more deeply into the topic of climate change – the theme my works explore today.
Europe made me the artist I am today. Though, my relationship with Europe encompasses far more than just my career.
When Taigh Chearsabhagh Arts Centre invited me to exhibit this month and next, it didn’t occur to me that I’d be producing a travelling exhibition, but conceptually at least, this is what it is.
Horizon Rising | Stills from a short film by Taigh Chearsabhagh Arts Centre
I feel frustration today, set to be stripped of my EU citizenship, resident of a country that’s chosen to close a door at a time when – for the sake of our planet, if nothing else – we urgently need to act together.
In the UK, the party with one of the lowest environmental commitments has maintained leadership. When we have just months to act to safeguard the future of our planet, we need to work together. We know already that Britain is set to miss its 2020 climate pledges, yet, the UK leaves the EU this evening, paving the way for years of uncertainty and instability, where environmental stewardship will be impacted.
We’ve witnessed unfathomable irony in recent months, as our Earth has suffered the impacts of climate change.
Devastating forest fires have raged across Australia causing untold damage (glaciers in New Zealand have turned pink from the ash, disabling their ability to reflect sunlight and aid temperature regulation). Yet – Sydney welcomed 2020 with a huge display of fireworks.
Venice suffered extreme flooding, the governor of the region described the inundation as “apocalyptic”, that the city was “on its knees”. Yet – the floodwaters entered the city just minutes after a local council meeting voted against allocating funding to combat the effects of climate change.
Last month, on Christmas Eve, Antarctica lost fifteen percent of its icy mass and at its antipode, it’s been revealed that due to global warming, Greenland is now losing ice at a rate of 280 billion tons per year. Yet – most governments are failing to take drastic action, Cop25 ended in deadlock and if we look to America, President Trump (who proclaimed at Davos that environmental campaigners are “the perennial prophets of doom”) has maintained his resistance to international climate collaboration.
For reasons such as these (and these are a mere handful) it makes little sense to close doors. But on a personal level, Europe will, of course, continue to offer inspiration. And at home, in Scotland (which voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU) we must hope for a more adventurous Cop26 in Glasgow later this year.
“Our planet’s systems are being pushed beyond their limits: the health of its water, air and soils under siege. From deforestation and soil erosion, to pollution of rivers, oceans and the air we breathe, our planetary health is waning badly. Climate change is the biggest threat-multiplier of them all. Sea rise is now a very real threat to millions.”
At the start of 2019, Rising Horizon was exhibited at The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh. The show was well received and the project has continued. The paintings – which discuss the topic of sea-level rise – are now on shown in North Uist, at Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre, to introduce Scotland’s Year of Coasts & Waters.
Titled Horizon Rising, this new instalment in the series is of particular relevance to North Uist and Taigh Chearsabhagh. The horizon is no far-off or distant concern for coastal communities such as Uist and the Outer Hebrides. These low-lying islands will be impacted by rising water levels sooner than most.
Read below texts written on the series to mark its launch in 2019 by professor Dave Reay of Edinburgh University’s School of Geosciences and by oceanographer John Englander. Also see a short film by Taigh Chearsabhagh’s Andy Mackinnon, shot during and after Storm Brendan.
Film by Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre + Uistfilm
“On the land, vast swathes of natural forest have been felled and their soils ploughed up. The carbon released has joined that from fossil burning in a smothering heat blanket encircling the globe. This hotter atmosphere super-charges the water cycle, bringing devastating flash floods in one place just as it saps away moisture and bakes earth into dust in another.
Across the oceans, sea levels are rising. Expansion of the warming waters combines with ever more ice melt from land to endanger millions around the world. Each notch higher on the global thermometer means a step closer to the irreversible loss of the ice sheets.
Climate change threatens the health of all planetary systems, its plants, its animals, and us too. Global carbon emissions must now fall to zero by the middle of this century. In the Paris Climate Agreement the nations of the world have plotted a route map to get there. Travelling that road will be the greatest undertaking in human history.
At the core of planetary health is sustainability. Sustainable use of Earth’s resources, knowledge of and respect for its boundaries. David’s work embodies all of this.
The rising horizon is a very real threat to millions of people, yet in his beautiful and inspired repurposing and reuse of materials David illuminates an alternative future. A future where the products we consume have lives beyond landfill sites. A future where resources are part of a circular economy, one that recognises their value and the true cost of their waste.
The horizon is rising. Just how far is now down to us.”
“We look to the horizon to gain perspective: to see what might be coming towards us; to gauge changing weather conditions. The straight line of the horizon is our most basic point of reference, giving us our bearings and supporting our sense of balance. Our perspective changes as our gaze shifts. Above is the sky, the atmosphere and the universe beyond. In the case of this exhibition, below lies only sea.
Over the horizon is the world of things out of sight, both tempting and treacherous. Faraway places and cultures capable of broadening an inner horizon, or a tsunami, a mighty wave that barely shows in open ocean.
The notion of a rising horizon is both evocative and timely. Sea level is rising. This new global phenomenon needs our attention. While the height of the ocean has an ambiguous visual impact on the horizon, it has a dramatic effect on the coastline. The rising sea will submerge land – our most defining physical asset. This will alter nearly all beaches but will have even greater impact as it expands marshlands and alters the contours of waterways and rivers that connect to the sea. It will take decades for the effect to be noticeable on most maps, though certainly it will.
Ever worsening events of flooding are being witnessed worldwide. While many may think of the Maldives or Miami in terms of vulnerability, flooding will also eat away at Scotland’s coastline. The stunning reality of rising sea level is that all coastal communities will be affected, both large cities and rural areas – some ten thousand or more.
Cass’s paintings creatively pose a rising horizon from dozens of diverse perspectives, upon a variety of supports: they are bold paintings, often deliberately exaggerated. Despite appearing to be playful in form, many act as a kind of miniature ice-pick to the brain – raising awareness – whilst in their more extreme form cast judgement on how this came to be.
For the last half-century we have all been privileged to see the Earth from the viewpoint of satellites. Such remarkable imagery has transformed our perception of this ocean planet. Over the next half-century there will be noticeable changes to many areas as the rising sea permanently alters the land-sea boundary. Though far from a straight line, the shoreline may be the most important line in the world.
We are in an unprecedented new era and need to see the reality that comes from looking at science without prejudice or preconception. Art is a vital tool to disseminate this message and to provoke thought and action about the real world in which we live.”
44% 2018
25.5 x 16.5cm · Oil on artist’s box lid · Available
48% 2019
109.5 x 65cm (detail) · Oil on street sign · Email for availability
As Parisian historian and retired cultural director Roger Rotmann once noted, “in order to comprehend the true core of Cass' work – the tension, the voltage that runs through it – one must observe it in the flesh.”
I’ve worked in several spaces since graduation in 2010: in Stow, my home-village in the Scottish Borders, where I still keep a studio; in Leith, Edinburgh, where I began work on Rising Horizon; and most recently in Notting Hill, London, where I now live and where you’re invited to visit. While I have worked for shorter periods in temporary spaces around Europe; these are the locations where I’ve formed significant bodies of work, and to which I feel most tied.
Giotto’s Campanile · November 4th 1966 · Pencil on found photograph
In November 1966, Florence (Italy) experienced one of the worst floods in its history. In a single night, the birthplace of the Renaissance was reduced to a sea of mud. The legacy of the flood lives on in the city today.
We ought to read the great flood as a cautionary tale for our time of climate crisis. Our Earth’s cultural landmarks are no less susceptible to forces of nature than anywhere else.
For the first time, I’m releasing selected flood artworks online, produced between 2013 – 2016. Until now, these works have only been presented at exhibitions and within Perimetri Perduti – a book I produced on the topic of the flood.
Follow @davidcass.art on Instagram for more.
“Leonardo da Vinci, an apprentice in Verrocchio’s Florentine studio wrote, ‘L’acqua che tocchi dei fiumi e l’ultima di quella che andò e la prima di quella che viene. Così il tempo presente’. The water you touch in a river is the last of that which has passed, and the first of that which is coming. Thus it is the time present.
The Arno still runs, grey and forceful in winter rains that seem to grow more heavy with each passing year. While we can only hold our fingers in the teeming flow, forgetful of the past, eyes averted from the future. Anxious to convince ourselves the moment is all that matters, and that is ours alone.”
Piazza dei Giudici · Afternoon, November 4th 1966 · Watercolour on found A4 paper
Via della Ninna · Morning, November 4th 1966 · Watercolour on found A5 paper
After a prolonged period of intense rain during the first days of November 1966 – fifty-three years ago today – two dams burst upstream of Florence. During the early hours of 4th November an enormous weight of water was propelled at great speed towards the medieval city.
The Arno river quickly burst its banks, filling every nook and crevice. Mud, clay, oil, fuel… contaminated water spread and rose – to 22 feet in the Santa Croce area – covering almost 7000 acres. By the evening of the very same day the waters began to recede, leaving behind some 600,000 tons of mud and debris. A ton of mud for each inhabitant. Traces of the flood (oily water-marks, damaged artworks, commemorative plaques, and a tangible fear during heavy rain) still exist in the city today.
Piazza San Firenze · Afternoon, November 4th 1966 · Watercolour on found A4 paper
Florence exists not only for those that live there, holiday there & study there; but also in the collective memory & imagination. Florence is a – if not the – mecca of the art world.
People from around the world came to Florence’s aid in the aftermath of the inundation. So-called mud angels travelled on their own steam to help clean and salvage; others sent much-needed funds, tools and supplies.
Porte d'Acqua · Set of watercolours on found paper · Available works
Piazza del Duomo · Afternoon, November 4th 1966 · Watercolour on found A4 paper
Historically, Florence has suffered a major flood once a century. But as documented in the press ‘the situation has actually got worse’, according to Raffaello Nardi, who heads up a special commission responsible for safeguarding the Arno river basin. This risk prompts concern, in part, because of the importance of this city: what it means to the world of art and culture.
As climate change advances and extreme weather events grow more common, we ask what if this happens here again? This anxiety raises its head every year now in Florence. Julia Race – Director of The British Institute of Florence – comments: ‘Cass’s thoughtful and moving pieces are all the more powerful in that they are made by someone who was not yet born when the flood-waters hit Florence’.
I’d like to draw your attention to a side-project that’s been quietly growing over the last few years. We call the venture A La Luz, which translates from the Spanish as “bringing to light” or “shedding light on”. Our aim is to be a platform (a spotlight) for environmentally conscious creatives.
I met my collaborator for this project – New York based photographer & film-maker Gonzaga Gómez-Cortázar – while working in his home-country of Spain in 2014. Our fundamental aim is to work with artists – those who share our own sensibilities – on film, photography & documentary projects.
From Isak Anshelm's Sea of Regret series | Image by Cass, approved by Anshelm
Just as the Climate Crisis can only be tackled collectively, so too is this project inclusive & collaborative in its nature. A La Luz intends to share, promote, act as a reference tool and to some extent to be a compendium of creative responses to climate change, guided by those we’re inspired by, and those whose paths we cross. This includes all art forms, from painting to architecture; and from theatre to literature.
We’ll also share research materials – blog posts, articles, scientific papers, creative texts – as well as book and film recommendations. Article proposals are welcome.
From James Morrison's Otto Fiord series | Image supplied by The McManus, Dundee
We believe that art carries a responsibility, that accessibility is vital and that in this day and age creatives – who have been afforded a platform – must be mindful of what’s happening to the Earth around them. This doesn’t mean that we believe all art-forms should discuss the environment, rather, that artists must consider aspects such as process & material choice.
Keep an eye on alaluz.org for a variety of articles. What we share there informs my own artistic practice too – many of the places, exhibitions, artists & artworks we feature are those I draw inspiration from.
Some 600 miles south of Ullapool [where our exhibition has just closed] the idea for this post came after visiting Olafur Eliasson’s Tate Modern exhibition In Real Life.
London – where I live currently – is a city at risk in this time of climate crisis: facing flooding, water shortages and major subsidence. By 2050, summer temperatures will be on average 5.9 degrees hotter than they are today, pushing the recent – and irresponsibly media-celebrated – “record” temperatures well into the 40s.
The city’s art and culture therefore – its public events – now carry a heavier responsibility. Though this is by no means true of London alone; locations around the world will be – or are already being – affected by climate change.
Perhaps most scrutiny is applied to those already flying a green flag, such as Eliasson, now considered a beacon of the environmental art-form.
Eliasson’s In Real Life is a dynamic (if not quite immersive) journey through earth, ice and fire, but I regret leaving the exhibition without sensing a call to arms, despite visiting thrice. There was no urgent plea communicated, not to us nor our policy makers, and I was put off by the frantic scramble to capture its energetic curation by way of selfie and Instagram-story. Nevertheless, a bit of extra research – mostly provided by Eliasson himself via his Studio Alphabet – confirms the artist as an environmental advocate of the highest order. It might just be that the key works on show failed to move me personally.
The peripheral components of In Real Life piqued my curiosity more than the touted blue-chip artworks. These include the idea to ethically transform the menu of Tate’s restaurant; his Little Sun project; and (though this hasn’t been stated as a deciding factor) the artist’s influence in Tate’s declaration of gallery-wide climate emergency.
The most impressive of these extras comes in the form of a research wall. Here, the artist presents his alphabet, sharing with us important articles, books, artworks and projects linked to our changing Earth; many with transformative powers. This research wall has inspired the following reading list. It’s significantly smaller than Eliasson’s, but, contains a considered selection of books which have been important to me in recent months, and during the creation of As Coastline is to Ocean.
Contributions and recommendations also come from my fellow exhibitor Joseph Calleja; from the gallery team; and from marine scientist Ailsa McLellan who works to raise awareness of issues facing Scotland's coastline (Ailsa gave a talk during As Coastline is to Ocean on the importance of our “underwater forests”).
An Talla Solais has a history of environmentally attentive exhibitions, and the Ullapool community is particularly attuned to the to-and-fro between land and sea. In our short time there, we’ve heard not only of Ailsa’s talk, but of beach cleans, litter-cube building sessions, conservation workshops, a marine festival, a Photofest on the topic of Borders, an ecology focussed writing course and a workshop to create climate strike banners (for the International Climate Strike on 20th September). Ullapool is a forward-looking community, defining environmental restraint and respect.
“I have found that any perceived changes in my life have occurred because of my curiosity…”
The following reading list mentions seventeen titles, united in their (wide ranging) exploration of environmental themes: from scientific commentary on the climate crisis, to poetic exploration of our coastlines. While not all of the artworks on show in As Coastline is to Ocean aim to reference environmental change directly, my own studio work in recent months has evolved into subtle campaign around the climate crisis. My hope is that I can bring my audience along with me as I learn more on the issues facing our Earth: the following list is one effort to achieve this. In following the science behind climage change, we better understand how we have reached this point, and what must be done to harness our rising global average temperature.
The first recommendation is the shortest, but packs the biggest punch. No One is Too Small to Make a Difference gathers the history-making speeches of young activist Greta Thunberg. In 2018, fifteen-year-old Thunberg decided not to go to school one day. Her actions ended up sparking a global movement for action on the climate crisis, inspiring millions to go on strike, forcing governments to listen, and earning her a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. The book is a rally-cry for why we must all wake up and fight to protect the planet, no matter who we are or how powerless we may feel. Thunberg is also quoted in the title of this blog entry; we must all be curious in order to influence change.
“If our house was falling apart, you wouldn’t hold three emergency Brexit summits, and no emergency summit regarding the breakdown of the climate and ecosystems.”
The next book offered as compliment to As Coastline is to Ocean is Underland by Robert Macfarlane. The book is both panorama, and intense study. Despite the fact that Macfarlane has focused his gaze on what lies beneath, the book soars. The locations Macfarlane traverses range from a dark-matter research station in a salt mine beneath the Yorkshire coast, to Paris’ subterranean labyrinths. From caves in the Mendips; to Olkiluoto Island on the Bothnian sea, where nuclear waste will see out its half-lives; and from the from the rivers that twist beneath the Carso plateau, to the fjords and glaciers of the Arctic, where once buried secrets are now exposed as ice departs.
These extraordinary tunnellings are merely springboards (peripheral vantage points) for discussions of a deeper and more emotional nature: the relationship between us and the Earth; and our place in what he describes as “deep time”. The author’s observations on land, coast and sea are far-reaching, with an inquisitive gaze similar to that of Eliasson’s. Macfarline makes clear that we have passed a turning point, that the climatic consequences of our rapid abuse of the Earth are now upon us.
Asides from sharing many of the environmental observations made in As Coastline is to Ocean, Macfarline also puts into words something Joseph and I discuss often: “trace fossils”. As artists working with found objects, we embrace what a collector might term “loveable scars.” In our exhibition booklet, Joseph writes of the workbench he inherited from his grandfather, etched with the work-scores, gouges and marks of three generations of Calleja. Macfarlane describes these as “the marks that the dead and the missed leave behind. Handwriting on an envelope; the wear on a wooden step left by footfall; the memory of a familiar gesture by someone gone, repeated so often it has worn its own groove in both air and mind: these are trace fossils.”
“Sometimes, in fact, all that is left behind by loss is trace – and sometimes empty volume can be easier to hold in the heart than presence itself.”
Macfarline labels us as custodians of an “empire of things … with its own unruly afterlife.” Just one such example is the finding of “plastiglomerates” – a new form of Anthropocene stone. These could be seen as the evolution of Robert Callender’s depictions of plastic beach-waste, formed of sun-melted plastic, landscape debris and organic matter. I wonder if Callender might have sculpted plastiglomerates as the next step on from Coastal Collection and Plastic Beach.
Bleaker in its outlook is The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace. Shifting between the darkly humorous – “eating organic is nice; but if your goal is to save the climate, your vote is much more important” – to despair over the United Nation’s prediction that we are on track for 4.5 degrees of warming by 2100 (following the path we are on today). Wallace serves us with point after point on where we’re headed. From the insurmountable:
“…we do not yet know how much suffering global warming will inflict. But the scale of devastation could make that debt enormous, by any measure. Larger, conceivably, than any historical debt owed one country, or one people by another, almost none of which are ever properly re-payed…”
To the baffling:
“…air conditioners and fans already account for 10% of global electricity consumption. Demand is expected to triple or perhaps quadruple by 2050. According to one estimate, the world will be adding 700 million A.C. units by just 2030. Another study suggests that by 2050 there will be, around the world, more than 9 billion cooling appliances of various kinds…”
You’re reading this blog post online, maybe on a phone, and Wallace has depressing commentary there too: “…much of the infrastructure of the internet could be drowned by sea level rise in less than two decades; and most of the smartphones we use to navigate it are today manufactured in Shenzhen, which, sitting right in the Pearl Delta, is likely to be flooded soon as well...”
Referencing The Water will Come by Jeff Goodell, Wallace runs through just a few of the monuments – in some cases, whole cultures – that will be transformed into underwater relics this century.
“Any beach you’ve ever visited … Facebook’s HQ … the Kennedy Space Centre … the US’s largest naval base … the entire nations of the Maldives and Marshall Islands … most of Bangladesh … all of Miami beach, and much of the south Florida paradise … St Mark’s Basilica in Venice … Venice Beach in Santa Monica … the Pennsylvania White House and Winter White House…”
Wallace observes that we’ve spent the millennia since Plato enamoured with a single drowned culture: Atlantis. “If Atlantis ever existed, it was probably a small archipelago of Mediterranean islands with a population of a few thousand.” By 2100, if we do not halt emissions, as much as 5% of the world’s population will be flooded every single year.
The answers to the key questions of our era – how much hotter will it get? By how much will sea levels rise? – are entirely human, that is, entirely political. How do we respond to the threats we are facing? We must urge our governments to act.
In Brave New Arctic by Mark C. Serreze we shift the focus to our planet’s thermostat – ground zero of climate-change – the Arctic. While this book is of a more scientific nature, what Serreze writes on the future of the polar region is disconcerting. Serreze describes a region which is out of control. Ice is shrinking and thinning, and we are facing ice-free Arctic summers. By 2050 – safely assuming no drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in the immediate future – the Arctic Ocean will likely have little or no sea-ice at summer’s end.
“It is a foregone conclusion, that, in future generations – whether on the ocean or on the land – the Arctic will have much less ice. Winter darkness will still bring low temperatures and with them snow and ice, but this winter cold will have significantly faded … the snow that falls and the ice that grows in winter, will not survive the stronger summer warmth. That the Arctic Ocean will become free of sea ice in late summer and early autumn is a given. The only question is how quickly it will happen. Which will depend on the relative rolls of a warming atmosphere and a warming ocean; the vagaries of natural climate variability and how quickly greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise.”
As someone who has spent his life reading Arctic data, even Serreze was taken aback when the region “reared up and roared.”
“Some of the greatest unknowns revolve around the impact of a transformed Arctic … will a warmer Arctic have significant impact on weather patterns on lower latitudes? Will this effect agricultural patterns? How quickly will sea level rise? Given prospects of increased shipping and extraction of resources, how much busier will the Arctic become? And, will this lead to conflicts? These are questions that should concern us all.”
What binds those mentioned thus far is a desire to raise awareness, to challenge our thinking, to urge communal action on environmental change. Artist Elizabeth Ogilvie questions through powerful display, whilst still inviting us in personally. Like Serreze, Ogilvie looks north. Most recently, through her impressive project (and publication) Out of Ice. Ogilvie – wife to our fellow exhibitor, the late Robert Callender – has spent her working life exploring water (though perhaps it’s more fitting to say simply her life, for she’s had a preoccupation with water since childhood). In recent years, her focus has been on ice.
Andrew Patrizio says of Ogilvie that she encourages people to see, not just to look, “to pay attention in a mindful way with the possibility that they then might act.” And, in the same way Robert Macfarlane describes the work of author Barry Lopez as “begin[ing] in the aesthetic”, yet “tend[ing] to the ethical”, the same is true of Ogilvie, who engages deeply with the topic of climate crisis, working on wide ranging collaborations, creating stunning water and film installations. Her work is part documentary, part poetry. The book she has co-produced includes insight into Inuit life, on building an igdlo, on prepping a sled; relations between ice and soil in the Anthropocene (that soil is “sealed … beneath layers of concrete and asphalt … banished to subterranean realms”); and crescendos in a series of pages exploring her exhibition of the same name in Ambika P3 gallery.
As I myself have aimed to do in several of my As Coastline is to Ocean artworks, Ogilvie approaches ice loss from peripheral vantage points. Though, it would be too much of a generalisation to state that this is a key feature of her work. She is inclusive in her commentary, offering wide ranging perspectives, in order to give her audience a more immersive experience.
“As the world looks north for indicators of its future, art gives the landscape visual and exportable form, allowing it to serve as beacon, message and reflection” – says Julie Decker in her contribution to Out of Ice. On discussing Ogilvie’s installation at Ambika P3 gallery, in which “the ice melted faster than expected” due to the body heat of guests, gallery director Katharine Heron states “…unlike the melting of the great ice caps in the polar areas, which too continues so much faster than anticipated, these blocks could indeed be replaced.”
In a change of pace, we move now to This is not a Drill by Extinction Rebellion. While Ogilvie’s work is deeply considered, to the last detail, XR present themselves quite differently, yet no less endearingly. Ogilvie draws her audience in sensitively, while XR aims to do the exact opposite, though of course, they are not presenting themselves as artists. The message is the same, however. We must act.
This is not a Drill is a short must-read for anyone unsure of XR’s aims or approaches. The book is is sincere and passionate, whilst also being informative. These are ordinary citizens who truly care, presenting themselves in unvarnished fashion, embracing the imperfections that such mass protest involves.
As the jacket-sleeve says:
“Extinction Rebellion is a global activist movement of ordinary people, demanding action from Governments. This is a book of truth and action. It has facts to arm you, stories to empower you, pages to fill in and pages to rip out, alongside instructions on how to rebel - from organising a roadblock to facing arrest.”
The beginnings of the Anthropocene will feed into the future stories we tell about ourselves and of human development.
“Human impacts are at the level of dictating the future of the only place in the universe where life is known to exist. This is a historic declaration...”
The Human Planet by Mark Maslin and Simon Lewis helps us to define the Anthropocene, and how it came about. That we are responsible for the rapid decline in our planet’s health is in no doubt…
“If you compressed the whole of Earth’s unimaginably long history into a single day, the first humans that looked like us would appear at less than four seconds to midnight. From our origins in Africa, we spread and settled on all the continents except Antarctica. Earth now supports 7.5 billion people, living on average longer and physically healthier lives than at any time in our history. In this brief time, we have created a globally integrated network of cultures of immense power. On this journey, we have also exterminated wildlife, cleared forests, planted crops, domesticated animals, released pollution, created new species and even delayed the next ice-age. Although geologically recent, our presence has had a profound impact on our home planet. We humans are not just influencing the present, for the first time in Earth’s 4.5 billion year history, a single species is increasingly dictating its future. In the past, meteorites, super volcanoes, and the slow tectonic movements of the continents radically altered the climate of Earth, and the life-forms that populated it. Now, there is a new force of nature changing earth – homo sapiens – the so called wise people”.
Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, we have released 2.2 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – increasing levels by 44%. This is acidifying the world’s oceans and raising Earth’s temperature. Human actions are altering the global carbon cycle at a faster rate than when Earth transitioned from glacial, to inter-glacial conditions.
What we are doing to the Earth is unusual in the context of all of Earth’s history. As an example, “we humans have altered the global nitrogen cycles so fundamentally that the nearest realistic geological comparison is an event almost 2.5 billion years ago.”
We have known since the 1800s that our actions have clear and damaging environmental impacts, but corporations have continued to snub warning signs.
The chapter Fossil Fuels: the Second Energy Revolution is perhaps the book’s most important, succinctly summarising how we humans have ended up where we are today.
Edward Burtynsky’s Anthropocence is an ideal illustrative companion to The Human Planet.
Our fellow exhibitor, Robert Callender, is quoted as having said of his installation Plastic Beach – in the publication A2B: An Artist’s Journey – that it’s “for our children’s children’s children.” That it was designed “to draw attention in a graphic way to the grave state of our coastline. The horrific assortment of plastic is quite alarming. Debris is both commercial and domestic but primarily commercial, reflecting the nature of our society.”
Based on all that I’ve learned about Robert, I don’t think he would have appreciated me summing his work up in a blog post, so I won’t attempt to. Though it’s precisely because of reading A2B that I’ve been able to generate an impression of a man I haven’t met, yet whose work I have held foremost in mind for many months whilst working on As Coastline is to Ocean. The clarity and honesty that characterise his works, processes and indeed his life are potent in A2B.
Callender expressed the desire to produce this edition during the short illness leading to his death in 2011. The edition documents his key works, projects, research and studio. Encased within a beautifully designed folio, A2B includes a series of bound volumes, prints and a DVD, telling of his compelling vision. Callender’s work is highly attuned, matched in quality and depth by that of Elizabeth Ogilvie. Ogilvie – who oversaw production of the edition – has shown consideration at the highest level, balancing sophisticated layout in accordance with the never-over-indulgent work of her late husband.
Associate Director of An Talla Solais, Joanna Wright, adds Barry Lopez’s Arctic Dreams to the list. Joanna states that “Lopez’s long experience of the north brought a shift of perspective to how my western mind thinks about the natural world. I loved its insistence on noticing detail, and honesty about the contradictions we are tangled in and need to see a way through.” I would also add that Lopez’s latest auto-biographical work – Horizon – as an ideal follow up to Arctic Dreams, in which a life’s travels are re-visited and his Arctic commentary re-worked to match current day data.
Marine scientist Ailsa McLellan recommends two books: first, Callum Roberts’ The Unnatural History of the Sea, “providing a readable account of the horrible mismanagement of the sea and its resources – if only we could learn lessons from it.” And on a more light-hearted note, The Essential Guide to Rockpooling by Julie Hatcher and Steve Trewhella, which she describes as “just magic”, and “opening the door to exploring that most exciting bit where the sea meets the land.”
In the same spirit, An Talla Solais’ Geraldine Murray adds Rock Pool: Extraordinary Encounters Between the Tides by Heather Buttivant.
Joseph Calleja suggests artist Katie Paterson’s recently published Monograph: an elegantly composed volume grouping each of Paterson’s key projects to date. This body of works firmly places the artist at the forefront of art today. Paterson is wide ranging in her outlook, but her works can clearly be bound by a care for the Earth, and our place in it. Like Macfarlane, Paterson too looks to deep-time.
And to end on the theme of time, Fiete Stolte’s Hotel Absence is a revelation: in particular, descriptions of his eight day week project, in which the artist’s daily routine for almost three years ceased to obey the established rhythm of the 24-hour day, structured by the rising and setting of the sun. His days each lasted 21 hours; his week eight days…
If only we had this much extra time at our disposal to grab hold of our changing Earth.
I’m thrilled to be a part of As Coastline is to Ocean [which opened on July 20th] in An Talla Solais Ullapool. The idea for the exhibition emerged as a result of ongoing dialogue between Joseph Calleja and myself, bolstered by the enthusiasm of the gallery team. Joseph shares my passion for working with found materials, and so the exhibition is a panoply of reconfigured, repurposed, recycled artworks.
Much of our output has been created in response to the work of artist Robert Callender (1932—2011) with a range of key Callender pieces included in the exhibition. Through his highly acclaimed sculpted shoreline artefacts, my own found-object based Arrangements series and Calleja’s reassembled frames, the exhibition offers artistic portrayals of both physical and metaphorical coastlines.
Calleja invites us to tunnel through the Earth to reach the gallery’s exact opposite geo-location (incidentally, it’s equidistant between New Zealand and Antarctica). Callender’s perfectly crafted sculptures imitate plastic waste, demanding closer inspection. And running in parallel with As Coastline is to Ocean is the micro-exhibition we co-curated with the gallery: Coast.
I’m presenting a series of stripped back artworks, minimal in their construction, directly referencing coastal change. Find out more on the exhibition webpage. The exhibition is supported by Creative Scotland and the Hope Scott Trust. An excerpt of the exhibition book can be viewed below, with hardcopies available in the gallery and online.
Here, in this remarkable location, we can clearly understand what one of my cherished authors – Barry Lopez – was referring to in this beautiful passage in his award-winning book Arctic Dreams. And likewise, through their intimacy of seeing, Robert Callender, David Cass and Joseph Calleja – three exceptional voices – have been influenced by both their internal and outer landscape, to produce work which is deeply thoughtful and reflective and speaks of the now.
In the now, however, we sit at a spot between a progressive landscape of deep history and the creation of an uncertain future, within the context of climate change. Post-post-modern existence is an age that is beset with issues concerning the limits of human understanding and we require solutions to the great global crises: be they ecological, social, political or economic. In other words, we face the problem of an inability to deal with the extent of challenges now threatening us.
Still, we remain positive – seeking to do our utmost in the face of adversity – as is human nature. We as individuals do take personal responsibility for our own impacts on the environment. Most harm to the natural world, though, is caused by corporations: states, business leaders, policies. They continue to repudiate any form of politically inconvenient science while we live with the urgency, alarm and unease about the ongoing impact of climate change, now releasing the unknowable forces of nature on mankind.
Consequently, we artists are answering collective cultural needs and seeking to point – but obliquely – to issues right at the top of the global agenda and involving highlighting the world’s most challenging problems and developing practical roles in environmental and social matters.
Scotland itself – a northern nation – offers so much to us artists. The legacy of great intellectuals such as scientist Patrick Geddes, geologist James Hutton (founder of modern geology) and environmental philosopher John Muir. Forerunners of modern Green politics have all acted as a catalyst for our thinking and philosophy and without a doubt this landscape in Scotland has compelled our imaginations and shaped our psyche.
A century after the Scottish Enlightenment, Patrick Geddes made clear the complex and inter-related relationships between humans and their environment. His thinking is particularly relevant today in discussion about sustainable societies. Geddes – a scientist, botanist and urban planner – understood even then that industrial development – if left unchecked – would damage the air, water and land upon which all life relies. In his words, ‘care of Mother Earth’ is the prime task of man. His abiding interest in eastern philosophy – which he believed more readily conceived of life as a whole – is very much in accord with my Inuit colleagues perceptions of the environment as a revered partner.
Geddes’ philosophy (dating back to the late 1800s) is also skillfully reflected – without moralising – in the works of Callender and Cass, while Calleja’s art is given form by his acute perception of both our inner and outer world.
Robert Callender raises reality to a higher level in his work Plastic Beach (half of which is on exhibit in As Coastline is to Ocean). His work on plastic waste dates from 2003–2008, making him a man very much ahead of his time. Environmental activism and science has only recently begun to realise the mass of this material within the world’s oceans.
Quoting an extract from Andrew Patrizio’s excellent text from A2B: An Artist’s Journey, ‘it is beguiling that Callender evokes this terrible ecological thought through paper-based materials that are as benign and vulnerable as plastic is dangerous and near-permanent.’
And in this wasteful world, it is a great achievement by these three artists, that they all use recycled materials to create their art. An art with special illuminating powers. I am full of admiration for what they have achieved and with such modest means.
So, public visiting this exhibition can really appreciate that art does not aspire to entertain. It aspires to converse. Their work truly reflects our times and poses important questions at the same time as offering so many possibilities and a positive outlook. Thanks go to the gallery, a key player in cultural life in the north of Scotland. The programme and public engagement here embodies a philosophy which we all endorse.
Quotes above from Barry Lopez and Andrew Patrizio.
Joseph & I wish to thank all at An Talla Solais (with special thanks to Joanna Wright, Victoria Caine & Geraldine Murray for their encouragement, enthusiasm & attention to detail throughout), artist Elizabeth Ogilvie (for her words above, her writing in the exhibition book & her support via Lateral Lab), artist Iain Patterson, Art North Magazine’s Ian McKay (for featuring the show) & to all artists associated with Coast (the open call accompanying the show). The exhibition is backed by both Creative Scotland & the Hope Scott Trust. An Talla Solais is also supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
I don’t usually write a monthly summary, but, there’s a lot to share this month. I’ll start by announcing a move to London. I’ll be splitting my time between the city, and my studio in the Scottish Borders. Please do get in touch if you’d like to know more. I’ve not yet set up a full studio in London, but when I do I’m more than happy to accept visitors. Work continues for upcoming show As Coastline is to Ocean, despite the move.
May also marks the launch of Mark Haddon’s The Porpoise. Last year I was approached by Suzanne Dean (Penguin/Vintage) and asked to work with her on the design of the hardback book’s covers. I elaborate on the process in a previous blog post. The Porpoise is now available in hardback and digital formats, I’d highly recommend this powerful & utterly immersive novel. The audiobook is brilliantly narrated by Tim McInnerny.
From audiobooks to podcasts: earlier this month I was interviewed by Work in Progress podcast about art, life and environmental issues. I discussed Rising Horizon, As Coastline is to Ocean, working on The Porpoise and more. Hear the whole episode in the player below.
The painting comes from my Found series: a body of work which resulted in exhibitions such as Unearthed, Years of Dust & Dry and Surface. The series recently evolved into my Rising Horizon project which can be explored on this page. This latest grouping of works sees a shift from (mostly) wooden surfaces to (mostly) metal ones; and from watercolour paints to oils. Several Rising Horizon works are now available.
My next exhibition is As Coastline is to Ocean: a project discussing the topic of the coast from a variety of perspectives; alongside artist Joseph Calleja and works by the late Robert Callender. A selection of my Rising Horizon works will be exhibited in this show, alongside a new series of Arrangements. By way of their materials, these Arrangements mix elements from my two largest bodies of work, but use no paint. Instead, found items are wrapped, cast, cropped and pasted to mimic sea surfaces and coastal shapes. The works follow the environmental thread that binds all my work, and focus on the topic of coastal change. Digitally manipulated found sea photographs and 8mm film projections feature, alongside collage works and gallery specific installations. We’re delighted to be exhibiting the project with An Talla Solais (Ullapool), with backing from Creative Scotland & Hope Scott Trust. We’re also running an Open Call [now closed] alongside our show, asking artists to respond to the topic of coastal change.
The Porpoise used my painting Folds as a foundation. The paintwork is in gouache (the lettering too) and the surface made from antique board, found at a Brussels flea market
Scotland is the first significant landfall within northern Europe when coming from the Arctic: Dunnet Head lies less than ~400 miles south of the Arctic Circle boundary. Scottish-Arctic neighbourship was celebrated during Arctic Day, through a variety of events, workshops and debates, mostly with a climate focus.
Climate change is already having serious consequences in the Arctic, endangering its pristine environment as well as its inhabitants’ lifestyles. Arctic sea ice is receding at speed. The region is ground zero of climate change: a temperature increase of 2% worldwide might as well mean an increase of 4–5 degrees within the Arctic Circle. On the day, Dr Laura Watts described the Arctic as becoming “a sea of collaborative coastlines”, an “archipelago of test sites” in tackling the issues it faces.
A key focus during the day was Scotland’s climate change initiatives. A leader in energy innovation and a renewable energy pioneer, the Scottish Government has pledged to decarbonise the country completely by 2050. Yet, despite its 2050 target, this action may still not be rapid enough. While the country recognises that it’s taking positive steps forward – not least in establishing the world’s first Climate Justice Fund, which now supports climate adaption projects in developing countries – First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has acknowledged that “we are still a long way behind countries such as Iceland and Norway. And so increasingly, we want to work with and learn from countries in the Arctic to help achieve our ambitions.” Solutions presented on the day stressed the importance of collaboration and re-localising communities.
We heard from the director of Transition Black Isle – one of many establishing transition locations – that even if the entire planet became carbon neutral tomorrow, we would still struggle to meet the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement. Transition believes that coming together as communities is key in harnessing our global average temperature. In the Black Isle peninsula and on Orkney, residents are working together to transform their approaches to achieve sustainable pathways: addressing the need for always local futures.
Dr Laura Watts introduced her project Energy at the End of the World, presenting Orkney as a prime example of northern sustainability: “Orkney has been making technology for six thousand years, from arrowheads and stone circles to wave and tide energy prototypes. The islanders turned to energy innovation when forced to contend with an energy infrastructure they had outgrown. Today, Orkney is home to the European Marine Energy Centre … the islands generate more renewable energy than they use, are growing hydrogen fuel and electric car networks, and have hundreds of locally owned micro wind turbines and a decade-old smart grid.”
The role of artists in exploring and presenting these issues is vital. I was on hand to discuss my own ongoing and upcoming artistic projects – including the environmentally focussed Rising Horizon series, as well as a summer program at An Talla Solais comprising an exhibition, open call and more – but was also there to learn more about Scotland’s climate initiatives and the impact of climate change in the north and Arctic region.
Art can bridge the gap between public awareness and science and a rich catalogue of northern artists are trailblazing this ground, presenting wide ranging environmental commentary.
Take Fife based artist Elizabeth Ogilvie, who has dedicated an entire career to the study of water: from an environmental standpoint, to poetic observation. Ogilvie’s recent project Out of Ice speaks of the threat to some of our most precious natural elements: the ice sheets.
Take Finnish duo Pekka Niittyvirta & Timo Aho’s intervention piece Lines 57° 59 ́N, 7° 16 ́W created for Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum in Lochmaddy on the island of North Uist. Their site-specific installation uses LED strip-lights to show where the water will flow during storm surges if the Earth’s temperature continues to rise.
Take Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson’s Ice Watch installations: sets of ice boulders – harvested from a fjord outside Nuuk, Greenland – positioned in circular arrangements reminiscent of clock-faces… reminders that time is running out for meaningful action.
Horizon 42% 2019
Oil & varnishes on copper boiler · 79 x 70 x 30 cm
I consider myself a north-looking artist exploring global themes. The painting ‘42%’ was exhibited during Arctic Day.
Painted upon a vintage copper boiler, the height of this seascape’s horizon-line rests at 42%. I’m presenting this artwork for two reasons. The piece is an illustration of where we’re at – providing fact-based commentary on sea rise whilst also marking progress:
Firstly, 42% is the proportion that thermal expansion contributes to overall sea rise (apt given the painting’s past function: to warm water).
Secondly, 42% is a really important figure for Scotland: this was the goal set to cut carbon emissions by before 2020. That goal was achieved six years ahead of schedule. The same goal beating must be achieved in total decarbonisation.
Filmed live in The Scottish Gallery, the below offers an overview of my Rising Horizon series, by way of a conversation between Prof. Dave Reay (Chair in Carbon Management at Edinburgh University) and myself.
Also in attendance during Arctic Day was Art North Magazine. Art North ran a series of features covering my Rising Horizon series earlier this year:
Introduction | Like a Whisper in Your Ear | Ten Points | Materiality & Focus | Forest Fire Aftermath | Horizonte, horizontes, horizonten
