As an archaeologist turned artist with an abiding passion for rock-climbing thrown in, Clare Yarrington has had more reason than most to ponder this truth. In her latest solo exhibition, she examines in delicately forensic detail what it is to be a figure passing through the landscape.
Yarrington uses a variety of techniques to convey her vision of an environment on which mankind leaves its marks as clues for those who follow. Her mixed-media collages and collographs have non-specific titles such as Between the Land and The Sea and Coast, and are like a jigsaw puzzle of land, sky and sea. She is aiming, she says, to convey that gut feeling of what it is like to be out there and in among it all.
In seeming contrast, her finely drawn figures of climbers – she prints in the hands and feet, then draws in detail in graphite, charcoal or pen and ink – have a precision which echoes that feeling climbers have of being rooted to the landscape by watching the precise movements of hand and foot.
Yarrington is this year’s recipient of the JD Fergusson Arts Award. The award was set up by the JD Fergusson Foundation in 1995 and alternates year on year between an exhibition award (which allows the winner to mount a solo show in the Fergusson Gallery) and a travel bursary (which lets the winner travel anywhere in the world to help develop their art). Aimed at promising Scottish artists who have not yet received major recognition, its past winners include Daisy Richardson, Jim Bond and Gillian Forbes.
The Fergusson Gallery, which is housed in the former Perth Waterworks, boasts the world’s largest collection of work by the celebrated Scottish Colourist John Duncan Fergusson. The work was donated to Perth and Kinross District Council in 1991 and celebrates the joyous energy which the Edinburgh-born Fergusson brought to bear on all his art.
He moved from Paris to Glasgow in 1939, at the age of 65, with his wife, the dancer Margaret Morris, and the couple brought their Bohemian spirit to bear on an art scene hungry for outside influence. Fergusson was never fully embraced by the Scottish art establishment during his lifetime and, according to author and gallery owner Roger Bilcliffe, the spirit of the award which carries his name is to champion independent artists trying to make their way in a tough environment.
In many ways, Yarrington’s work, which throws up questions and challenges about the footsteps we leave behind, can be said to sum up the quest of all artists, including Fergusson, to chart their own particular trail through life. “An artist friend told me I made art like an archaeologist,” she says. “She meant the way I piece things together, and I guess she’s right. Just like putting a pre-historic bowl together, my collage work is all about piecing and linking. Just like memory, we remember fragments. Not the coherent picture.”
Clare Yarrington, From Here to There: New Work
Fergusson Gallery
Marshall Place, Perth
01738 783425
www.clareyarrington.com
Until January 23
Mon-Sat, 10am-5pm
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