Galleries: Dark tales from Nevay netherland

This new work follows on from Heather being invited by the Royal West of England Academy to take part in an exhibition in Bristol called Strange Worlds: The Vision of Angela Carter. The show celebrated the life, work and influences of Bristol-based novelist Angela Carter, a quarter of a century after her death. Just as they do in Carter's stories, dark tales abound in the art of Heather Nevay.

I first met Heather over a decade ago and she is a cheery sort for someone who cooks up a feast of creepy yet beautiful visual scenarios. When we meet at the Stallan-Brand Gallery, she looks every inch the artist; trademark black beret perched at an angle on blonde hair, a slash of red on her lips and a twinkle in her eye. She is grinning as she opens the front door of the gallery at the entrance to architectural firm's offices.

This is a small exhibition consisting of nine oil paintings and eight drawings. Heather paints slowly and the detail in her work is testament to a work ethic which marries with her fiercely creative spirit. I'm drawn to a painting called Falling Asleep. It depicts two skinny girls in diaphanous white nightwear, tied with blue satin sashes. They are falling horizontally from the top of a high-rise doll's house with its exterior removed. It is night time and trees are casting dark shadows behind the house. The girls stare impassively at the viewer, their white blonde hair an extension of their gowns. Exotic ornamental circus animals with extravagant moustaches and beards perch inside and outside the doll's house. There are ladders positioned within the house to add to the feeling it's an elaborate game.

Unexpectdly, I find myself unearthing a terrifying dream from my early childhood and regaling the artist with the gory details. It dates back to a time I shared a bedroom in a sprawling old manse with my big brother. In the window of this bedroom, which creaked and groaned along with the rest of the house, we piled our soft toys on the sill; mainly to keep out the drafts. I often woke suddenly from underneath my candlewick bedspread and bri-nylon sheets believing the toys were coming alive but one night, I dreamed I was falling inside a deep and endless well. I screamed for help and saw my seven year old brother – now grown-up standing beside a woman who I took to be a wife – staring down at me and laughing maniacally. There are not many dreams I've remembered all my life by this is one. For all I know, my younger self is still down that well raging against the dying light – not to mention my brother.

Heather looks bemused as I tell her this story. She is evidently used to people unburdening stories from the dark recesses of their psyche on viewing her paintings. We move on and the next work is called Long Days of Summer. In this picture, two young girls; one with cascading curly black hair, and one with blonde wavy tresses stare out impassively. The black-haired girl is standing beside a single bed with a traditional wooden headboard bed. The mattress is covered with a crimson-coloured candlewick bedspread which cascades onto the grass. The other girl sits on the bed. They are wearing old-fashioned black school pinafores, white shirts and knee-length skirts. The bed is sheltered under a tree with Renaissance-style fields in the background. Two doppelgänger-style dolls have been cast aside – as have a couple of oranges.

Elsewhere, in a painting called The Lesson, the same girls lie naked and side-by-side on a canopy under a tree in a woodland glade.

Pairs of girls feature regularly in Heather's work; either different girls or versions of the same girl a few years apart. In The Fall, a well-dressed girl with a neat pig-tail trailing down her back tied up by a yellow ribbon examines an explosion of priapic foliage. Yellow birds dart around a louche older version of the girl who sits to the left of the tree. The colours are exquisite.

Heather is keen for the viewer to bring their own narratives to her work. "My paintings are not overt," she is at pains to stress. "It's all about creating an atmosphere. There's a few changes in this new work. I haven’t done night before, for example. I am trying to create a feeling of foreboding and danger."

A spin-off from this new work is a series of drawings with titles such as Thorns: Pain or Pleasure and Pleasure Purse, created as preparatory sketches for a series of etchings Heather has been working on at Glasgow Print Studio. Unlike other drawings on show, which are studies for the paintings, these botanical drawings exist as things of sensual beauty in their own right. Even in these drawings of exotic flowers, there is the inevitable Nevay touch of danger in the shape of red thorns or dangerous looking berries.

Like all good things, this exhibition has all too short a date. In this case, it ends a week tomorrow (Sunday) before heading to the London Art Fair in January, where it will be showcased by Portal Painters.

Catch it while you can.

Heather Nevay, Stallan-Brand Gallery, 80 Nicholson St , Glasgow, G5 9ER, www.heather@heathernevay.net. Until November 25. Open Mon-Fri, 10.30am-4.30pm

CRITIC'S CHOICE

It's not often you catch a two-for-one dream ticket featuring the stellar talents of Alasdair Gray and John Byrne under one roof, but if you make your way to the RGI Kelly Gallery in Glasgow you will find just such an offering. The Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Art's private gallery has been closed for some time but it has re-opened with a new selling exhibition featuring the work of Gray and Byrne. The two men are both known for visual art as much as for writing, but as Two Great Glasgow Polymaths reveals, visual storytelling is a key driver in the way they both approach making art.

Gray is best known for his landmark novel, Lanark, which he illustrated himself, as well as a host of novels, short stories and other works. Byrne is the creator of classics such as The Slab Boys Trilogy and Tutti Frutti, both of which have been presented on on stage and screen.

Firstly; let's address the elephant in the room… when I posted pictures from the exhibition on social media last week, I was immediately met by indignant comments to the effect that John Byrne is not a Glasgow Polymath, but a Paisley Polymath. He is a Paisley Buddie, this much is true. But Byrne has had a long association with Glasgow, since attending the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) from 1958 to 1963, so I think we're going to have to roll with this one.

There are 16 original works in this show from Byrne and 14 by Gray. Most of the work was made at Glasgow Print Studio (GPS). There is only one work in this exhibition which is not an original print and that is an oil on paper portrait of Danielle O'Shaughnessy by Gray from 1972 (not for sale).

Faust in his Study shows off Gray's skills a visual narrator at the top his game. This densely packed black and white print bears the imprint of the hallmark gallows humour we have come to expect from the 88-year-old artist, including a flayed authorial figure holding a head in his hands. Beside the head is a notebook on which is written, Alasdair Gray 1934 – ?

It's interesting to see the work of the artists sit cheek-by-jowl. Byrne has a liking for hand-colouring and adding various media to his etchings, screenprints and monotypes. Gray, meanwhile hands over his work to the GPS to be printed and leaves them to it.

Stand out works in the show for me include Byrne's Tutti Frutti screen print and mixed media (2016) and his inimitable monotype self-portraits, cigarette dangling from whiskers and wearing trademark stripey top. I've always liked Gray's Scots Hippo series, a translation by Gray of TS Eliot’s, nine-stanza poem, The Hippopotamus, into Scots and they are here, arrayed in all their glory. We Will All Go Down Into The Streets of Water (2008) is one of five screen prints which illustrate and present Gray's own poems. It is a masterclass in melding words and pictures.

Alasdair Gray & John Byrne: Two Great Glasgow Polymaths, RGI Kelly Gallery, 118 Douglas Street, Glasgow, G2 4ET, 0141 248 6386, www.royalglasgowinstitute.org Ends January 30. Tue-Sat, 10am-5pm. Free

DON'T MISS

Yes, there is no escape. Christmas is coming. This weekend, Becky Walker's Green Gallery in Buchlyvie opens its doors for a two day-long Christmas Fair featuring one off designs by a host of makers, including; Snapdragon, Sally Walkinshaw, Nikky d'Aguilar and Hayley Banks. Alongside this feast of design, the Green Gallery's annual Christmas exhibition also opens its doors and will continue until Christmas Eve.

Christmas Exhibition, The Green Gallery, The Coachhouse, Ballamenoch, Buchlyvie, Stirlingshire, FK8 3NX, 01360 850180, www.greengallery.com. Until December 24. Free