Every year the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh mounts an exhibition of small scale art for Christmas. The selected exhibiting artists range from the well known to the newly fledged, but each are given a 21cm x 15cm postcard-sized "canvas" to work on. Over 400 of these rather surprisingly detailed works are displayed in the front rooms of the gallery, mounted in a “democratising grid”, as the gallery have it, and it’s a stimulating browse – and a moment’s respite from the high watt festive shenanigans going on up the hill in the centre of town.
The variety is vast, from miniature landscapes to mixed media, sketches to fully worked oils, and there are some real gems. Artists include Ruth Brownlee, Rachel Ross, Leon Morocco, Henry Kondriaki, and many others.
In the remaining rooms, dotted with ceramics of many traditions and jewellery, the gallery has its “Director’s Choice” exhibition, a larger scale variety show of established Open Eye artists, from Barbara Rae to Brendan Burns and Chris Bushe. The price tags are proportionately higher, of course, along with the scale – in both size and artistic reputation – but the useful thing about this set of Christmas exhibitions is that, with the festivities just around the corner, if you are not in the market for a £12,500 large-scale landscape by Bushe, say, you might just be able to nab one of his postcards, perfect miniature landscapes with just the same generous application of oils.
Christmas Exhibitions, The Open Eye Gallery, 34 Abercromby Place, Edinburgh, 0131 557 1020, www.openeyegallery.co.uk, Until 23 Dec
Mon–Fri, 10am–6pm; Sat 10am–4pm (23 Dec, 10am–2pm)
Brendan Burns ‘Zing’ oil and wax on linen, 160 x 200 cm. Courtesy Brendan Burns / Osborne Samuel Gallery / Open Eye Gallery
Barbara Rae RA CBE ‘Winter, Ménerbes’ mixed media on paper, 84 x 91 cm. Courtesy Barbara Rae / Open Eye Gallery
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