ONE of Scotland's leading contemporary art galleries is to reveal its new home - the former meeting house of a small religious sect in Edinburgh.
Two years after leaving its premises on Calton Road in the capital, the Ingleby Gallery is to establish a major new gallery in the austere former Glasite Church, an A-listed stone building dating from the 1830s.
The new gallery will use the building's large main meeting room as its gallery space, with the former 'feast room', where worshippers ate during the sect's lengthy services, as a secondary space and art viewing area.
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Work is currently being carried out to transform the interior of the large building in time for its public opening on May 12.
For its inaugural show it will stage an exhibition by the painter Callum Innes, who took part in the Ingleby's first exhibition in 1998 - the new gallery and the show will also mark the gallery's 20th anniversary.
The new gallery will add to the capital's developing visual art venue scene: the Collective Gallery is to open on Calton Hill this year.
The new venue will be the Ingleby Gallery's third as before it was based in the former Venue music venue from 2008 to 2016, it staged shows in two rooms of the Edinburgh home of co-founders Richard and Florence Ingleby.
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Ingleby Gallery has represented some of Scotland's leading contemporary artists such as Charles Avery, Callum Innes, Katie Paterson and Alison Watt as well as the work of the late Ian Hamilton Finlay, creator of Little Sparta.
The Glasite Meeting House was built in 1835 and designed by the architect Alexander Black.
The Glasites were a breakaway group of Church of Scotland worshippers, and the building had a large pulpit - this has now been removed and put into storage.
The building is owned by the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust, who until recently used it as offices.
Florence Ingleby said: "We are fortunate to work with world class artists at many different stages of their careers.
"In order to best support them and the network of collectors with whom we have worked with over the past 20 years, we are opening a new space in the city that will allow us to show their work in the best possible way.
"The former Glasite Meeting House is an extraordinary building that has lain empty for a generation, it offers an exceptional location from which to develop the next chapter of the Gallery’s history.’
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The building is being restored and refurbished by Helen Lucas Architects.
The gallerists say they will show five exhibitions a year in the venue.
Once in use, it will will be open to the public from Wednesday to Sunday between 11-5pm.
The Innes show will be a solo exhibition, and include a new series of large 'Exposed Paintings'.
Innes was born in Edinburgh in 1962 and studied at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen and Edinburgh College of Art.
He was short-listed for the Turner and Jerwood Prizes in 1995, won the prestigious NatWest Prize for Painting in 1998, and in 2002 was awarded the Jerwood Prize for Painting.
A major survey exhibition of Innes’ work, I’ll Close My Eyes was presented at the De Pont Museum, Netherlands from the winter of 2016 to spring 2017.
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