THE new home for one of Scotland's leading art galleries is to open its doors to the public.
The Ingleby Gallery, a commercial contemporary art gallery in Edinburgh, has officially opened its new premises in the former Meeting House of the Glasite Church.
The first show at the new site is by the artist Callum Innes, who also took part in the gallery's first exhibition, twenty years ago in 1998.
The stone building, empty for many years, is the latest location for the gallery which first opened in Florence and Richard Ingleby's Edinburgh house, before moving to a space on Calton Road in 2008.
That site, the largest private contemporary art gallery outside of London, closed in 2016 but now the gallery has a significant new home in the city centre.
The former Glasite Church, a small Christian sect, is an A-listed stone building dating from the 1830s.
Florence Ingleby, Ingleby Gallery co-founder, said: "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."
The solo exhibition presents a new series of large-scale 'Exposed Paintings' by Innes, which explore the colour blue.
Innes, born in Edinburgh in 1962, said: "People often describe my work as 'unpainting', which I don't really like, it is painting, I'm applying colour and pigment all the time, and I am removing it, but leaving the remnants of each layer".
The building has largely been unused for three decades, and has been restored and refurbished by Helen Lucas Architects, working alongside the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust (SHBT).
The new gallery will showcase five exhibitions per year in the glass-domed space at the centre of the property.
Upstairs, in the former feasting room, there is more exhibition space.
Ingleby Gallery has worked with a series of leading contemporary artists including Charles Avery, Innes, and the late Ian Hamilton Finlay, among others.
The Glasites were a breakaway group of worshippers from the Church of Scotland, and the building once had a large pulpit - it has now been removed and put in storage.
The building is owned by the SHBT, who recently used it as offices.
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