This year, our Visual Arts Programme Curator, Cathy Shankland, sums up what’s happened over the last year (2023) in the gallery spaces, and highlights what to look forward to in 2024…
“It has been another exciting year for the Exhibitions team at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery (IMAG). It has flown past so quickly but amongst our many shows and activities we had some great highlights in 2023!
The Crocodile Weeps for Joy, © Alan Davie (1920–2014), Highland Council.
We started and ended the year with animals – All Creatures Great and Small from the Crafts Council in January and Animalia in December, which both looked at artists’ approaches to the animal kingdom. In fact, we have had a bit of an environmental theme throughout the year with our Left at the Mountain, North to the Sea exhibition, where Highland artists displayed their approach to the landscape of the north. It’s been good to get out and dust off some of the gems from our collections too – there’s still some on display now as part of the Animalia exhibition, which will show until 27 January 2024.
Original illustrations by Mairi Hedderwick of the Katie Morag children’s books graced our Small Gallery at both IMAG and the North Coast Visitor Centre in Thurso in the springtime, much to the delight of the younger fans.
One of the undoubted attractions of the summer was The Glasgow Girls and Boys from the Fleming Collection, appreciated by many of our summer visitors. New LED lighting was installed in the galleries just in time to see the artworks in all their glory!
Leon Patchett’s exhibition An Inspired Scavenger in the Main Art Gallery, Autumn 2023. Photograph © Lar Macgregor
In the autumn, we hosted part of the always intriguing Flow festival of photography, followed by Cromarty-based artist Leon Patchett, who revealed his wonderful new work in the Main Art Gallery and presented an interesting talk. In An Inspired Scavenger: Adventures in Wood and Other Found Objects, Leon demonstrated how material gathered in the local environment could be transformed into the stunning constructions which fascinated visitors, large and small, to the museum.
Meantime, in the Small Art Gallery, for Black History month in October, a moving film portrait by artist Graham Fagen of Sir Geoff Palmer OBE, the first black university professor in Scotland, human rights activist and historian of Scotland’s relations with the Caribbean charmed us all with his remarkable story. The portrait was commissioned by National Galleries Scotland.
The Exhibitions team is made up of the Visual Arts Programme Curator, and two part time Assistant Visual Arts Programme Curators, who are both practising artists in their other lives. We aim to bring many different kinds of art to the galleries that people would have to travel quite far afield to see otherwise. We have 3 gallery spaces to programme and each has a different brief. In the Main Gallery, we try to provide something mainstream – our high-profile exhibitions are usually exhibited there, and we try and balance these with the work of contemporary Scottish artists too. We seek many different partners so we can present a wide variety of art forms in the galleries and this year we worked with the Crafts Council, Flow Photofest, National Galleries Scotland, The Fleming Collection and others.
The Small Gallery is for more experimental work, often profiling new graduates or emerging artists, film or installation work or prints and drawings. Currently we have Debbie Lee’s exquisite embroideries exhibited there, which have been selling fast!
In the Foyer Gallery we tend to showcase Highland craft makers. Although many makers sell online through their own websites, we think people still like to see the work in real time.
A portrait of our Visual Arts Programme Curator, Cathy Shankland, by the late © John Byrne (detail)
This year we lost one of our great Scottish artists, John Byrne – a personal loss as well as a public one. We had a wonderful retrospective of his work, Sitting Ducks, in collaboration with the National Galleries Scotland and Brown’s Gallery, a few years ago and I was privileged to have had my portrait drawn by him. In spite of his brilliance as a famous artist and a playwright, he was a gentle and kindly soul who made us all laugh with his offbeat sense of humour. It was a privilege to have spent time with him. There are currently two of John’s paintings on display in the Main Art Gallery as part of the Animalia exhibition (until 27 January 2024).
Behind the scenes we are working on our programme for up to 2 years ahead. We kick off 2024 with the Bird Photographer of the Year 2023, which includes some stunning images – we hope these will be a crowd-pleaser. Then we look forward to bringing more new Scottish work to the galleries in a show by James Lumsden and Eric Cruikshank. In the spring, the internationally renowned Charlotte Hodes’s exhibition Conversations en plein air, will be displayed. The artist, who combines fine and applied art, immerses the viewer in a joyful, colourful and poetic picnic. Check our website for full details about our upcoming exhibitions or subscribe to our bi-monthly e-newsletter here.
We also run our Visual Artist and Craft Makers Awards scheme for Highlands, Moray and Western Isles which is funded by Creative Scotland. Artists can apply for small bursaries which help them to establish or develop their practice. The next round closes on 6 February. VACMA is hugely popular with many more applicants than funds available! We find all sorts of interesting artists practising in the Highlands and Islands through the scheme to whom we sometimes offer an exhibition opportunity.
We start up a new session of the popular art classes with artist Jana Emburey on 24 February 2024 for all those aspiring artists out there looking to brush up their technique.
Thank you for visiting us this year. We look forward to welcoming old friends and new to the galleries in 2024 and wish you all a happy new and creative year!”
