Part I · Part II
Rising Horizon
2019 · The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
This ongoing painting project began in 2017, directly after the exhibition Pelàda. Pelàda focussed on Venice – a city already feeling the force of sea level rise. Here, in this more recent project, the global issue of sea rise is discussed, without focussing on one location.
Each one of these artworks has been painted from imagination. Most are titled as a percentage, charting an ascending horizon-line. Every piece has been painted upon a recycled substrate. The idea for this show was to use mostly metal supports, though there are a couple on wood and a series on recycled (re-formed) plastics, too. Often, the surfaces themselves make reference to reasons behind sea rise: a copper boiler hints at thermal expansion; steel advertisements for motor oil and road signs reference pollution and over consumption.
The exhibition was given two double-page spreads in The Scotsman, featured in a series of Art North blog posts and selected as The Herald’s critic’s choice.