ALISON WATT. PERTH, SCOTLAND.

Generation, part 2. 16th of July, 2014. 

Installation view including Source III (1995).

I’m something of an Alison Watt fangirl. Not only does the visual look of her work get me in all of my spots (tactile, feminist, introspective), but I truly believe she’s one of the most interesting artists working in Scotland today. Her impressive CV shows that I’m not alone in thinking this: she was commissioned to paint the Queen Mother while still a student at Glasgow and she was the youngest artists to be made Artist in Residence at the National Gallery in London. She’s managed to engage with the neo-conceptualist Scotia Nostra type artists without abandoning painting and while continually engaging with the (currently unfashionable) history of art. She manages to pull together Douglas Gordon and Ingres in the same canvas: not an easy task. And so while my Generation to-do list was long and impossible, the one unmissable exhibition for me was the Alison Watt exhibition at the Perth Museum and Art Gallery. 

Instead of going alone like I did in Edinburgh, I took along my fellow art history graduate, Rachel. She loves Alison Watt even more that I do— she manages to still get excited about her even after writing 4,000 words on her for our Post-War Scottish Art module. We timed our visit to coincide with an illustrated talk that was being given by Ben Harmen, a curator who has worked with her in the past and is currently the Director of the Stills Gallery (Edinburgh). He covered a lot of ground in his presentation, touching on her connections to her contemporaries, the influence of London’s National Gallery on her development, and the influence on her of various older artists including Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Gustave Courbet, Lucio Fontana, Francisco de Zurbarán, and Francesca Woodman. 

While it was all interesting, it was rather a lot to discuss in the time given. He did spark my interest in a few of those artists though, so while he didn’t give me all of the depth I could’ve wanted, I’m happy to do some digging on my own. It’s also worth mentioning that Rachel and I had probably studied Watt’s work a bit too deeply to really be his target audience. On that note, I should mention Rachel’s main complaint: Harmen hardly mentioned vaginas at all and the female body, even in its absence, is really where Watt’s work begins. It was rather a glaring omission for us. 

Rachel outside the museum. 

After the talk was over, we finally got to go see the paintings in person. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen her work— one of her fabric works, Flexion, hangs in the café of the Scottish Parliament Building— but I’d never seen them like this. The hanging and curation was fantastic and really made the paintings shine in the space. Only a small collection of her work was shown, but that allowed each work to make a substantial impact. The space was small, consisting of two intimate rooms, and it was arranged chronologically, so that the first room showed her figurative works and the second showed her more recent fabric paintings. It created a wonderful narrative, letting the viewer discover her progress and transitions by example rather than with wordy wall texts. Each piece was given ample space on the wall and was lighted spectacularly, giving each work its own aura— you can see this in the photo from the exhibition entrance.  Surrounded by light and set apart, the paintings become all the more intimate and spiritually charged. If any more paintings were included, it would’ve felt crammed and lost that magnificent feeling. And because they had an almost ideal selection of her work, ranging from her student days to work created this year, the small show felt entirely complete.

Lusting over Suspended (1999)

The paintings themselves were better than I could’ve anticipated. I’d seen many of them in reproduction, but photographs can’t do them justice. There’s so much depth in her apparently simple compositions. The blacks and whites are full of subtle colouring: pinks and greens and yellows. You can see her gentle brush strokes so clearly in person, making it feel tactile and intimate. For me, this gave them a meditative quality that I wasn’t expecting. They acted on me like a Rothko does. Her newer paintings, Fount (2011) and Orion (2014) signal perhaps a new development in her work. Rather than fabric, the paintings seemed more bone-like. It was with these, and Orion specifically, that the importance of the void and how absence can become a presence itself really gripped me. It’s always been an important element— she’s talked about how the majority of her work is about  ‘the transformation of an object into an idea’  and it’s clear that absence fuelled her move to fabrics— but with these bone-like works, it feels like the void is the subject in a way it hasn’t been before. 

Alison Watt is a stunning, feminist and painterly counterpoint to the Environmental Art course artists and to the hyper masculine New Glasgow Boys before them. For that reason alone, this show in Perth would be worth visiting. With the excellent curation, it’d be criminal to miss it if you’re able to. Alison herself will be in Perth on the 4th of September to discuss her work, so if you were looking for the perfect opportunity, that would be it. She's one of those artists who speaks wonderfully about their work.  I realise I’m gushing here, but what can I say. I’m smitten. 

The River Tay

After leaving, Rachel and I went for a lovely lunch across the road at the Caffe Canto Bistro where an adorable lady served us an excellent lunch. I ended the day with a nice stroll down the River Tay. 

EXHIBITIONS VISITED:

Perth Museum and Art Gallery. Generation: Alison Watt. 6th of June - 28th September. 78 George Street, Perth.

See here for my first Generation discussion.