Alasdair Wallace’s new solo exhibition – ‘Soluble City’ – his eighth at the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, opened on Thursday 6 November at our Charlotte Street gallery. Wallace came down from Glasgow for the opening, a hugely enjoyable occasion at which over the half the works sold. The show continues until the 29 November.
Alasdair Wallace’s art is suffused with the surrealism of the everyday. It abounds in strange juxtapositions: an open book resting in a tree; a horse with a can of baked beans; the unexplained appearance of bass-drum in the middle of woodland glade. For all its strangeness, though, and for all the dreamlike quality of its representation, this is a world rooted in reality.
Born in Drumchapel on the western edge of Glasgow in 1967, Wallace grew up on that unfixed and unsettling margin between the modern city and the countryside that surrounds it. The world of his childhood was one of tower-blocks silhouetted against the distant hills, where the sodium-glare of a street lamp might suddenly illuminate a fox, where abandoned domestic appliances hung in the branches of thorn bushes, and wind-born Tesco bags sported with the circling birds.
Wallace, in his painting, has drawn on this distinctive milieu and distilled something rare from its essence. More than this, though, he has imbued his distillation with life, with humour, with mystery and with a subtle sense of pathos. It is a unique vision and one that he has refined and enriched over the past two decades of work.
The recurrent elements in his artistic landscape have gained an almost symbolic force. Wallace himself calls them ‘absurd icons’. Birds act as mute witnesses to the unfolding scene. A mysterious dog reappears at intervals - now red, now blue – an elusive but essentially benign presence. The human figures that inhabit his curious landscape are, unsurprisingly, touched by its oddness. Sometimes they are buoyed up by their own innocence. Often they are completely overwhelmed by their surroundings.
The individuality of Wallace’s vision is matched by the individuality of his technique. The profound impact of his pictures derives in part from the great skill and care with which they are painted. Having trained at the Glasgow School of Art (where he won the J.D. Kelly Award for the most promising student in his year), he has continued to refine his painting-style over the succeeding decades. Colours are built up through layers of under-painting, to achieve an almost gem-like luminescence. His images glow with colour and detail, like the small panel-paintings of the early Italian or Flemish masters.
Scotland has been almost unique on the Contemporary Art scene in retaining its commitment both to painting and the imagination. Much exceptional work has been produced as a result. Alasdair Wallace stands near the heart of this vigorous tradition. His work provides a window into an unexplained world, at once recognizable and bizarre.
Matthew Sturgis
2008
Born in Drumchapel on the western edge of Glasgow in 1967, Wallace grew up on that unfixed and unsettling margin between the modern city and the countryside that surrounds it. The world of his childhood was one of tower-blocks silhouetted against the distant hills, where the sodium-glare of a street lamp might suddenly illuminate a fox, where abandoned domestic appliances hung in the branches of thorn bushes, and wind-born Tesco bags sported with the circling birds.
Wallace, in his painting, has drawn on this distinctive milieu and distilled something rare from its essence. More than this, though, he has imbued his distillation with life, with humour, with mystery and with a subtle sense of pathos. It is a unique vision and one that he has refined and enriched over the past two decades of work.
The recurrent elements in his artistic landscape have gained an almost symbolic force. Wallace himself calls them ‘absurd icons’. Birds act as mute witnesses to the unfolding scene. A mysterious dog reappears at intervals - now red, now blue – an elusive but essentially benign presence. The human figures that inhabit his curious landscape are, unsurprisingly, touched by its oddness. Sometimes they are buoyed up by their own innocence. Often they are completely overwhelmed by their surroundings.
The individuality of Wallace’s vision is matched by the individuality of his technique. The profound impact of his pictures derives in part from the great skill and care with which they are painted. Having trained at the Glasgow School of Art (where he won the J.D. Kelly Award for the most promising student in his year), he has continued to refine his painting-style over the succeeding decades. Colours are built up through layers of under-painting, to achieve an almost gem-like luminescence. His images glow with colour and detail, like the small panel-paintings of the early Italian or Flemish masters.
Scotland has been almost unique on the Contemporary Art scene in retaining its commitment both to painting and the imagination. Much exceptional work has been produced as a result. Alasdair Wallace stands near the heart of this vigorous tradition. His work provides a window into an unexplained world, at once recognizable and bizarre.
Matthew Sturgis
2008