Lara Scobie
Lara is based in Edinburgh and studied ceramics at Camberwell College of Arts in London and has a Post Graduate from Edinburgh College of Art. Her current work is predominantly concerned with the dynamic interplay between form and pattern. This is explored through the cohesive integration of drawing, surface mark making and volume. This theme has been developed further within her ‘Tilted Bowls’ that articulate the symbiotic relationship between pattern and form. Surface pattern and colour observed in botanical life enable Lara to explore her love of colour and abstract pattern making.
Public Collections include: Paisley Museum, Glasgow, Scotland; Triennale de Porcelaine, Nyon, Switzerland; McManus Galleries, Dundee, Scotland; The Beaches Museum, Kansas State University, USA
View the new work of Lara Scobie here
Jacqueline Mina, OBE
We have recently added some new pieces to The Gallery collection of leading UK goldsmith Jacqueline Mina.
A Lecturer at the Royal College of Art from 1972 until 1994, Mina has made a significant contribution to art education and has provided a great source of inspiration to her students; many of whom have become distinguished jewellers. Winner of the Jerwood Applied Arts Prize for Jewellery in 2000 for ‘consistent innovation and a significant contribution to contemporary jewellery… for subverting and taking precious metal techniques to the extreme’, Mina also received an OBE for services to Art. In 2011, the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths honoured her career with the retrospective exhibition, Dialogues in Gold, which brought together a selection of her work spanning almost her entire career to date. It included pieces that are still regarded as seminal today; ground-breaking pieces for contemporary practice in precious metal. This was followed by Touching Gold, an exhibition which toured the UK.
Jacqueline Mina’s technical brilliance, allied with her strong artistic curiosity has resulted in a range of sensuous, understated work, which has a rare aesthetic presence in the field of contemporary gold jewellery. Her superb technical accomplishment in manipulating precious metals is combined with a fine, painterly eye. Sources of inspiration include the Venetian Palazzo Fortuny with its textile drapes; featuring devoré velvet with their etched patterns.
Jacqueline Mina‘I aim to achieve an aesthetic result that obscures the technical rigours of its production. I am preoccupied mainly with the surfaces of precious metals (which I always affect in some way before construction begins) and with form - juxtaposing the play of light, reflection, lustre with characteristic angle, curve and line - inspired by an abstraction of nature and art, and particularly of the human form. I am intrigued, too, by the potential for dialogue between inner and outer planes, with random patterns imprisoned within strictly delineated edges, the inclusion of chance, and the visual tension created by the contrast and harmony of all these factors.’
Public Collections Include: National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Cooper–Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York; The Crafts Council, London; The Goldsmiths’ Company, London; Leeds Museums and Galleries
View the collection of Jacqueline Mina here
Adrian McCurdy
Adrian McCurdy has worked with wood since an early age. With a background in Fine Art, Adrian’s career moved first from painting to a development of unique wood-skills in furniture and more recently carved panels. From his workshop in the Scottish Borders, Adrian produces furniture using quality local timber and craft techniques both long established and contemporary, often working with storm damaged wood felled by local saw-mills.
Adrian McCurdyIn most cases I use wood from trees that have come to the end of their life. When a suitable log catches my eye, I've had it cut to length and delivered to my work place. Not shopping for 'planked-timber' means I can be resourceful with nail-impregnated hedge-trees or the occasional lightning struck park-tree. Storm damage is the norm as large trees become more susceptible to losing major limbs. Bigger trees offer the greater possibilities and are surprisingly less wasteful than smaller trees. Quite simply there is less wastage (unless there happens to be a hidden knot inside).
I like to treat each piece as a sculptural exercise with the permutations seemingly endless as to what to use and how it might best combine with other components. Leg shapes combined with top or seat is an obvious case. The shapes collected (over many years) set the boundary of possilities.
Carving panels has added a further exploration for Adrian into individual qualities of wood and visual effects. It’s a return to sawn-boards, picture making and the beauty of wood-grain. The complementary activity is a break from the physicality of moving weighty wood and twisted conundrums, to conventional planks, planes and sandpaper. The shaping is created…not released. The wood grain is key to both.
View the beautiful furniture of of Adrian McCurdy here
