Out and About: Into the Light at Aberdeen Art Gallery

It's always fun to see new work at Aberdeen Art Gallery, especially when local artists are responding directly to pieces already on the walls. Into the Light brings together fourteen members of Aberdeen Artists Society, each showing new work made in response to a pair of sculptures by Keith Rand RSA from the gallery's collection.

Rand, who died in 2013, taught sculpture at Gray's School of Art and worked as a technician at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop in Lumsden. He worked mainly with native Scottish timbers and favoured non-gallery settings: Grizedale Forest in Cumbria, Winchester Cathedral, Tyrebagger in Aberdeenshire.

The work that sparked it

The two pieces at the centre of this show, Into the Light Blue and Into the Light Crimson, reflect Rand’s approach. He described himself as “a constructor foremost, not a carver or a modeller”, more interested in how an object gets put together than in shaping material into form.

That philosophy has given the exhibiting artists plenty to work with. Their responses explore Rand’s years in the North East, his approach to sculpture, and his techniques with wood, colour and form.

Different takes on the same subject

Amanda Hirst of Aberdeen Artists Society says the exhibition follows on from previous shows in 2022 and 2023, but takes a different approach. “This time, the exhibition presents each artist’s response to the same source subject,” she says. “Within the exhibition, we aim to demonstrate the wide variety of interpretation that is open to an artist, and to show how diverse the range of outcomes can be.”

The exhibiting artists are Corri Black, Ann Bowes, Shelagh Brown, Volha Druhakova, Melanie Guatelli, Amanda Hirst, Rita Kermack, Nicole Luchita, Alisa Magnus, Sue Savege, John Snelling, Bruce Swanson, Courtney Szabo and Fenneke Wolters-Sinke.