900 words
I didn’t start the day hoping to engage with an exhibition in earnest.
I thought I would write one of my wry and pithy reviews of two shows; Moral Limb by the Scottish artist Amy Winstanley at Stallan-Brand (an architect’s office) and Pour the Fear: Solastalgic Synchronicities by Ukrainian-Canadian artist Ayla Dmyterko at Lunchtime Gallery (a book shop). I went to Stallan-Brand first. On 80 Nicholson Street, on the other side of the river, by the courthouse. The exhibition is presented in the voided foyer of a building, a narrow room with two archways punched out of the left-hand wall to the offices. Moral Limb is eight small paintings on three parallel walls.
I wanted to see the show because I thought the write-up was funny. I saw it on an Instagram post—possibly a Glasgow Art Map post. And what’s incredible is that the same writing appears on the handout with the titles, dimensions and prices. I thought I was going to write a review badgering artists to stop writing about their interests in relation to their work when the former has so little bearing on the latter.
And I was going to do it. I was going to write down words like ‘eco-philosophies’ and ‘trauma’ and ‘feedback loops’. I was going to quote a bit that made me side-eye my reflection in the huge glass window at the end of the room: “For [Amy Winstanley], painting is a reflection of the continual flux of all things.” But I’m not going to. I won’t do it. What I thought would be better, upon looking at the paintings, would be to write about Natural Fuzz. To write about a style of painting haunting me from every gallery around here. Natural Fuzz is a sheeted ghost knocking my lights out. I’ll throw out some descriptors, some tell-tale signs. Hardly any paint. Visible canvas weave. Natural, figurative forms. Impressionism and Ab Ex’s horrible daughter with a dry brush. Washes. The colour brown. Dare-I-say, café art, but ironically—but not even art for inside a cafe—art that would match the colour palette and tone of a 1990s internet speakeasy. And some names: Amy Winstanley (duh), Stephen Polatch, Patrick Mcalindon, Jessie Whiteley, Andrew Sim, James Owens, and our next exhibitor, Ayla Dmyterko.
And I was going to write it. I was excited. I ran (I didn’t run) to Lunchtime because I know they love curating Natural Fuzz. I knew they’d have something. Ayla Dmyterko paints warm eco-oriented paintings on linen, the weave exposed under thin layers. Her exhibition, Pour the Fear: Solastalgic Synchronicities, features six paintings and two ceramics, an embroidered postal bag and a couple of t-shirts and a video (not in the space) and a book (which I couldn’t find). I didn’t see it, the book. I said earlier, the show was in a bookshop. Can’t see the book shop for the books? No! I couldn’t see the book for the bookshop! Apologies for not finding the book. Bad critic.
I will preface my thinking-out-loud criticisms, I do like the paintings. And I do like Natural Fuzz. I liked Amy Winstanley’s paintings too but unfortunately, that’s not why we’re here. I’m not trying to review an exhibition in earnest. I will touch on Dmyterko’s still life floral arrangements encased in found wood frames and melted beeswax, and the more abstract landscapes found at Stallan-Brand, for fun. At Lunchtime, some of the paintings are close studies of floral interiors à la O’Keeffe and others are still life; table, vase, window; set-ups à la literally everyone else. Some of the flowers, the sunflowers, are alive and others look dead. Resurrected by swirling pink and yellow roots made from light (The land gives everything and takes everything away, 2021). And there I was having an aesthetic experience in a book shop, liking artwork. They got me!
There’s a gallery text too, by Lauren Fournier, which is the key to having more than an aesthetic experience. With a piece of risographed paper you, too, can have an intellectual one. The text reads like a very short Fitzcaraldo Edition you were convinced was going to be good because of the blue cover. And it might be good but you’re not sure. Gallery texts (catalogue essays) turn writers into such cucks for artists and curators. The writing is fine. I have no qualms. I’m actually at capacity for qualms. I can’t take on any more qualms. No thanks. If I have one more qualm I’ll burst.
I began the day viewing art, excited to poke fun at the arrangement of art adjacent buzzwords nestled in theory and topical discourses. Decolonise the eco-mind to relieve the trauma of the Western paradigm crisis. And I was eager to tell some people that their paintings look kind of similar. And I was going to ask if they were all in on it? (Do you have a group chat? A shared Pinterest board?) And I saw some art I liked and read a bit of intellectualism. And here I am, back where I started wondering what a syncretistic philosophical practice is? And I wonder, now, for how long I can quote art writing in bad faith for my own enjoyment?
Haha
—Andy x
Natural Fuzz