Earth Matters, Inverleith House Gallery, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Interwoven - Stevi Benson

 

Recently I took a side trip from my holiday in Fife to see the Earth Matters exhibition at Inverleith House Gallery in the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh.  This exhibition is inspired by James Hutton, born 300 years ago in Edinburgh, who was a geologist, farmer and thinker and changed the way we understand the earth beneath our feet. He alerted us to the fact that the surface of the earth is continually changing as a result of natural process that take place over enormous timespans.  The exhibition showcases work by over 30 artists who are inspired by the earth and its processes.

Here's just a small flavour of the exhibition...

50 Shades of Scottish Soil - James Hutton Institute
(and they're not all grey!)

I particularly liked that the exhibition walls were painted in soil colours from different areas of Scotland, from deep red (Merkins, West Dunbartonshire) and terracotta/russett (Dundonell, Ross & Cromarty) through deep blue/grey (Clockhill, Aberdeenshire) to ochre (Lephinmore, Argyll & Bute).  The National Soils archive is held in the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen and holds over 60,000 samples from 15,000 locations.

The Unconformities (Jedburgh, Castle St, Salisbury Crags) - Louise Bennetts

Louise Bennetts has handpainted her fabrics with soil and stitched them to represent her interpretation of John Clerk's illustrations in Hutton's book "Theory of the Earth". The pieces do indeed look like a cross-section of geological strata...

The Unconformities (Jedburgh, Castle St, Salisbury Crags) - detail - Louise Bennetts

Maria McStay has embedded and coloured her vessels with a variety of rock fragments collected from Gullane Bay, East Lothian.  She hopes the added handles suggest a shared responsibilty for the land...

Collective Futures - Maria McStay

Ilana Halperin's print uses ink coloured from soil from James Hutton's Farm in Slighhouses in the Scottish Borders...

James Hutton (Parent Material) - Ilana Halperin

In late 1990 Wilhelmina Barns-Graham visited Tentsmuir in Fife and photographed the fungi which she later painted...

Mushroom Series No 6 - Wilhelmina Barns-Graham

Constanza Dessain's fascinating work records the process of osmosis, leakage, decay and rot of fruits and vegetable scraps...

Studio Compost (detail) - Constanza Dessain

Stevi Benson's fabulous papercuts (below and top image) represent the structure of tangled mycelium (fungi) threads beneath the forest floor...

Interwoven (detail) - Stevi Benson

Kevin Andrew Morris has made a series of spade heads from clay dug from a former brickworks in Aberdeen, reflecting on past industry and past agricultural methods...

Field Work - Kevin Andrew Morris

July Fields by June Eardley captures the corner of a coastal field, probably near Catterline in Aberdeenshire where she lived in later life, showing lots of species.  Current industrial farming methods and the removal of hedgerows reduces the ecodiversity...

July Fields - Joan Eardley

This earth has been salvaged from the eroding coastline at Buckhaven in Fife where otherwise it would have been lost to the sea, echoing Hutton's assertion that the surface of the earth is continually changing.  I love the way River of Earth has been sieved and presented... 

River of Earth - Becky Little & Tom Morton

Fiona Young's prints look so real you feel you can almost touch the plants and soil. Young is trying to draw our attention to the importance of soil to both our physical and mental wellbeing.  We rely on it to grow food to keep us fit & healthy and to support the natural environments that we enjoy to be out in...

Earth Works - Fiona Young

There are several cafes in the Botanic Garden.  I tried the Gateway Cafe at the main entrance and had some excellent soup followed by coffee and cake - yum!

Coffee & Cake - Gateway Cafe
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

This exhibition is on until Sunday 1 November 2026 - definitely worth a visit.  I have only shown a small part of what's being exhibited - go see!

Andy Goldsworthy Fifty Years - Edinburgh

Andy Goldsworthy - Wool Runner

 

Andy Goldsworthy Fifty Years is currently showing at the National Gallery (Royal Scottish Academy) in Edinburgh.  Goldsworthy is a land artist, known for working with natural materials.  Much of his work that you may be familiar with takes the form of outdoor installations. The exhibits made especially for this exhibition are in response to the Royal Scottish Academy building.  Overall there's lots to see - 3D installations, 2D & 3D artwork, photos, film and it's all fascinating.  I'd say it's a "must see" if you can make it.  Of everything, it was the large scale installations that I liked best.  Here's a flavour... 

When you arrive you are greeted by Wool Runner (see above) which is a series of fleeces showing the farmers' colour coded markings, that are attached to sheep netting with thorns.

Andy Goldsworthy - Fence

At the top of the stairs is Fence, made of rusty barbed wire, stretched between two of the buildings columns. The columns are protected by a layer of rope that is wrapped round them. Goldsworthy comments about the fences/barriers/obstacles that he encounters in his work, and how he hopes to find a way through.

Andy Goldsworthy - Fence (detail)

In this area are two sheep paintings.  A mineral block (sheep food) was placed in a field of sheep on a canvas. The weather, number of sheep and how often they visited the food source all affected the outcome.  The white central circle is where the mineral block was placed and later removed...

Andy Goldsworthy - Sheep Painting

Andy Goldsworthy - Sheep Painting (detail)

In an adjacent room is Skylight, made from bullrushes, collected from Dumfries and Galloway where Goldsworthy is based, and also from Angus. The seed heads have been removed and the thinner end of one is inserted into the thicker end of another to make this floor to ceiling installation around a central skylight.

Andy Goldsworthy - Skylight

Andy Goldsworthy - Skylight

Gravestones is seen as a partner piece to Skylight.  Gravestones being from the earth and Skylight reaching for the light.  The stones are collected from graveyards across Dumfries and Galloway and are those that are displaced when graves are dug.  A larger Gravestones project is planned and there are maps showing where all the stones have come from.... 

Andy Goldsworthy - Gravestones

Blank flags were dyed with the reddest earth from each of the 50 American states, originally for an installation at the Rockefeller Centre in New York. You can see them displayed here. We are told that Goldsworthy hoped that the connection of flag and land would offer connection rather than division and a different sort of defence of the land (environmetal rather than fighting).

Andy Goldsworthy - Flags

Oak Passage has been constructed from fallen branches and serves as a reminder that the oak floor was once a tree.  At the far end is Dock Drawing and at the other end a swirl of ferns pinned on with thorns...

Andy Goldsworthy - Oak Passage
(Dock Drawing on the far wall)

Andy Goldsworthy - Ferns and Thorns

Red Wall was made by plastering sieved, dried, crushed, clay rich earth, dug from the Lowther Hills in Dumfriesshire, mixed with water onto a backing that fits the wall space.  As it dried it has cracked and as the exhibition progresses chunks may fall off.  Its redness comes from its high iron content.  Goldsworthy reminds us that our blood also has a high iron content and suggests that this commonality binds us to the earth...

Andy Goldsworthy - Red Wall

Andy Goldsworthy - Red Wall (detail)

I found the Hare Blood Snow paintings(?) rather gruesome.  Goldsworthy hit a hare, while driving and took it home, disemboweled it, filled it with snow, hung it up and then as the snow melted it dripped blood onto paper below.

Andy Goldsworthy - Hare Blood Snow (detail)

Keep your eyes peeled as you wander round so you don't miss anything...

Andy Goldsworthy - Barbed Wire Ball

There are also lots of varied photographs...

Andy Goldsworthy - Black Sand, Morecambe Bay, Lancashire (detail) 

Andy Goldsworthy - Iron. Rising out of the ground in the valley below. Collected and painted onto a dead hawthorn tree.

And don't miss this one as you're leaving...

Andy Goldsworthy - Work Gloves

On until 2 November 2025, this exhibition is well worth a visit.  The Royal Scottish Academy has a cafe and is a short walk from Waverley station.

Do Ho Suh - Tracing Time at Modern 1, Edinburgh

Do Ho Suh - Home Within Home (detail)

 

Just closed at Modern 1, Edinburgh, Tracing Time looked at how the past, present, and future shape our ideas of home and identity.  Do Ho Suh does not see home as a static place but something that changes as we move through life both geographically and temporally.  It is also affected by how those around us make us feel - whether we are welcomed or made to feel that we don't belong. Do Ho Suh was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1962 and now lives in London.  In the late 1990s he lived, for a time, in New York.  These factors are evident in his work as he addresses migration, loss of belonging and longing for his younger self.

Many of the pieces in this exhibition are Do Ho Suh's thread paintings.  These are stitched onto dissolvable fabric that is then added to the paper making process in the final stages. (The paper is handmade cotton paper). Here the dissolvable fabric disappears and the threads become incorporated into the paper. Loose threads may be be moved into position, using tweezers, to produce the desired effect. It was these pictures that I was particularly interested in.

Blueprint is a representation of the facade of the apartment building he lived in in New York and is one of his thread paintings...

Do Ho Suh - Blueprint
Fabric, thread embedded in handmade cotton paper.

Do Ho Suh - Blueprint (detail)

Below is a picture of Do Ho Suh's traditional hanok home in Seoul where he grew up.  It was unusual as most of his friends grew up in high rise apartments which were part of modernised Seoul.  The house is attached to a person on the ground.  We are told that this picture suggests the artist's identity is shaped by his family home and upbringing...

Do Ho Suh - Self-portrait
Thread embedded in handmade cotton paper

Do Ho Suh - Self-portrait (detail)

This picture replicates the staircase from Do Ho Suh's New York Apartment building.  He worked quickly with 10 assistants with tweezers to get the threads into place...

Do Ho Suh - Staircase/s
Thread embedded in handmade cotton paper

Do Ho Suh - Staircase/s (detail)

These are paper sculptures of the uniforms Do Ho Suh was required to wear at different times of his life in Korea...

Do Ho Suh - Self-portrait/s
Abaca paper, display case with LEDs

Transitional Spaces is a sculpture of the corridor in the apartment he stayed in in Berlin in 2009 (green) and entrance hall to his London home (purple).  They are made using traditional Korean sewing techniques and represent what the artist calls "transitional spaces".  He says "I see life as a passageway with no fixed beginning or destination"...

Do Ho Suh - Transitional Spaces
Polyester fabric and stainless steel

Do Ho Suh - Transitional Spaces (detail)

Below in Do Ho Suh's gelatine piece, he has flattened a 3D space into a 2D representation keeping the scale of the original and much of the mundane detail.  He sees it like a botanical specimen preserving the memory of the space...

Do Ho Suh - Entrance, Unit G5, Union Wharf, 23 Wenlock Road, London, N1 7SB
Thread and gelatine sheet embedded in handmade paper

Do Ho Suh - Entrance, Unit G5, Union Wharf, 23 Wenlock Road, London, N1 7SB (detail)

There were also some really interesting cyanotypes of everyday objects...

Do Ho Suh - Fire Extinguisher-01 - Union Wharf, 23 Wenlock Road, London, N1 7SB
Cyanotype on paper

Do Ho Suh's exhibition was worth seeing for the thread paintings alone.  There's plenty more to see at Modern 1 and 2.  I liked Martin Creed's neon installation on the entrance to Modern 1 - very reassuring or is it?

Martin Creed - EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT
Blue neon installation

There's a great cafe across the road in Modern 2 with Eduardo Paolozzi's Vulcan striding through - half man, half machine.  You might be able to make out the Cleish Castle Ceiling Panels above (also Paolozzi) which are made from fibreglass resin with aluminium paint.  They mark a phase of abstraction in Paolozzi's work and have been in place since 1999 when what is now Modern 2 opened...

Eduardo Paolozzi - Vulcan
Stainless steel

If you're planning a trip to Edinburgh don't forget to take a look at Modern 1 & 2.  They are also near the Water of Leith if you want to take a stroll.

Bernat Klein - A Life in Colour - Dovecot Gallery, Edinburgh

Bernat Klein - Grey Harmonies (detail) - Hand-woven by Edinburgh Tapestry Co.

There is a retrospective of artist and textile designer, Bernat Klein's (1922-2014) paintings and tapestries at the Dovecot Gallery, Edinburgh.  (If you haven't been to the Dovecot you must go!)  His textile designs were most famous in the 1960s and notable for their colour and texture. The business was based in the Scottish Borders.

 

Bernat Klein - textiles

Bernat Klein - textiles

Through the use of impasto, his paintings also exhibit a great deal of texture and are vibrant in colour.  I particularly liked Fornax and Perseus, painted in 2013.

Bernat Klein - Provencal Scarlet

Bernat Klein - Celtic Summer

Bernat Klein - Fornax & Perseus

Bernat Klein - Norma

Perhaps it isn't surprising then that Klein commisioned Dovecot Studios (in the 70s) to produce ten tapestries that might reflect the textures created in his paintings.

Bernat Klein - Grey Harmonies - Hand-woven by Edinburgh Tapestry Co.

Bernat Klein - Scandia - Hand-woven by Edinburgh Tapestry Co.

This is  part of the Edinburgh Art Festival and is on until 26 September 2015.