Press

A sense of unfinished business pervades this top drawer exhibition from stars of the future.

There is a quiet confidence about this exhibition; a modesty which belies the fact that it represents nothing less than a revolution. Like all the best revolutions, it is neither sensationalist, nor shocking. There are no big egos here. No grand gestures. No arrogance.

Rather, what we have is the chance for seven young-ish, Glasgow based artists who have shown together before to exhibit in a serious space before a wider public. That is the whole point. Whereas you may have encountered the work of some of these artists at the likes of Doggerfisher (Sally Osborn), Stirling’s Changing Room (Alex Frost, Kate Davis), or the Collective (Kevin Hutcheson) you will never, I would guess, have seen it in the context of a curated show in a major public gallery.

What this means is that once again the new regime at Glasgow has pulled off a triumph. Parallel with the continuing purchase of important works by established, cutting-edge contemporaries, comes this, the first in what is planned to be a series of exhibits of still-emerging talents.

It’s a brave thing to do and inevitably, given the fact that the artists may still be finding their voice, there is a sense of unfinished business here, with many of the works seeming unresolved. But this is only to be expected in a show whose arrowed theme is drawing. It might have been better had the exhibition not adopted such a premise. It will merely confuse uninitiated viewers to tell them this is ‘a drawing show’. It’s not. It’s about practice, the creative process all artists go through.

What to remember is that before the 20th century, drawing was rarely ever seen as an end in itself. The old masters drawings you see presented as ‘works of art’ in our public museums are mostly studies. Preparatory works for a finished painting, whether that painting was ever actually made. With the Surrealists drawing became something quite different – the direct expression on paper of the artist’s innermost thoughts; as close as it was possible to get to the subconscious.

Both ideas are present in the works of these artists. The clear exception is Alex Frost, whose meticulous portraits, created using tiny drawn symbols resembling the dot matrix of a photograph, sit a little uncomfortably here. And while Frost is clearly not an ‘also ran’, I wonder if in this grouping with his peers is not more political than genuinely curatorial.

What we are looking at might well on one hand be seen as preliminary studies for real or hypothetical finished works. Yet they can also be taken on their own merits. Pursuits and those whose concern with art is principally economic would argue that such apparently minor should never be shown. But that would be to miss out on a unique avenue into the artists mind.

Typical is Gregor Wright, who has covered an entire wall with his visual shorthand. We are able to follow his thoughts in an extraordinarily intimate way, instinctively seeing in the repetition of a simple shape something of real personal significance. And, notwithstanding such psychological interpretations, each of Wright’s drawings has a skewed beauty.

One small work in particular, with a resemblance to a horse’s head, drawn with sweeping strokes of pink, white and blue, surely deserves its isolated position. Wright sets the tone for the show – not least through his very raggedness.

Like Wright’s, Hayley Tompkin’s work is usually to be found stuck unframed on the wall. At last year’s Beck’s Future show, her jewel-like drawings and watercolours were one of the few entries that really stood out. And to judge from the current display, that was clearly not a one-off. Shown here in the unfamiliar context of a vitrine, her exquisite gouaches take on a different status. Yet however they are presented, ultimately it is from their sheer beauty and spontaneity that these tiny works derive such immense, raw power.

It doesn’t come much more raw than Sally Osborn’s apparently random use of watercolour, allowing the drips, with minimal control, to define an image in a way which recalls the early experiments of Breton and his cronies.

In the same room as Osborn, Sue Tompkins shows, within another glass vitrine, what can only be described as a concrete sculpture of various short poems and lines of thought on deliberately distressed paper.

On top of the case sits a framed magazine photograph of a model, which has been hung, with strips of coloured ribbon. A strangely devotional piece, it tries the artist into a votive tradition stretching from antiquity to Beuys and beyond, and like Tompkins, asks questions about how art is empowered by its curatorial environment.

Similarly sculptural is the work of Kate Davis, who invites the viewer to sit on a wooden stool before her drawing of a plinth. Thus seated, your own head, reflected in the picture glass, becomes the object under scrutiny on the plinth.

The show reminds you of the potency of the smaller line and how one tiny mark can have poetic or intellectual content, changing forever the way you see.

It’s also a wake-up call, a reality check from which you emerge with a reassuring sense of integrity. My only moan is that, given the prospect of an entirely new audience, a show as raw and complex, as this demands interpretation. And it would have been good for the artists too to have each produced a statement. For if their stars continue to rise, the day they have to make that statement cannot be far off. The revolution starts here.