The Inverness Museum and Art Gallery is hosting two new exhibitions this autumn. Gemma Petrie’s exhibition, ‘Gather the Pieces, What Part Are We?’ and ‘Angus Og and the Environment, featuring original artwork by Ewen Bain’ go on show from Saturday 28th September.
The aim of Gemma’s exhibition – which can be viewed in the Main Gallery – is to bring art closer to the viewer, making it more accessible. The interconnecting shapes flow out of one painting and into another, each piece part of a whole, but also a complete work in itself!
The exhibition is very interactive with some tactile works that have interchangeable pieces which can be moved by the visitor from one painting to another, thus creating a new arrangement. The flexibility of the work allows each person visiting the exhibition to take away a different narrative.
Highland-based artist Gemma said: ” The works are made using water-based paint and drawing materials to create abstracted figurative and biomorphic paintings, using symbols, motifs, colours and patterns from everyday life, the landscape I’m immersed in and moments from the past. Focusing on the surface of our environment and how it holds the past, present and future simultaneously, encourages us to think about what our place is within this space.”
In the Small Gallery is ‘Angus Og and the Environment, Original Artwork by Ewen Bain’. Angus Og was a character created by the Scottish cartoonist Ewen Bain and his adventures were based on the fabled Isle of Drambeg in the Utter Hebrides. Angus Og began in the Bulletin and was published in the Daily Record from 1960 through to 1989. There were 158 Angus Og adventures and the cartoon and its characters were well-kent faces across Scotland for 30 years.
This selection of original artworks looks at Ewen Bain’s relationship with environmental concerns, digging into how comics intersect with environmental issues and political inaction on climate change. These works are from a collection of original strip cartoons which was donated to the Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre in Portree.
Both exhibitions run until 16th November 2024.
