Hop round 10 different galleries this month for a taste of the New Town’s art scene
Lead image: David Escarabajal at Watson Gallery
Edinburgh’s inaugural NT Art Month has officially launched! Celebrating the New Town’s diverse range of artwork, the new festival takes in ten art galleries, located on Dundas Street, Howard Street, Summer Place and Queen Street. Bacco Wines will also host a pop-up photography exhibition.
Running until the end of June, the festival aims to spotlight the platform given to emerging artists by commercial spaces, as well as being a stage for world-class exhibitions – encompassing everything from painting and sculpture to decorative arts, ceramics and bronze editions. Using a specially designed map, art fans can hop around on a walking tour at their leisure.
A rundown of the exhibiting galleries:
Established in 2017, &Gallery is a contemporary visual art gallery that curates a specialist programme of solo exhibitions along with group shows. Their emphasis is on abstract and minimal painting, drawing and sculpture.
The Atelier Gallery will display Stories. The Gallery presents art from a range of sources from well-known Scottish and British artists.
Birch Tree Gallery will present Through Clouds throughout the festival. The gallery focuses on artworks that have roots in nature – whether in materials, inspiration or thematic elements.
Harvey & Woodd is headed up by husband-and-wife team James and Flora Harvey, and is home to a diverse and constantly evolving selection of traditional and contemporary art.
Heriot Gallery, which reopened in July 2021, continues the legacy of what was The Edinburgh Gallery. Co-owners, Angela Reilly and Lorna McKenna, curate shows of innovative, challenging contemporary artwork by local and international artists.
James Glossop’s photography pop-up A Means To An End, appearing at Bacco Wines throughout the festival, embraces ambiguity and invites interpretation. Its title questions the purpose of image-making and its role in the art world.
Celebrating its 40-year anniversary last year, the Open Eye Gallery has a well-established and expansive visual arts programme focusing on contemporary painting, printmaking and applied arts and includes some of the most influential artists working in Scotland today.
Powderhall Bronze Editions showcases a large variety of bronze sculpture cast in their own Edinburgh-based fine art foundry, Powderhall Bronze. They also exhibit handcrafted furniture by contemporary craftspeople and featured artwork by selected Scottish artists.
Established in 1876, The Fine Art Society’s two elegant gallery spaces in Edinburgh and London specialise in works of British and Scottish art and design. Summer at The Fine Art Society is an exhibition of Scottish and British paintings from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as well as decorative art and furniture from the late nineteenth century.
The Scottish Gallery celebrated its 180th anniversary in 2022. They will host Sir William Gillies: The Visionary Painter, Donnie Munro: On the Bay and Oliver Cook: Momentary Flow.
Watson Gallery will display an outstanding selection of artworks from 12 of their most collected artists including David Yarrow, David Escarabajal, David Reid, Colin Wilson, Gank Pansuay and Paitoon.
For more info, go to ntart.org
