COCKTAIL TIME ...
In the week where our newly elected Scottish MPs headed down to take up their seats in Westminster, a different group of young Scottish talent was also London bound to attend the New Scottish Artists Exhibition which opened on Tuesday at the Fleming Collection.
It is the second year that a selection of works have been taken from the annual Scottish New Contemporaries Exhibition in Edinburgh for a month long showing at the Flemings Mayfair based gallery.
Included in the group was Aberdeen artist Ben Martin, recipient of the first Glenfiddich Residency to be awarded as a prize at the New Contemporaries opening held at the Royal Scottish Academy in early March.
Ben, who graduated from Aberdeen’s Grays school of Art last summer, caught the attention of the Glenfiddich judging panel with his large scale sculptural installation constructed from rope and steel weights.
Taking a different form in each environment in which it is installed, Ben describes his work as an attempt to draw in a three dimensional space. Due to the site specific nature of the work Ben had travelled to London a couple of days prior to the opening to re-imagine the work in the new confines of the Fleming space.
The exhibition also included a video installation by Edward Humphrey who was recipient of the 2015 Fleming-Wyfold Bursary Award as well as showcasing the output of the previous year’s recipients, Dundee’s Brownlee Brothers.
Over two hundred guests attended the opening evening on Tuesday where they were able to enjoy the work on show with the company of a long cooling Glenfiddich cocktail, a rusty nail, or a simple straight serve of Glenfiddich 12 yr old.
Ben Martin will take up his residence at Glenfiddich towards the end of this month and the New Scottish Artists Exhibition is open until 24th June.
http://flemingcollection.com/