Union Gallery's latest exhibition – Diversity – will open later this week and run from 14 April to 2 May. It will exclusively feature sculptures by Barbara Franc, several of whose beautifully crafted, wire-netting animals have astonished and entertained visitors to Broughton Street in the last year or so.
Co-owner Rob Dawkins admits to a little apprehension at the boldness of Union's decision, but is convinced that the quality of Franc's work merits the adventure. '[T]he pieces are diverse,' he writes, 'from Kimonos in various sizes, to animal forms and a personal homage to Matisse, but they are all linked together in a celebration of life and the very simple pleasure of bringing a smile to people’s faces'. Pictured above is Time Flies, fashioned from steel wire and recycled materials.
At the Gallery on the Corner (Northumberland Street) this summer will be work by regularly exhbited artists Pum Dunbar, Vivienne Edgar, Little E, Robert Euman, Lynda Frame, Caroline John and Ken Salmon. You can see examples of their work, and relish the website's delightful sound effects, here. I find Salmon's December Afternoon, Glen Etive (graphite pencil and white pastel) particularly evocative, although am also attracted to Edgar's gloopily sensuous human figures.
A Spring Fling opened in Dundas Street at Axolotl on Friday and will run until 2 May (Tues–Sat, 11am–4pm). It features work by Robin Dickson, Anne Gilchrist, Gerry McGowan, and Frances Crichton Stewart. Look out too for the intriguing, fantastic and anatomical portraits of Asta Petkunaite, whose work I for one find uncomfortable but hard to pull away from.
[img_assist|nid=1684|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=200|height=200]In a slightly surprising move, the unorthodox Braewell Gallery (106 Dundas Street) is collaborating with less-than-radical Scottish Field magazine in the exhibition A Scottish Field (16 April–12 May). 'Untraditional' Scottish landscapes will include work by established artists Vicky Mount, Liz Knox, Simon Laurie, William Dobbie, John Bellany, Ian Elliot, Emilio Fazzi and John Vincent Damari. In May's SF, you can enter a competition to win the Vicky Mount oil painting pictured right.
The Flaubert Gallery in Stockbridge will mark the opening of its new space at 74 St Stephen Street with Quintessence, an exhibition of Rodney Street-based artist Tom Fitchet's wonderfully bold and mood-enhancing abstracts (15–26 April; see below). 'Tommy's new paintings-on-glass will be inspired by the drama and light of the Scottish landscape,' say organisers, 'and the exhibition will be a feast of colour'.
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