Hulabhaig News #5
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| May has been a rare and wonderful sun filled month here in the Hebrides, glorious sunny, midge free days. Perfect for seeking out Island Contemporary Art. With two excellent exhibitions from Riitta Ikonen and Mairi Gillies and a couple of artworks from Rhea Banker added to the collection. I even have a sun tan. 🌞 |
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| Uaim an Òir (Seam of Gold)
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Mairi Gillies An Lanntair, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis. 24 May - 5 July 2025
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When people are dislocated from their land, language and culture, they grow further away from the resources that formed them. Uamh an Òir (the Cave of Gold) is an ancient story found across the Gaidhealtachd about individuals who tried to keep connected to their traditions through a piece of music and the defiant act of producing this in times of suppression. This installation revives this story and is a meditation on how we are born and shaped by the landscapes we are rooted to, the places and spaces we inhabit, and the history and culture embedded in these. |
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| Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen Island Darkroom, Achmore, Isle of Lewis. May 2nd to June 27th 2025.
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The potting shed, Island Darkroom. |
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Eyes as Big as Plates is an ongoing collaborative project by the Norwegian-Finnish artist duo Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen. Island Darkroom presented selected works with a focus on seaweed and coastal life, captured on the Mamiya RZ67 medium format camera in the Outer Hebrides, Tasmania and Norway. The complete stories and behind the scenes action on the meetings that led to the portraits can be enjoyed in full in the second book on the series. The third volume comes out in 2027. |
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| The Hulabhaig Collection.
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A small but growing collection of Island Contemporary Art, shared online. |
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Feamainn (Seaweed) Rhea Banker 2022 Digital Print The eternal lure of an island, that faint glimmer in the distance, that unexplored landscape, that opportunity to expand our own inner horizons, is nowhere more potent for Rhea than on the islands along Scotland’s West Coast |
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| Tide Bhagarrach 2 Rhea Banker 2022 Digital Print These images reflect Rhea's repeated visits to Eilean Aird Meinish, a tiny tidal island sitting between Loch Miavaig and Loch Roag. Only accessible by foot at low tide and dwarfed by the often cloud-capped hills of Uig, the island is a reminder of the power held within the smallest view and the slowest journey. |
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| Books About Island Contemporary Art
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What is it That Will Last?
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Land and Tidal Art of Julie Brook |
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The title of this book has struck a chord with me, it’s a question I’ve been asking about my own sculptural practice for a long time. And now in reading and studying the work of Julie Brook it is reinvigorating my interest in sculpture in new ways.
Land art, especially, that placed and created in remote inaccessible locations when few people will ever visit, resonate with the ideas of art being personal to the artist, internal explorations of one’s own interactions with the landscape, art important because of its conceptual being not of it’s commercial value.
When an artist endures hardship, isolation and physical effort in the pursuit of an idea no one will see, says something about contemporary artists of today, and also enforces the importance of documentation and books such as this. |
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| Uig Open 2020 and 2021 (Winter Show)
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During Covid Hulabhaig hosted a couple of online open calls, a chance to explore how local and remote artists represent our islands across visual media. Over the two calls artists from across the globe submitted artworks for online presentation, open to all artists who had an interest or connection with the Outer Hebrides, the response was surprising in 2020 I was able to showcase 483 artworks and in 2021 we limited the presentation and selected 70 artworks from 260 entries. Prizes were awarded to artists William Dick, Fraser MacBeath and Alice Macmillan selected by arts practitioners Sharon Quigley, Alex Boyd and Malcolm Maclean, and my own curators choice went to Sarah Bold. The shows are still available online...
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Maybe it’s time for another? Hulabhaig Open 2026 perhaps… |
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| The Hulabhaig Collection is a small but growing collection of Island Contemporary Art. My aim as curator, it is to reach out to artists whose work is very much ‘of these islands’. I hope to meet artists, discuss ideas, influences, exploring contemporary issues as delivered though island visual art and follow up with further research to document and share my findings.
And on the way maybe acquire some great artworks for the collection.
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