Rich promise and the plus of paint

Published on Friday 22 June 2007 00:49

DEGREE SHOW ***

DUNCAN OF JORDANSTONE SCHOOL OF ART, DUNDEE

DEGREE SHOW ***

GRAY'S SCHOOL OF ART, ABERDEEN

I LOVE degree shows. The footsore trudging down miles of art school corridors. The sense of anticipation when you arrive at each new studio. The optimism of so many people on the threshold of their careers. The sheer fizz of such a critical mass of unbridled creativity.

There can be no better illustration of the diversity of engines which drive inspiration, from an allotment shed to the junk people throw away, from life's big questions to what one student rather disturbingly describes as "my raw hatred for the society in which I'm living".

But a degree show is not a level playing field. Art schools encourage students to develop their practice organically, meaning that it's possible to spend three years painting pictures of dogs only to realise in final year that their true milieu is making giraffes out of candyfloss.

So, when degree showtime comes around, students are at different stages of development. Those who tend to make the biggest splash are the ones whose work has already found its focus, at the expense of those with a fistful of bright ideas which haven't yet found their perfect mode of expression.

The art schools in Dundee and Aberdeen have been less eager than those in the Central Belt to embrace the blurring of boundaries between disciplines. If the downside is that students are less fluid in moving between media, the major plus is that more are working in traditional forms, particularly painting.

A word about painting at art schools. There is an overwhelming tendency to Go Large. Big canvases are ideal to take advantage of high, light-filled studio spaces, but the associated danger is that it can produce work with more flourish than technique, a triumph, as it were, of scale over content.

That said, there are some very promising painters in both shows. At Dundee, Alexander MacIver's portraits are large and confident, often tackling their subject from a daringly high or low perspective. Jenny Boyd's are smaller and quieter, but no less intense, particularly the study of a woman who has lost her hair in chemotherapy.

Hazel Campbell paints moderately sized still lifes in a quiet palette of colours, often featuring lace and folded linens. They're highly competent and were proving popular with buyers, though perhaps not all have the spark which makes the everyday illuminated. Meanwhile, Douglas Roulston's Scottish landscapes bristle with so many effects - soft focus water, sparkly light - that you wonder whether he shouldn't try a bit more subtlety.

Lynn Marie Szpak works across several disciplines around the theme of the Dundee estate where she grew up. Catriona Whiteford creates atmospheric images with early photography techniques. Elise Senior has made two charming bronze sculptures which make imaginative use of water: her lifesize figure of a woman holding her toddler up to pee is a welcome touch of humour. Gray's School of Art is the only art school in Scotland to offer degrees in specific fine-art media: painting, sculpture, printmaking. This year sees the first graduates of a new course, photographic and electronic media, and there is some work yet to do in showing it to best advantage. Some students' work suffers from too many competing video screens in small spaces.

Some, however, are managing to think outside their respective boxes. Kelly Connor is a sculpture graduate, but works principally in film. Her careful work to do with issues of energy and science evokes comparisons with artists such as Dalziel + Scullion. But the stand-out work here is her film installation which opens up the college's mezzanine storage area, creating the illusion of a ghostly workforce beavering away in the guts of the building.

Nick Law is a fine traditional painter whose Aberdeen cityscapes focus on mundane scenes - blocks of flats, bus stops, phone booths - and the ordinary people who inhabit them. He takes that most predominant of Aberdonian colours - grey - and works it adeptly with a range of other hues. Kirsten McAlister, meanwhile, opens up the city's overlooked corners, storage yards and car parks, with unusual perspectives and strong compositional structures.

Peter Chalmers's abstracts in their geometrical frames are more sculpture than painting. Rachel Aberdeen makes interesting use of collage and UV-sensitive paint. Lisette Degioanni creates intriguing figurative works around ideas of theatricality and costume, while Anna Shirron confidently occupies her own, brightly coloured space between abstraction and representation with paintings which are both meticulous and full of energy.

Sculptor George Gillies lived for a period as a hermit, and makes work with a DIY ethos in corrugated iron shelters; his cycle-powered television (viewers are encouraged to try it) is particularly fine. Kevin Jamieson, on the other hand, is passionately engaged in modern life, creating performance works which challenge the received notions of consumerism and CCTV surveillance. He also has a pop at oil companies who sponsor degree shows (this one gets money from BP). One recurring thread at Gray's is the influence of film. Nathan Preston recreates famous movie moments in hand-drawn animation - his site-specific version of Psycho, installed in a shower cubicle, is particularly effective, while printmaker Emma Macleod explores the world of the horror film with vim and vigour. Iain Gildea is more interested in looking at the technology of movie making and subverting it.

• The Gray's School of Art Degree Show ends tomorrow; Duncan of Jordanstone's has already closed.