Arts review: Life, Death and Sex

Published on Monday 22 February 2010 18:08

LIFE, DEATH AND SEX *** AXOLOTL GALLERY, EDINBURGH

ADMIRABLY, the latest gallery in Edinburgh's Dundas Street, the Axolotl Gallery – due to open on Thursday and run by Derek Butter – sets out to challenge that assumption about contemporary art by showing figurative or narrative artists. The gallery is a beautiful space with big windows and lots of light. The gallery is named after an endangered species of salamander – the axolotl is of interest to science because in a juvenile state it can regrow limbs and can also be sexually mature while still juvenile. You could wax poetic on the metaphoric implications of all that when talking about artists. Although not actually dealing in juveniles (and he chose the name because he keeps an axolotl as a pet), Derek Butter is determined to show artists who have had little previous exposure and so are likely to belong to the younger generation.

He is looking for a gap in the market that he perceives is left by his neighbours. His first exhibition includes four painters and a sculptor. Among them, Kirsty Whiten has nicely drawn pictures of monkeys and also of women with men in harness and so with just a hint of female domination. Sarah Wilson's Leaving is more painterly. The most notable picture is Sarah Green's crazy painting of her grandmother in a Ku Klux Klan hat. The first show is not a complete knock-out perhaps, but I hope it will be worth watching this space.

• Life, Death and Sex runs until 27 February