Art reviews: Helen Denerley, Calum Colvin, Hayley Barker & more

An exhibition of new work by sculptor Helen Denerley at Summerhall is a rare treat, writes Susan Mansfield

Calum Colvin at Summerhall | Courtesy of the artist

An exhibition dedicated to the work of Helen Denerley is a rare thing, and that alone is enough to make Flux (★★★★) in the Meadows and Corner Galleries at Summerhall, a treat. Denerley makes sculptures of animals from scrap metal, and this show represents some two years’ work. 

Central to the largest gallery is a lifesize dairy cow, accompanied by Denerley’s drawing and detailed notes on measurements. Around it are two dogs, two goats, a deer with a fawn, an otter, a gannet preparing to dive. A further room focusses on apes and humans, another on various chess sets, including a giant set on a specially made metal table. All this in addition to beetles, butterflies and baboons - a proper menagerie. 

Everything has been fashioned from parts taken from Denerley’s extensive “library” of scrap metal, many of the elements retaining features from their previous use: all the workings are on display. And yet, there is magic, because despite the fact that we know these are cog wheels and brackets and bolts, they capture the essence of the creature, right down to the fold of a dog’s ear, the cow’s patient eye.

Detail of work by Helen Dennerley at Flux, Summerhall | Courtesy of the artist

The Corner Gallery is almost completely filled by an enormous spider. Perhaps this is a homage to Louise Bourgeois, for no artist can make a giant spider without conjuring her in the room, and once she’s there, she’s a tough act to follow. It’s true that this beast has a heaviness that Bourgeois’ arachnids don’t, but this is the one questionable element in an otherwise pitch-perfect show.

Another artist who is intent on exposing his working is Calum Colvin whose This Living Hand (★★★★) is in the Memorial Gallery at Summerhall. For some 30 years, Colvin’s modus operandi has been to make complex staged photographs, and the decision to show a work in progress may be related to developments, particularly in AI, which has made “artificial” photography easy and commonplace.

There is, however, nothing easy about this work. Colvin begins by creating a physical stage set like this library, with its long table and various chairs tumbling across it. He then paints an image directly onto the set, and photographs it using a large-plate camera. Looking at the set, it can be unclear what’s happening, but the whole thing snaps into place when viewed from exactly the right angle.

The title comes from Keats, and this work is in the process of being transformed from an image of the writer’s death mask (we can see images of this version on the walls) to Durer’s famous rhinoceros print from 1515. Seeing the nuts and bolts of the process, one begins to grasp the skill, technical ability and sheer effort which are as much a part of this work as the finished result.

Hayley Barker’s show The Ringing Stone at Ingleby Gallery (★★★★) is a calm, meditative space in the midst of the festival madness. This is the first show in Europe for the LA-based painter, and her work is a delight. Central to it are four large-scale paintings of her garden, one for each of the four seasons.

Granted, in LA, the seasons don’t change as much as they do in Scotland. All four are green and lush; the main difference is the light. The summer painting captures night-time with a blue-lilac sky and a full moon. In autumn the sky is orange-gold pink. The angle of light in the paintings seems suggest a course of travel around the room. Other paintings, most of them new, show a hawk, a branch with cherry blossom making a kind of still life, a discount craft store decked out with autumn colours. 

Cherry Blossom Branches, by Hayley Barker | Hayley Barker / photography by Paul Salvesen

In a sense, Barker, too, exposes her workings, dense networks of dry brushstrokes which reveal the texture of the linen. At first, the paintings seem to give the same level of dedicated attention to everything in them, but they reveal more given time. In the garden works, there is always a path leading in: Barker’s practice is a meditative one and this work feels like an invitation to step “in”, as much as an appreciation what is physically represented.

There is a decision to try to create a deliberately comforting inner space, “a small soft space to land in brutal times”, in Flannery O’Kafka’s show For Willy Love and Booker T - Blue babies do whatever they want (★★★★) at Sierra Metro. The walls and carpet are powder blue, there is a space with a duvet and pillows in which visitors are invited to make themselves comfortable, and a further alcove reimagined as an “Incidental Hugging Machine” (extra pillows can be added for comfort).

O’Kafka’s practice is predominantly photographic, and the central images here are self-portraits, both contemporary and from childhood. Another vivid photograph shows a woman in a birthing pool being handed her newborn baby. Further images reference the body, families, queer life, and many of them are tinted blue. O’Kafka’s work seems to be driven and shaped by their own concerns around identity and perhaps everyone engaged in that kind of work would benefit from a comforting space in which to do it.

Meanwhile, Inverleith House celebrates all things fungi in its summer show, Fungi Forms (★★★). Its focus is primarily educational, with interpretive panels extolling the virtues of mushrooms of all kinds: our world wouldn’t be here without them, they are food and medicine, they nurture other forms of plant life and can by made into all sorts of eco-friendly materials and, by the way, aren’t they beautiful? A series of lush colour photographs capture many species which are to be found in the Botanic Gardens.

The work of several artists is included. Jo Coupe’s bronze-cast fungi appearing in groups on the walls explore their ability to, well, mushroom. Simon Faithfull goes further and plants spores in 3D printed sculptures of his own head so they “bloom” from the mouth. These works hint at the more sinister nature of fungi - not all are benevolent. 

Textile artist Amanda Cobbett makes astonishingly realistic fungi from thread. There are paintings and drawings by Russian botanical illustrator Alexander Viazmensky, who is affectionately known as “the mushroom man”. There is even music by Hannah Read, The Fungi Sessions Part I, a suite of songs dedicated to the memory of her father, Nick Read, a pioneering fungal cell biologist at Edinburgh University. There are fungi books to read and a record player where viewers can put on fungi themed records, like Bjork’s Fossora album.

Perhaps most visually striking is the fashion: two dresses from Dutch designer Iris van Herpen’s Roots to Rebirth collection from 2021 and work from Stella McCartney’s Spring/Summer 2022 collection which celebrated fungi in its patterns and forms, the shapes and colours and the hallucinogenic properties. She also went further and used them as a material: the show contains the world’s first luxury bag made from mycelia.

It’s all interesting, but it isn’t an art exhibition. The art here is in service of educational goals, at best providing something of a balance to the exuberant “isn’t-it-all-marvellous?” tone of the rest of the show.

Helen Denerley: Flux and Calum Colvin: This Living Hand until 20 September; Hayley Barker: The Ringing Stone, until 31 August; Flannery O’Kafka: For Willy Love and Booker T - Blue babies do whatever they want until 15 September; Fungi Forms until 8 December