Oisín Byrne Mount Stuart review - 'making art with James Joyce's notebooks'

Oisín Byrne’s show at Mount Stuart uses the house’s important collection of rare Gaelic and Irish books as a jumping off point, writes Susan Mansfield

Yes, Yes by Oisín Byrne | Oisín Byrne Studio

Oisín Byrne: Smell the Book, Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute ★★★

Scott Myles: Head in a Bell, GoMA, Glasgow ★★★

Between Islands, Glasgow Print Studio ★★★★

There is so much to discover in the house, grounds, history and collection at Mount Stuart that artists taking part in the Contemporary Visual Art Programme are still breaking new ground, even after 20 years. Earlier this summer, Alberta Whittle referenced the site of an ancient Viking parliament on Bute. Now, London-based Oisín Byrne has found his “jumping off point” in Mount Stuart’s important collection of rare Gaelic and Irish books. 

The kernel of this show is explained in the library (where else?) in a pair of vitrines, one showing books and pamphlets from Mount Stuart and the other books from Byrne’s own collection: Doris Lessing, Clarice Lispector, Frank O’Hara, James Joyce. A page of Joyce’s notebook is abstracted into a painting, while other elements from these texts - from individual letters, symbols and punctuation marks to complete words and phrases - are reproduced on paintings in the library, Marble Hall, Chapel and Lady Bute’s Bedroom.

Dublin-born Byrne, who works in filmmaking, writing and performance as well as painting, has written three songs for the show, which have been orchestrated by Naoise Hardiman May and were performed with a string quartet at the opening (film of an earlier performance plays in the chapel). Three risographs offer annotated versions of the lyrics, explaining references to Joyce and Beckett as well as Byrne’s grandmother, his partner and friends. One begins to see that this work is personal, using strands from literature within a much larger multi-layered song of self-expression which is not being offered to the viewer for decoding. We must simply appreciate it for what it is. 

Upstairs in Lady Bute’s Bathroom, Byrne shows his 2022 film A PAIXĀO, which imagines an encounter with Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, the text of which is spread on two velvet chairs in Lady Bute’s Bedroom next door. Above the bed, with its rich red drapes, is a simple red-on-red painting titled Yes Yes, a reference to Molly Bloom’s monologue in the final chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses. 

This, however, is the only room in which the work sets up any kind of resonance with its surroundings. The rest would sit equally well in a white cube gallery, indeed perhaps it would be happier there because it would have much less to compete with for the viewer’s attention. Byrne’s project here feels like a seamless continuation of a long-term body of work. Perhaps Mount Stuart has provided shades of fresh inspiration but only as a “jumping off point” from which it will swiftly head on elsewhere.

Installation view of Scott Myles - Head in a Bell at GoMA, Glasgow | SNS Group

Sound is arguably even more central in the work by Glasgow-based artist Scott Myles at GoMA: the thrums and pulses of ambient sound filter down the stairs to meet the approaching visitor. The sound is coming from Instrument for the People of Glasgow, a synthesiser made using components of Eurorack synths donated from many different countries (the donors are celebrated in a poster print which viewers can take away). After the show, it will be donated to the Glasgow Library of Synthesized Sound (GLOSS), the UK’s first electronic musical instrument library.

For now, however, in a collaboration with Oscar Prentice-Middleton, the instrument is wired up to GoMA’s plant room. What we are hearing is the operation of the building’s air-exchange system live in the gallery as sound. Two panels in the walls have been left open to reveal the normally hidden infrastructure of the building, and Myles has painted an impressive large-scale painting of the plant room, Able Inhaled, in the first space.

The other works which orbit around the Instrument work with a wider metaphor of exchange. A giant model of an Amazon Echo smart speaker is adorned with snails; an empty plan chest is decorated with foil and misshapen 25 cent coins. There’s a freestanding sculpture of a flight case balanced on a filing cabinet with red and blue ratchet straps laid across it, and a ballet barre coated with gold. Monetary exchange, consumerism, creativity and climate crisis are all touch points in intricate works which don’t give up their meanings easily.

Leaving Achnacroish by Gregor Smith at Glasgow Print Studio | Glasgow Print Studio

Meanwhile, Between Islands at Glasgow Print Studio brings together three artists from GPS with three from Dublin’s Graphic Studio. There are remarkable synergies in their work exploring coasts, landscapes and weather, making this a masterclass in how different printmakers explore related subject matter using a wide range of print techniques and processes.

Lin Chau was born in Hong Kong and, although Scotland has been her home for decades, there is something about the way she draws clouds which alludes to Chinese calligraphy. Her work, based extensively on plein air sketches, captures movement - wind, waves - and with it the passing of time. The stylised precision of Japan-born Yoko Akino feels like its polar opposite, while also depicting water, mountains, islands, sky.

Like Chau, Gregor Smith draws en plein air around Scotland’s coast. His landscapes are framed by weather, with a combination of etching and acquatint proving particularly effective at capturing shafts of rain and light. His superb Entrance to Loch Buie, Mull, has a wildness which is half-abstract. By contrast, Marion MacPhee’s work has a stillness about it. She knows when to define detail, and also when to stop and let an expanse of sky or water do its thing. Her large monotypes of Mayo and North Uist, making delicate use of colour, are also highlights.

Elke Thönnes - German, now living in Ireland - makes carborundum prints with wonderfully rich colours, from russet and acquamarine to deep blue. And Niall Naessens draws the shores of West Kerry, often including a figure in his work: an artist, a character from a story, or a wanderer like Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above A Sea of Fog.

Oisin Byrne until 20 October; Scott Myles until 23 February; Between Islands until 28 September