FRANCES PRIEST/THE SCOTTISH GALLERY, EDINBURGH

摘要

With Frances Priest's debut show, the Scottish Gallery discovers another Northern star. Since her degree and postgraduate Edinburgh shows of 1998 and 1999 the artist has been ardently following highly personal direction, initially in fine constructed bone china and lately the more robust sweeping slabs of ivory-coloured porcellanous clay displayed here. The exhibition title is Line and Form, and one could say that this is essentially a show about drawing, discovering form through drawing both with and on the clay. The forms are abstract, simple and precise but it would be wrong to think of them as minimalist or even quiet: there is so much to enjoy in their tense vibrant curves, their polished tapering thicknesses and their expansive surfaces. Even without the engraved lines these slabs provoke dialogue between the confident protective exterior walls and the sheltered enclosed spaces within, but when we indulge ourselves by engaging with the drawing we are swept around these curving shapes by strong inlaid intersecting lines or encouraged to linger among groups of tentatively scratched or transferred interior markings. The subtle changes of pace and of mood created by the drawings encourage the viewer to explore at length, squeezing between the towering walls as one might through a pair of Richard Serra's massive steel slabs. The space within and around these half metre forms seems vast.