KATE DOWNIE

KATE DOWNIEEstuary

1-28 April 2015

www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/katedownie

Cover

The Bay (detail) (cat. 15)oil on canvas, 110 x 200 cms

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Kate Downie has chosen the estuary as the motif for this new body of work as the real and thematic nub of her journey (a word overused in the ordinary narratives of life but appropriate for the creative process). The river’s ancient course, often altered, brings fertility to the coastal plains where our populations have grown. Where the pure and salt waters combine nature changes, birds feed before migration, woodland succumbs to shifting sands, transport becomes waterborne or the engineer battles to preserve the land. The river nurtures life on land and provides the departure point for exploration and safe anchorage on arrival: both farewell and welcome. Armies have traded insults from either bank and nations settled their borders north or south, east or west. An estuarine city can only be unified by bridges and in our modern era the bridge has become the supreme symbol of communication.

All this has been subject matter for Downie for many years, most recently seen in her exhibition at Hopetoun House Zero to Fifty: The Road Bridge Diaries. For this exhibition her visits to Australia and Japan in the autumn of 2014 allow her to expand her theme. The inclusion of her painting Ofrenda, The Thames of 2013 (cat. 24) provides a real point of departure for the imagined journey of the convict ships from the Thames to Botany Bay just as the Scottish place names: Port Campbell, Lorne, Bell Brae and Erskine along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria (places garlanded with eucalyptus trees, alive with the strange calls of bellbirds, whipbirds and the sulphur-crested cockatoo) talk back to the early settlers. In her monumental painting The Bay (cat. 15) a ghostly sailing ship crosses the heads of Sydney Harbour while at the riverine end aboriginal boats, impossibly fragile, point up the unequal clash of cultures. Between is the glorious, rich ancient colour of the place: the silt of millennia, the harsh rocks and dense bush all under an unforgiving sun.

In Estuary Life (cat. 20) a garden looking on to the Parramatta is filled with Jacaranda, Frangipani, Rainbow Lorikeets and a Hills Hoist (an object guaranteed to set

Downie’s hand to reach for pen) forming an exotic screen beyond which the Cockatoo Island Ferry proceeds and pleasure yachts sail towards the great natural harbour.

For Downie, the Sydney Harbour Bridge is a much more potent symbol than the Opera House and as she made her drawing (cat. 2) standing in the shadow of the great pylon (designed by a Scottish firm and faced with granite) on the south side of the river recording the sweep of the ironwork heading north, memories of the Forth Bridges must have crowded in, despite the oppressive heat of her chosen standpoint and the presence of palm trees.

In From Okayama to the Seto Sea (cat.37) a 17th century footbridge meanders across a wetland while in the far distance the Great Seto Bridge (the longest two-tiered bridge system in the world) is indicated with a few sure marks; two worlds: one slow and one swift, both culturally significant, form foreground and backdrop to the same watery landscape.

Downie is one of the most subtle and persuasive colourists of her generation and she will only add to her palette from real experience. This gives her work a truth and authority, a right to transport us to the unfamiliar or provide an urgent reminder of where we have also been. She is known rightly as a supreme draftswoman. Her recent studies in China where she visited in 2011 and 2013 have added to her repertoire and the purchase of hand-made Chinese paper has required an approach informed by traditional oriental painting. The paper is remarkably robust: it can be crumpled and reworked and then folded into an A4 packet to be returned to the workshop in Zheng Zhou who will finally stretch the paintings and package them for return to Edinburgh for framing. Downie is too independent a spirit to be overcome by a tradition however and needing finally to paint in oil in a studio filled with paper she went in the opposite direction, commissioning assorted birch wood panels which can be butted together or used singly for the

Kate Downie: Estuary

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support of the new oils, like Estuary Life. Her swift, controlled gesture as she draws with the brush is the same in different media but drawing is not the end in itself: it serves the painting and may be present only as a pictogram of a ship on the colour-field that is The Bay or be let loose to describe the tumult in Estuary Life. Her drawing is economical but powerfully suggestive: in Snow in the City of Gold, Kanazawa she looks out from the lowering shelter of a low building onto the bustle of people under umbrellas through a veil of soft snowflakes.

The drawn line has a departure and an arrival. The mark is irrevocable and is the perfect illustration of chaos theory, a deliberate act but with consequences beyond the control of the artist; a direction of travel established but with no certain point of conclusion and an infinity of consequences. Faced with the eternity of the blank sheet the artist must begin and allow both chance and deliberation to be the twin guides. For Kate Downie the process might be partly mysterious but its success must be in its truth to her own experience.

GUY PEPLOE

The Artist by the Murray River, Adelaide, South Australia. Photograph by Jen Clark.

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A significant part of my childhood was spent close to the Ythan Estuary in the North-East of Scotland. This compelling body of water could switch from peaceful to treacherous in a flash, become narrow or wide, the very flow reversed with the tides or rage with intensity when the river was fed by distant rains. Early records of human habitation on the Ythan Estuary go way back to the Strandlooper, hunter-gatherers of the bronze age, attracted by the rich pickings of shellfish and migrating salmon as seals and seabirds have always been. Like all estuaries, its river continually washes it afresh and the sea wipes the slate clean twice each day. Those freshly washed beaches at low tide were where I made my first large drawings.

Not so surprising then, that much of my adult life has been spent in the company of the Forth Estuary, with all its crossings, walks, islands and promontories. Estuaries are where the land and the sea meet, and all life seems to want to join in. Cities spring up nearby, yet their tidal shores remain relatively untamed because humans can never control the pull and release of the moon’s gravity upon the seas.

My project last year as artist-in-residence at the Forth Road Bridge reinvigorated my interest in estuaries. Looking out over the river from my Portacabin studio, I spent much time watching and thinking about migrations, both of birds and humans. The urge to travel and see other cultures is, I think, a barely suppressed instinct in all of us, and one that I was overdue to exploit. It was with these thoughts that I set off last September on a trip to Australia and Japan with my partner Michael Wolchover.

When I happened to mention these travel plans to the artist George Donald last summer, he quipped “Ah I can just picture you out there painting Uluru and Mount Fuji!” Although my initial response was mild irritation at being typecast as an artist who simply painted obvious tourist sights, his comment made me think even harder about my chosen area of exploration, and shed a fresh light on it.

I returned to my studio and wrote quickly on the wall:

‘An estuary is a mountain in reverse.’

Then I thought ‘What do I mean by that?’ This rather elliptical statement had nothing to do with reflections in the water or a suggestion of mountain forms as viewed from above. It was about erosion and deep time. Rivers are as old as the hills. Water erosion shapes our landscape as much as tectonic upheavals and volcanic eruptions alter the earth’s surface. Therefore what eventually meets the sea is (or can be) the accumulation of dissolved mountain, carried by the rainwater and deposited at the river mouth. Suddenly, that idea of slow rock erosion moved into a river and towards the sea made me very happy.

The results of these thoughts and the subsequent journeys can be seen here in The Scottish Gallery.

KATE DOWNIE

Where the Rivers Meet the Seas

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1 Crossings, The Forthink and watercolour on paper, 66 x 120 cms

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2 Sydney Harbour Bridgeink and watercolour on paper, 70 x 138 cms

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3 The Story Bridgeink and watercolour on paper, 70 x 138 cms

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4 Story Bridge Adventureink and watercolour on paper, 32 x 98 cms

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5 Winding River (Bega)mixed media on wood, 46 x 64 cms

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6 Oxbow Dawnink and watercolour on paper, 25 x 68 cms

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7 The Winding Riverink on paper, 32 x 92 cms

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8 River Source, Uluruink and watercolour on paper, 70 x 138 cms

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9 River Source (study I)ink and watercolour on paper, 25 x 68 cms

10 River Source (study II)watercolour, 15 x 41 cms

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11 The Twitter Treepencil and watercolour, 32 x 46 cms

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12 Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo, Tasmaniapencil and watercolour, 32 x 46 cms

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13 The Five Day River, Tasmaniaink and watercolour on paper, 32 x 46 cms

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14 Tamar Estuary, Tasmaniaink on paper, 32 x 46 cms

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15 The Bayoil on canvas, 110 x 200 cms

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16 Little Suspension Bridge on the Great Ocean Roadink and watercolour on paper, 58 x 77 cms

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17 Hunter’s Point, Sydneyink on paper, 25 x 68 cms

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18 Luna Park and the Sydney Harbour Bridgeink on paper, 23 x 32 cms

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19 Estuary Life, Parramatta (study I) ink and watercolour on paper, 25 x 51 cms

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20 Estuary Life (Parramatta Jacaranda Frangipani)oil on wood, 92 x 192 cms

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21 Thames Study Iwatercolour on paper, 12.5 x 17.5 cms

22 Thames Study IIIwatercolour on paper, 12.5 x 17.5 cms

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23 Thames Study IIwatercolour on paper, 12.5 x 17.5 cms

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24 Ofrenda, The Thamesoil on canvas, 110 x 200 cms

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25 The Kintai Bridge, Nishiki Riverink and watercolour on paper, 25 x 79 cms

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26 Kintai Bridge from the Noodle Cafeink and watercolour on paper, 25 x 51 cms

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27 The Seto Seaink on paper, 25 x 34 cms

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28 By the Seto Seawatercolour on paper, 17 x 30.5 cms

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29 The Great Seto Bridge, Part Iwatercolour on paper, 17 x 33 cms

30 The Great Seto Bridge, Part IIwatercolour on paper, 17 x 33 cms

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31 Hagi, Oranges and Pinesink and watercolour on paper, 25 x 34 cms

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32 Takayama, Decemberink and watercolour on paper, 25 x 34 cms

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33 Persimmons in the Snowink and gouache on paper, 16 x 29 cms

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34 Snow in the City of Gold (Kanazawa)ink and watercolour on paper, 25 x 34 cms

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35 Little Bridge, Hagiink and watercolour on paper, 25 x 51 cms

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36 Zig-zag Bridge, Okayamaink and watercolour on paper, 25 x 51 cms

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37 From Okayama to the Seto Seaoil on wood, 64 x 184 cms

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It was early spring when we arrived in Sydney, where the Parramatta River joins Jacksons Bay; from there we drove to the beautiful Sapphire Coast (The Tathra Inlet and the Bega Estuary) then flew to Adelaide (The Murray River, Australia’s longest, meets the sea at the Coorong). Later we journeyed from Cairns, discovering the winding creeks that sidle down through the Jurassic Daintree rainforest and mangrove swamps to a tropical sea, seething with startling life. We recovered from that wilderness with time in Brisbane, a modern multi-cultural city woven around the winding Brisbane River linked by great bridges, river paths and ferries. We then flew on past Melbourne to drive the great Ocean Road, where we discovered the quaint Erskine river meeting the wild surf of Southern Ocean. Before returning to Sydney we spent nine days travelling the length and breadth of

Tasmania by campervan and meeting with many wonderful artists along the way. Somehow in the midst of all this we flew into Alice Springs and walked close by the sacred sites and extraordinary rocks of Australia’s Red Centre. So in the end I did paint ‘Uluru’ as George expected, but as river source as much as rock. We finished the Australian leg of our journey where we started, but with a greater awareness of this incredible country.

From Sydney we flew north over the full length of the west Pacific edge to winter in Tokyo, arriving on the 28th of November. It was wonderful to finally replace the Japan of my imagination with the reality of this month-long visit. Reaching the estuaries was harder in Japan, so instead we gave ourselves over to travel… Our first few days in Tokyo we

The Journey

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were guided by our friend Katagiri who helped us navigate the delights of this teeming metropolis, including a boat ride beneath countless bridges of the Sumida river on the way to the Pacific Ocean. After a few days we activated our Japan Rail Passes and began our epic journey: Okayama, Kurashiki, Naoshima, Kumamoto, Mount Aso, Hagi, Hiroshima, Mayajima, Kintaikyo, Kyoto, Kanazawa and Takayama then headed north as guests of our sculptor friends in Iwate – Hironori Katagiri and Kate Thomson, Aeneas Wilder and Naoko Obara.

All along the way I made many ink drawings both from trains and during our daily walks – I was fascinated by the contrast between the bustling industrial cities and ‘constructed-nature’ tranquillity of the ancient gardens and temples.

In Japan I sought to study the bridge-over-water as art form as much as crossing, though the act of even a small crossing of a stone or wooden bridge in a 17th century garden delighted me at each discovery.

We improved our skills at packing and unpacking cases, and negotiating the stations, though I believe the most complex place ever invented is Tokyo Station. The hospitality we received was wonderful, and one day we look forward to returning in the spring.

KATE DOWNIE

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Kate Downie is an American born British landscape artist whose career over the past 30 years has spanned the media of painting, drawing, printmaking, performance and film. Trained at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen, she has participated in international artists’ residencies since the 1980s, having made work in response to environments as diverse as a brewery, a maternity hospital, oil platforms, bridges, coastlines and estuaries. Over the past five years she has developed her use of Chinese Ink painting, interrogating the urban, industrial and romantic landscape of both modern China and Scotland through this medium. Last year she was appointed artist in residence for the Forth Road Bridge in

its 50th year, which has in turn led to her recent research in Australia and Japan of estuarine environments. She is a member of the Royal Scottish Academy and her work is held in public and private collections worldwide.

‘I like to explore geographical crossroads and borders, intuiting the nature of passage and migration. At an abstract level I am fascinated by the accumulated marks within the landscape, which I explore mostly through my drawing – representing countless variations of certain activities, either in the city or across land and rivers. My work attempts to transform ordinary places into poetic acts of memory.’

Kate Downie RSA

Kate Downie in her studio, February 2015. Photograph by Michael Wolchover.

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Selected Biography

1958 Born in North Carolina, USA1975-80 Studied Fine Art at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen 2004-06 President of the Society of Scottish Artists2008 Member of the Royal Scottish Academy

SOLO EXHIBITIONS2015 Estuary, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh Shared Vision: works inspired by ink painting traditions in China, Stirling University, touring to

Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen2014 Zero to Fifty: The Road Bridge Diaries, Hopetoun House, Queensferry, West Lothian Scotland Outside, China Within, Rendezvous Gallery, Aberdeen2013 A Walk Through Resonant Landscape, Royal Scottish Academy Edinburgh The Royal Glasgow Institute, Kelly Gallery2011 The Concrete Hour, Drawing installation, Where Where Art Space, Beijing, China New Paintings, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh Bridging the Gap, Invited Guest Artist, Pittenweem Arts Festival Dialogue with the Land, The Burgh Hall Culture Centre, Linlithgow2010 Printworks, 21 years of Printmaking, The Watermill, Aberfeldy Scotland2009-10 The Coast Road Diaries, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh touring Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries and Duff House, Aberdeenshire2008 The Sea Room, The Watermill Gallery, Aberfeldy 2007 The Red Coast, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh2006 The Watermill Gallery, Aberfeldy, Scotland2005 Lazaret Ollandini Foundation, Corsica2003 Routes des Travaux, Gallerie La Marge, Ajaccio, Corsica, Festival of Scottish Culture Titanic Shores, Gracefield Studios, Dumfries2002 The Vanished Road, Rendezvous Gallery, Aberdeen2001 East Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh1999 The Bridge, The Project Room, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh Intaglio Paintings and Prints, Patriothall Gallery, Edinburgh1997 Dusk Electric, Thornton-Bevan Arts, London New Landscapes, Patriothall Gallery, Edinburgh1995 Deviant Taxis, Colour Monoprints, Strathfest ’95, Cogarth Castle, Aberdeenshire WASPS Studio Gallery, Edinburgh Festival1993-96 The Mother Pool, The People’s Palace, Glasgow and a major UK Tour of Museums and Galleries1990-91 Urban Circus, Tour - Collins Gallery, Glasgow; Cleveland Gallery, Middlesbrough; McManus Gallery,

Dundee and Artspace Gallery, Aberdeen1987 New Paintings, Galleri Grijsdalen, Denmark and Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh

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SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS2015 Scottish Drawing, Royal Scottish Academy Galleries, Edinburgh Visual Arts Scotland, Royal Scottish Academy Galleries, Edinburgh2014 A Capital View: The Art of Edinburgh City Arts Centre, Edinburgh2013 Marked – Drawing Now, Cessnock Regional Art Gallery, Hunter Valley, Austrailia Postcards to Japan, International House of Japan, Tokyo (touring) The Scottish Show, Lemon Street Gallery, Truro, Cornwall, England 4+ Exhibition, Plockton Gallery, West Highlands, Scotland Second XU CUN Arts Festival Exhibition, Shangxi Province, China2011 Intersection, Chinese and International Red Gate Residency Artists exhibition,

Nova Art Coordinates, Beijing Monotypes, Glasgow Print Studio Gallery, Glasgow Ripple Effect – New Monoprints from France, Norway and Scotland2010 The Haymarket Pibroch, Drawing Installation, Invited Artist at 184th RSA annual exhibition2009-10 The Wych Elm Project, Royal Botanical Gardens of Edinburgh/Graal press co-published2008-09 The North Sea project, SSA/Attic Salt Gallery Edinburgh Sand Kulturhus, Kopervik Kulturhus, Rogaland Kunstsenter Stavanger/Norway Coast Festival, Banff and Portsoy Boat Festival, Aberdeenshire2007 40 Years of Printmaking from Edinburgh Printmakers 1987 to 2007 Modern Print Masters, Watermill Gallery Aberfeldy2006 The Royal Scottish Academy/The Society of Scottish Artists, Edinburgh Contemporary Scottish Artists, Chambers Gallery, London2005-06 The Jerwood Drawing Prize 2005, Jerwood Space, London; Pittville Gallery, Cheltenham; Rennie Mackintosh Gallery, Glasgow2005 WASPS Exchange, ARC Gallery, Chicago2003 Moving Solutions – SSA, Bonhoga Gallery, Shetland SSA Select, The Park Gallery, Falkirk2000 Living Proof, Joyce Gunn-Cairns and Kate Downie, Patriothall Gallery, Edinburgh Printmaking Present, Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries1999-2000 Cleveland Drawing Biennial, European Tour1999 A Sense of Identity, Department of International Development, East Kilbride Girl Power, Rendezvous Gallery, Aberdeen The Fine Art of Medicine, Hunterian Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow1998 Twin Images II, The Fine Art Society, London1997 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh1996-97 The Motor Show - Powered Vehicles in British Painting, UK Tour Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry: Plymouth City Museum and Gallery; Stockport Art Gallery; Wrexham Arts Centre; Turnpike Gallery, Leigh1995 The Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling; Lillie Art Gallery, Milngavie1993 Scottish Painting, Flowers East Gallery, London Through Women’s Eyes – Contemporary Scottish Women Artists, City Arts Centre, Edinburgh

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1992-93 Figure in the City - Urban Themes in New Scottish Painting, Touring Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh; Mia Joosten Gallery, Amsterdam; Musiekatelier Kunstactivieten, Maastricht; Y’art and P Gallery, Utrecht; BP Gallery, Brussels; Artspace, Aberdeen and Oriel Gallery, Cardiff

1992 Adam & Co/Spectator Exhibition, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (Major Prize-winner) The Edinburgh Suite – Portfolio of Prints, Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop/Scottish Tour1991 SSA Centenary Exhibition, RSA Galleries, Edinburgh; Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries1990 Painting the Forth Bridge, 369 Gallery, Edinburgh; Scottish Tour1989 Soft Machine, Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop 57 Degrees 10 Minutes North, Aberdeen Art Gallery; 369 Gallery, Edinburgh

COLLECTIONSAberdeen Art GalleryAberdeen Asset ManagementAberdeen Royal InfirmaryAberdeen University Borders General HospitalGrampian Regional Council Adam & Co, Merchant BankAllied BreweriesArt in Healthcare, ScotlandBritish Broadcasting CorporationCleveland Art Gallery, Middlesbrough City of Edinburgh CouncilCreswell Maternity Hospital, Dumfries East and Midlothian NHS TrustEdinburgh City Arts Centre Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art

Gracefield Museums and Galleries, DumfriesGray’s School of Art, Aberdeen HM the QueenKelvingrove Art Gallery, GlasgowKirkcaldy Art Gallery and MuseumMoray House College of EducationMuseum of LondonNew Hall Art Collection, CambridgeRietveld Kunst Academie, AmsterdamRobert Gordon University, AberdeenRoyal Bank of ScotlandRoyal Scottish AcademyScottish Arts CouncilScottish Trades Union CongressScottish ProvidentThe University of Edinburgh

AWARDS2013 Creative Scotland Quality Production Award2000/2013 The Hope Scott Trust Artists Award2010 William Gilles Bequest, Royal Scottish Academy2007 Friends of the RSA Research Award 2005 Shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2011 Riverside Gallery Award, RSW 131st Annual Exhibition Scottish Arts Council Bursary Award, SAC Amsterdam Studio Major Painting Prize, RSA Student Exhibition/Latimer Award RSA1995 Winner of Artists and Illustrators Magazine Prize, The Discerning Eye Exhibition,

Mall Gallery, London First Prize Spectator/Adam & Co National Art Exhibition/Competition Greenshield Foundation Scholarship (twice)1987 Aberdeen Artists Exhibition, Major prize Winner

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16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ TEL 0131 558 1200 EMAIL mail@scottish-gallery.co.ukwww.scottish-gallery.co.uk

Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition KATE DOWNIE Estuary1-28 April 2015

Exhibition can be viewed online at www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/katedownie

ISBN: 978-1-910267-14-1

Designed by www.kennethgray.co.uk Printed by Barr Colour PrintersPhotography by Michael Wolchover

The Artist would like to thank:

The Scottish Gallery

Framing: Edinburgh Arts and Brien Nicholson

Writing: Guy Peploe

Travel arrangements: Ian Dickson Travel, Sheena Byrne

Australia: Barb Kempnich, Andre Tallen, Kevin Condon, Peter Hill, Paul Zika, Raymond Arnold, Jane Wilson, Luke Scibberas, Ruth Thomas, Jen Clark, Hilary Hermann, Kevin Palmer, Elizabeth MacGregor

Japan: Hironori Katagiri, Kate Thomson, Taeko Seki, Aeneas Wilder, Japan Rail… and the kindness of strangers everywhere.

All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form by print, photocopy or by any other means, without the permission of the copyright holders and of the publishers.

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