Elegant works struggle to shine through the screen

Scotland is one of a number of exhibiting societies in Scotland who in better times displayed their work in an annual show at the Royal Scottish Academy building in the capital. How things have changed.

Back then we did not realise what a privilege it was to see and smell paint, to walk around a sculpture, looking at it from all angles, or even, heaven forfend, to touch something and make a real connection. Exhibitions are not only about viewing individual pieces but about work seen in combination and in relation to others. Viewed online, the often surprising and unintended relationship of one work to another — creative happenstance — is lost.

So it is difficult to get a real sense of the 240 works here, seen solely online. The experience can be frustrating and disappointing. It is not a criticism of the skills, talents and dedication of the 150 or so artists, who work across many media: from the chunky concrete sculpture of Alex Allen to the bold acrylics of Victoria Wylie, the elegant gilded and argentine essays of the jeweller Ann Shearer or the fantastical painted essays of Gemma Petrie.

Perhaps it is a function of lockdown and isolation, but nature plays a big part here with trees (Mike Wigg, Genevieve Draper, Kate Steenhauer, Catherine Davison) and landscape (Andrew Phillips, Alison Johnston) featuring in a large number of works.

Abstraction never goes out of fashion; Jana Emburey, Christine Wylie, Annalisa Merrilees and a number of others show assured professionalism across a variety of forms and methods.

The VAS membership, which evolved out of the Scottish Society of Women Artists in the 1980s, have never been in the business of making flamboyant artistic statements: political, social or sexual. Theirs is, more often than not, an understated aesthetic based on well-crafted artistic competence. Nevertheless, it’s good to see a bit more edgy, figurative work from artists such as Audrey Grant, who goes from strength to strength.

Perhaps next year it will be possible to experience the work of these artists at first hand. Here’s hoping.

vasonlinegallery.oess1.uk until Jan 31