In this intriguing show visual conundrums cast new light on old treasures

To celebrate its 150th anniversary the McManus has commissioned the Scottish artist Calum Colvin to create a series of works that reflect on the museum’s collection. The commission stemmed from Colvin’s Jacobites by Name exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery last year. For that show Colvin rejigged the rather static Jacobite rooms, creating a series of interventions that illuminated and commented on some of the collection’s visual complexity.

Colvin, who is head of contemporary art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, has aptly titled his new show, which uses the same interventionist methodology, Museography.

Several of the Jacobite works can be seen here, including two portraits of Charles Edward Stuart based on work by Jean-Étienne Liotard and William Mosman. Colvin’s portrait after Mosman shows the prince in full Jacobite regalia prominently sporting the Order of the Garter and a white cockade, clearly demonstrating the propagandist nature of the imagery and iconography. The twin portraits reflect Colvin’s enduring interest in the shifting nature of historical narratives, particularly as they relate to Scottish mythologies.

Colvin’s technique, honed over several decades, embraces elements of construction, assemblage, painting and photography. In his studio, often in a corner, Colvin creates a “set” in which he assembles a collection of relevant props. For Robert Falcon Scott he has included a copy of Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, naval insignia, buttons, a hurricane lamp and a facsimile of the Daily Mirror that reports on the explorer’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition. Once his props are nearly complete, Colvin goes about creating a portrait where he often overpaints elements of the set — in this case he has used the rear walls of his studio, as well as various crates and boxes.

The finished work is photographed and printed on what looks like textured canvas. The viewer is left to unpack a series of visual conundrums, relating not only to the way the work has been made but also its content and meaning.

Colvin opens up new ways of looking because his work has a direct relationship with the objects and images found in displays around the museum. Adjacent to the Scott portrait (in the whaling section of the collection) is that of the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, who reached the pole four weeks before Scott in 1911.

Norway was a new nation, keen to create an identity. The twin portraits invite the viewer to ponder the imperialist ambitions of Scott’s bid alongside the idealism of a new state

Details: 01382 307200, to October 29