New Contemporaries 2015 at the RSA, Edinburgh

This annual exhibition brings together work by 72 artists and architects, selected from last year’s art college degree shows. It is a highly privileged forum as well as an indicator of future success. The increasingly professional approach by even the youngest artists is evidenced by the serious price tags, ranging from a few hundred to several thousand pounds for an individual art work.

Because this exhibition is drawn from such a wide cross-section, it’s impossible to discern common concerns. However, it would be true to say that these emerging artists are politically and socially engaged. There’s also an air of ominous menace, offset by some colourful but complex work.

Moira Watson’s installation Control. Money. Power, for example, is a series of five bomb-shaped objects, suspended from the ceiling. The presence of such threatening symbols acts as a metaphor for the forces that seek to manipulate our lives.

At the front portico, Deb Marshall’s sound installation Kairos I floods the area with thunder. Its companion piece, Kairos II, includes a classical, headless cast of Venus Marina accompanied by Dido’s Lament, by Purcell, scored, recorded and performed in reverse. This is an immersive work, sensitively in tune with its surroundings, where “meaning” is somehow less important than sensory experience.

Although Erin Fairley and Emma Smith are from different colleges, Dundee and Edinburgh respectively, their works sit comfortably together. Fairley uses rope and thread — here a red web defines the cupola above the sculpture court. She also works outdoors, in wild landscapes, combining textiles with ceramics. Smith’s Transposition, a pair of inverted red velvet curtains that may have protected some precious, but invented, museum object, indicates a sense of loss and memory.

It’s good to see the notion of craft returning to the way artists make art. Dominic McIvor’s 168 incorporates drawing, embroidery and plaster while Robbie Hamilton’s wooden plinths and ramps explore the environment of skateboarding. Seamus Killick’s Premium Fingernails, a series of 83 paintings, is labour-intensive and minutely detailed. David Fleck’s constructions, carved and shaped from wood, are also inspiring. Catherine Ross’s vast oil diptych Passage depicts sea, ice and the vast rusting hulk of a ship.

One of the most affecting works is Richard Phillips-Kerr’s Avatar. The artist has projected a moving image of a talking head on to a life-size plaster-cast body. In Hindu mythology the avatar was the physical embodiment of a god but today the term denotes a digital presence. Kerr manages to combine both senses with what seems to be a message of caution from other worlds.

This highly impressive and professional show bodes well for the health of Scotland’s art schools and the artists who emerge from them.