Emerging into colour and sunlight

A resplendent banner hangs amid the austere Ionic columns of the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) building in central Edinburgh. It advertises the current exhibition with splashes of psychedelic iridescence with a red spot at its centre; hovering among the rays of light is the image of a white-tailed tropicbird. The choice of Jim Lambie’s digital print, Sun Visor, as the RSA’s “poster boy” is no accident, because it typifies at least one important aspect of this year’s show — colour, lots of it.

From the freshly repainted gallery walls that shimmer in lime green, turquoise and candy pink to the vibrant poster-like wall-hangings of Ross Sinclair to the decorated papier-mache balls of Ellie Ibbotson to Mike Pratt’s sumptuous abstract Love Salad, the galleries are awash with vivid tones, sensual textures and vibrating energies.

The RSA is a privately funded society and it has done much in recent years to open itself to new members and inclusive programming; and although some tired and predictable work remains, the emphasis is very much on life, joy and seeing a positive future. Some work, inevitably, reminds us of the nightmare of the past two years, such as Arthur Watson and Robert Crawford’s collaboration Gone Viral, which turns well-worn pandemic phraseology into punning neologisms (Contact Less, 2020 Vision, Covid’s Metamorphoses etc.) But even these word-based screen-prints are full of colour, suggesting that humour can see us through the darkest time.

Films by Beth Stilgoe, Eliza Soroga, Georgia Gardner, Maja Zeco and Silvia De Gennaro are also resplendent in rich imagery and colourful motifs — Zeco’s In Search of the Sun is a tribute to JD Fergusson’s shimmering, bronze-sculpted head, Eastre (the Saxon goddess of spring), while De Gennaro uses work by Poussin and Caspar David Friedrich as the backdrop for her animated tableau, The Paradise Lost Show.

There are stiller, more intimate moments such as Alice MacDonald’s digitally manipulated print and self-portrait, Getting Ready in The Girls Room or Fenneke Wolters-Sinke’s artists’ book/slide viewer, Icechrome. Tim Neat’s film, Farewell the Anthropocene, is a fitting tribute in words and painted images to John Berger.

As Edinburgh slowly emerges into the sunlight this thoughtful, uplifting show helps us on the way.