A taste of Japanese art coming to Perth
Four Scottish artists have a new exhibition celebrating a connection with Japan at Perth Creative Exchange.
Titled ‘Confluence of North’, Perthshire’s Su Grierson positions her work alongside Gillian McFarland from Fife, Kyra Clegg from Fife and Inge Panneels who is from the Borders.
The exhibition opens today (Tuesday, June 8) for just over three weeks.
Four artists from Japan worked with the four Scottish artists and their work is part of what can be seen.
The display is the result of a year-long exchange programme that has been conducted entirely online because of the pandemic.
Su Grierson and the three other Scottish artists were partnered up with four creatives from the Spirit of North project in Japan: Maruyama Yoshiko, Takizawa Tatsushi, Asai Mariko and Maruyama Tokio.
The seeds for Confluence of North were sown in 2013, when Su from Methven was invited to an artist’s residency in Fukushima, Japan, at the time of the second anniversary of the area’s devastating tsunami and nuclear disaster of 2011.
Once back in Scotland, Su told stories of the people she had met and her digital video work that sprang from the experiences was later shown at Perth Concert Hall.
This was also the time that the Japanese project Spirit of North, led by Maruyama
Yoshiko, began in Japan in response to the same event.
Recently the eight Confluence of North artists have been working together, collaborating through a series of video calls, emails and exchanges of work and images.
All the work to be shown in the Perth exhibition relates to the artists’ environment, where they live, and how that can be connected to ideas of what North really means.
The exhibition includes video installation about water levels, images and sculpture about food and journeys, sculpture, printed screens, painting, text and books.
Su said: “This project has not been without its logistical challenges – from the frustration and sometimes sheer hilarity of using online language translation apps, to often very simple but important cultural misunderstandings, and the time differences to be negotiated when setting up video calls – as well as the intricacies of transferring artwork either digitally or through postal services.
“At the start we said we would be ‘light on our toes’ so we could respond to whatever situations the pandemic might throw at us, and this has led us to making the whole project available online.”
Perth Creative Exchange will also host the first viewing of the community project Polaris, led by Perth-based Cuban artist Yunior Perdomo.
It is possible to visit Perth Creative Exchange on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays 9.30am–1pm and 2pm4.30pm and on Tuesdays and Saturdays by appointment.
Confluence of North is available until June 26. Book at confluenceofnorth@ gmail.com or see www.facebook.com/ confluencenorth