DON’T MISS

The little known history of the Scottish Sampler, and most particularly of the girls who sewed them some century or two ago, is the crux of this fascinating exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland. Exhaustively researched by the American collector who owns these wonderful embroidered pieces, the unique facets of the Scottish tradition – not least the genealogical information contained on the samplers which facilitated research into the girls’ lives – uncover many stories, from riches to poverty, lives urban and rural, all worked in cross stitch or double-running stitch or any one of the many, many variations in stitch and colour and pattern that went in and out of fashion over the centuries.

configuration, lower than in previous shows, which Bradley, on the phone and fresh from installing the works in the gallery, tells me really changes the balance, making the gallery viewers’ experience of the sculptures’ monochrome exterior and the colour-pop interior patterns more equal. That, then, feeds into the new work which Hart has created for the upper galleries.

Banger is a series of works that explore a familiar trope in daily life – being in a car. “She has made these extraordinary sculptures of car windscreens,” says Bradley.

The screens are created from handmade tiles which tessellate exactly but contain a completely different – but related – image on one side to the other. Bradley says: “On one side a form might be a parking ticket but on the other it’s a leaf that’s fallen off a tree. In another, the windscreen has smashed, on the other side the patterns form a map.

“When you move from one side to another, you find yourself in the claustrophobic space of a car, you both do and don’t know what’s going on. And like Mamma Mia! there are rhymes, puns and patterns. It’s utterly gorgeous to look at. And it’s quite funny.

“Not very precious,” she adds, mentioning a flat tyre made by running a car tyre over a piece of clay. “You have a right to relate to this thing.”

Emma Hart: Banger, Fruitmarket Gallery, 45 Market Street, Edinburgh, 0131 225 2383, www.fruitmarket.co.uk, until Feb 3, Mon-Sun 11am-6pm