CRITIC’S CHOICE

Moving slowly north – if with giant’s footsteps – over the period of a year, this touring exhibition presents the work of six contemporary artists working in ceramics. Beginning at An Talla Solais in Ullapool, the exhibition stopped off in Thurso and has now reached Bonhoga, Shetland’s mill gallery, before its final stop in Fjell Festning Museum in Bergen, Norway, next January. Redesigned for the Bonhoga run, it is the gallery’s first ceramics-focused exhibition, showcasing a wide variety of contemporary work, from the conceptual to the functional.

The artists involved – Kjersti Sletteland and Tone Boska (who work together as the Biosenario Collective), Ingeborg Blom Andersskog, Jenny Mackenzie Ross, Rebecca Brown and Siri Brekke – are a widely flung group from both Scotland and Norway, hence the exhibition’s dual title Northbound/ Nordgaende. Ceramics are the core but there is also work in painting, drawing, installation and video.

The work is redolent with narratives, new and old, of lines and traces, loosely exploring the ancient and modern connections between Scandinavia and Scotland. Brown’s work is the result of an interest in coastal folkore, investigated during a residency in Norway. Andersskog worked in An Talla Solais

(Ullapool) for a week during the opening run, creating work that is now part of the touring exhibition.

But if the concepts and stories are there, it is about clay, too, in the end – an exploration of the sculptural qualities of this eminently plastic medium and its interaction with other artistic disciplines. Catch it now in its last week at Bonhoga before it sets off over the northern seas to its final destination.

Northbound/Nordagaende, Bonhoga Gallery, Weisdale Mill, Weisdale, Shetland, 01595 745750, www.shetlandarts.org, until Nov 4, Mon-Sat 10.30am-5pm, Sun 11am-5pm