CRITIC’S CHOICE

The Smithy Gallery in Blanefield has a 14-year-long track record of showing and promoting the work of leading Scottish artists. Its owner, Natalie Harrison Chinn, grew up with a mother, Laura Harrison, who is a successful painter. At one point she also worked as a painter. She brings a light touch and a deft eye to all the exhibitions she has put on in this former blacksmith’s cottage in Blanefield, north of Glasgow. The latest show Being Human – Observed, Remembered, Imagined, presents the inspired pairing of Joyce Gunn Cairns and Henry Jabbour, two mature Edinburghbased artists working at the top of their game.

Gunn Cairns’s palette may be more subdued than the bold saturated heavily textured palette of Jabbour’s but there is a cross-over in their subject matter and love of lyrical titles. The figure lies at the heart of both their work although increasingly Gunn Cairns has introduced birds and animals such as household pets into her work. There is a pared-down naivety to her work which has become more pronounced as she introduces toys and children into her paintings. Beirut-born Jabbour – who was introduced to Harrison Chinn by Gunn Cairns – turned his back on a high-flying medical career in 2013 to become an artist and this gamble has paid off. If you like to lose yourself in the emotion of paintings then this exhibition is for you.

Joyce Gunn Cairns & Henry Jabbour, Being Human – Observed, Remembered, Imagined, The Smithy Gallery, 74 Glasgow Road, Blanefield, G63 9HX, 01360 770551, www.smithygallery.co.uk Until November 24. Open Tue-Sat 11am-5pm & Sunday 1pm-5pm