Lockdown forced Sara Barker to break into new artistic territory

SARAH URWIN JONES

delivery box (Hold, 2020) or simply finding the connection between the domesticity of her working environment and the familiar proportions of the Cample Line buildings themselves.

“I started to think of the building as an artwork, the biggest in the show. The red oxide corrugated roofing, the sound of the gravel, so distinct and tactile, the very painterly dry-stone walls.

“It was all very vivid in my mind’s eye, at a distance and without being able to visit and, in a way, the exploratory works I’ve made are more deeply connected to that place because of this distance. It enabled me to be more playful.”

At Cample Line, the exploratory, experimental domestic works are juxtaposed with the main thread of her sculptural and painting practice, “and the need to make things more austere and sharpened up. It felt like two distinct part of my nature”.

And yet, as Barker does, she found the connections, whether in the red of a maquette that reflected the surrounding roofs or the sparkle of tin foil that recalled early Christian artworks.

“Something seemed to reverberate in these references that I don’t fully own. I think I allowed that to be there when I refined the work.”

It was, perhaps, a leap to allow these pieces to be works that she would recognise as part of her practice.

“But, in a way, I cared a bit less,” she added. “I want to learn something from that experience of lockdown, that alone will be something important. I want to see and live with the work I’ve made.”

Sara Barker: undo the knot, Cample Line, Cample Mill, Cample, Thornhill, Dumfriesshire, 01848 331 000 ,www.campleline.org.uk.

Until Jan 30, 2021, Thur-Sat, 11am-4pm, by appointment only.

IT IS the time of year when the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh is usually filled with the big winter Open exhibitions, but this year things are a little different. Visual Arts Scotland would normally be mounting its annual show, a flurry of activity from countless VAS artists to curate and hang the chosen works from many hundreds of submissions.

But this large-scale venture, which always throws up interesting works in many disciplines, and takes up the huge gallery spaces of the iconic William Playfair building in central Edinburgh, has had to be cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

All is not, however, lost. VAS is mounting a celebratory exhibition online, with more than 240 works in disciplines from painting to jewellery and sculpture, with many works available to purchase.

It is a new venture for the organisation, and one they will doubtless hope will be a part of history this time next year, in the event that life edges closer to normality and get to talk about it down the pub. Do go online to see some of what has been produced.

Yet all is not quite lost in the real world, either, as downstairs at the RSA, in the Academicians Gallery, a celebratory Christmas Exhibition has been mounted of “joyous” works from Royal Academicians themselves who, earlier this year, on the cusp of hanging their Annual Exhibition, had to pull the works from the walls and stow them away for another year. If you get bored of the Christmas queue outside the Princes Street shop of your choice, you now know where to head for some respite.

Visual Arts Scotland: Flow, www. visualartsscotland.org. Until Jan 31, 2021 RSA: Christmas Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, The Mound, Edinburgh, www.royalscottishacademy.org. Until

Dec 22, Prebook timeslots online

COUCH FICTION: A GRAPHIC TALE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY Philippa Perry, illustrated by Flo Perry

Penguin Life, priced £16.99

(ebook £9.99).

If you’ve ever contemplated psychotherapy and wondered what it’s really like, this book could help you understand. Posh barrister James seeks help from therapist Patricia Phillips. Over the course of his sessions, James goes from avoidance, to fantasising about his therapist, to understanding some of the roots of his issues and finally being able to move on. The graphic novel gives you the opportunity to understand what both participants are thinking and saying. The footnotes explain the therapeutic process, giving a 360-degree view of a year’s worth of sessions. It’s an honest, warts-and-all view from someone who has been a psychotherapist for 20 years – with illustrations done by Philippa Perry’s daughter, Flo. Bridie Pritchard