FIVE EVENTS TO LOOK FORWARD TO

IN the last year we have all become digital humans, casting our virtual net far and wide as our lives shrank to hearth, home and heath, punctuated with the odd supermarket visit to spice things up. In visual arts, festivals and galleries alike have had to weather many a storm in order to come out the other side. The good news is that Scotland’s art spaces should start opening up after April 26. So what is there to look forward to this year?

GLASGOW INTERNATIONAL www.glasgowinternational.org, June 11-17

Last year, just weeks away from opening, Glasgow International (Gi), Scotland’s major biennial festival of contemporary art, was forced to postpone. It’s back with a director’s programme of commissions and exhibitions in collaboration with partners and venues. News of the full programme is still to be announced but a highlight is sure to be a new installation by Barbadian-Scottish multimedia artist Alberta Whittle and Ingrid Pollard at Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL). Following a residency in 2019, Whittle’s solo show will reveal Pollard’s responses to the fascinating materials held in the lesbian archive at GWL.

ILANA HALPERIN – THERE IS A VOLCANO BEHIND MY HOUSE Mount Stuart, Bute, www.mountstuart.com/arts/visual-arts-programme, May 8 to July 11

For one of her largest solo presentations, US-born Ilana Halperin, who is based between Bute and Glasgow, has been inspired by the geology of her adopted island home. Situated throughout Mount Stuart House, her works on paper and textile will refer to “immigrant” minerals embedded in the fabric of the building, as well as geologic phenomena found on the island. Halperin describes it as a “constellation combining personal, poetic and corporeal responses to the house and island”. This is also the first part of the 20th anniversary of the visual arts programme at Mount Stuart.

JOAN EARDLEY CENTENARY www.joaneardley.com. Across Scotland throughout 2021

To mark the centenary of the birth of

Joan Eardley, one of the greatest British painters of her generation, events and exhibitions are being held throughout this year. Eardley was born in Wareham, Sussex, in 1921 and moved to Glasgow in 1939, where she enrolled at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA). She lived and worked in Scotland until her death in 1963 aged 42.

There are Eardley works in many public collections, and exhibitions are already planned by the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh, Perth Museum and Art Gallery, The Hunterian in Glasgow, GSA and Glasgow Women’s Library. The Scottish Women in the Arts Research Network (Swarn), co-ordinated by the University of Glasgow, is leading the Eardley 100 celebrations. The website www.joaneardley.com will be updated throughout the year with news.

HOSPITALFIELD, ARBROATH www.hospitalfield.org.uk. Opens May 20

Historic art venue Hospitalfield in Arbroath will launch the first major part of its redevelopment on May 20. This will see the opening of its garden and restored fernery and a new café, as well as a series of artist commissions across 2021. Its artistic programme includes new works by Mick Peter (outdoors from May 20) and Hanna Tuuliki, as well as a work inside the house by Christina Mackie (later this summer). The newly planted gardens and Peter’s installation will open next month along with the cafe.

ART IN MIND Glasgow Print Studio, Trongate 103, Glasgow G1 5HD, www.gpsart.co.uk and www.lyonandturnbull.com. May 18-29

Poor mental health has affected many people in the wake of the pandemic. Stirling artist June Carey decided to do something positive to help people in Scotland whose mental health has been adversely affected and Art in Mind is the result. Carey, who has had a long association with Glasgow Print Studio (GPS), has asked more than 40 leading Scottish artists to put their own unique stamp on a plain ceramic vase.

Included in the mix are vases designed by comedian Phill Jupitus, currently studying art in Dundee, and author Ian Rankin. The vases will be auctioned by Lyon & Turnbull on May 30 in aid of SAMH (the Scottish Association for Mental Health), with all proceeds going directly to the charity. The vases will be on show at GPS from May 18-29 leading up to the silent online auction on Lyon & Turnbull’s website.