Edinburgh Art Festival 2021: Top Picks

By Gemma Batchelor, 27.07.2021

Frank Walter, Untitled (Red sky with birds in flight). Courtesy Kenneth M. Milton Fine Arts. Photographs by Kenneth Milton.

The 17^th edition of the Edinburgh Art Festival opens this week, bringing together over 35 exhibitions and new visual art commissions across the city, after what has been an exceptionally difficult period for the culture sector. Although we’d ideally like to explore all the exhibitions over many days, we’ve selected a few displays that we are most excited about.

Frank Walter | Music of the Spheres

Ingleby Gallery, 29^th July – 25^th September 

Born in Antigua in 1926, Frank Walter’s work was unknown during his lifetime but since his death in 2009, he has come to be seen as one of the most remarkable and distinctive Caribbean voices of recent decades, representing Antigua and Barbuda at the Venice Biennale in 2017. This exhibition is devoted to Walter’s ‘spools’, small circular paintings that are rooted in the landscape of Antigua, but full of spirituality and romanticism, and bringing together all the elements of Walter’s artistic practice.

Projects 20 | Sekai Machache

Stills Centre for Photography, 29^th July – 18^th September

Sekai Machache continues to prove herself as a prodigious Scottish contemporary talent with this presentation of work at Stills Gallery. Divine Sky tells a complicated history through allegory and performance, working within new ways of structuring artistic output instigated by the pandemic lockdown. The display is part of Projects 20, a series of short exhibitions aimed at providing a platform for new talent in photography from Scotland.  

Owners of the Soil: Will Maclean and Shaun Fraser

The Fine Art Society, 29^th July – 28^th August 

This exhibition of work by two acclaimed contemporary Scottish artists, one established, one emerging, examines ties between land, identity and ownership, colonised and coloniser. Maclean’s boxed constructions recount the experiences of Gaelic-speaking residents of Rosshire of the early 20^th century, whilst Fraser’s work looks to Nova Scotia, an area dominated by Scottish settlements that displaced First Nation place names.

Thomas Joshua Cooper | The World’s Edge

Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 31^st July – 23^rd January 2022

The photographer Thomas Joshua Cooper has travelled across the globe over the past three decades, to the most extreme points surrounding the Atlantic Ocean, covering five continents and exploring previously unknown islands. Through these travels, he is the only artist to have made photographs of both poles. This exhibition explores records these travels.

Matthew Arthur Williams: In Guise of Land

Johnston Terrace Wildlife Garden, 29^th July – 29^th August

 

Set against the greenery of these central Edinburgh gardens, but captured in various locations on the west coast of Scotland, Williams references a history of portraits in the landscape. The portraits depict Williams’ body embraced by bracken, becoming part of a monochrome landscape. Through this his body becomes a way to alter narratives of what it means for Black and queer bodies to inhabit certain rural environments.

Joan Eardley Centenary

The Scottish Gallery, 30^th July – 28^th August

The festival wouldn’t be complete without a display celebrating the much-loved Joan Eardley in this, her centenary year. Having represented the artist throughout her lifetime and since, the Scottish Gallery’s exhibition includes her most popular subjects, from the streets and children of Townhead, Glasgow, to the wild Catterline coastal village that became her home.

 

For more information on the full programme of events and exhibitions, both in person and online, visit Edinburgh Art Festival. All festival venues will be following the latest government Covid guidelines to ensure visitor safety. Visit their website to check details.