Reviews & features: Visual art

Ian Reddie: Dirt, Glue, Gluedust

The Edinburgh-based artist presents mixed media paintings, screen prints and digital art evoking a primordial world of desert and rock. Art’s Complex, 661 1924, until 5 Sep (not Mon/Tue), free.

Amnesty International Urban Art Exhibition

Syrkus, Rekor, Derm, Conzo, Mark Lyken and Elph

Urban art created onsite at a live event at the start of the festival by Syrkus, Rekor, Derm, Conzo, Mark Lyken and Elph as part of Amnesty’s festival-wide campaign to highlight the need for freedom of expression all around the world. C soco Urban…

Barbara Rae and Matthew Draper

Contrasting Landscapes, Painterly Abstractions

Two distinct and individual responses to contemporary landscape painting from the two Scottish artists. Open Eye Gallery, 557 1020, until 31 Aug (not Sun), free.

Plan B

Nuanced and arresting marriage of text and image

One of the most immediately arresting images of the Edinburgh Art Festival, photographer Norman McBeath’s black and white of a sculpture of Apollo swathed in smothering polythene, stands to represent a unique collaboration between this artist and…

Philip Braham: Falling Shadows In Arcadia

Insensitively curated exhibition pits the fragility of human life against the enduring landscape

This exhibition of photographic prints by the Royal Scottish Academy’s Morton Award winner 2009 comprises two rather different series’. The most prominent pictures are of black and white scenes – forests, bodies of water, vacant bridges – that have been…

EAF host first UK solo show by Iran do Espírito Santo

Brazilian-born artist exhibits at Edinburgh's Ingleby Gallery

The name Iran do Espírito Santo may not be a household word on these shores, but brace yourselves, the Brazilian-born artist is about to take the Edinburgh Art Festival by storm. Next month at the Ingleby Gallery, Scotland will have the opportunity to…

Atsuo Okamoto: Faraway Mountain

A strong sense of both exploration and play

Walking among Atsuo Okamoto’s granite sculpture feels rather like exploring a prehistoric puzzle – 12 pillars, erupting from the ground, cracked and split into pieces then carefully put back together. The Japanese sculptor’s first solo show in the…

Victoria Crowe: Reflection

Rich but congested series of studies of Venice

With so many shows in the Edinburgh Art Festival rigorously analysing the capital itself, Victoria Crowe’s show ‘Reflection’ offers an incongruous but welcome vacation from this theme. Instead of following the trends of site specificity or channelling…

The Space Between

Erratic mixed printmaking show

Taking the theme of ‘space’ as its departure, it is unsurprising that the selection of work in Amber Art’s current show is erratic: by its very nature all artwork deals with space. It appears instead that the term is a comfortable theme within which to…

Chris Close's exhibition at the Edinburgh Book Festival 2010

Chris Close seems to have established himself as the portrait photographer of choice for the Edinburgh International Book Festival. The authors visiting the festival to present their work and thoughts have been captured in a series of pictures by Close…

A Drawback

The phenomenon of drawing has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years, with many artists now returning to producing, exhibiting and selling contemporary drawings. This exhibition by Perennial Art celebrates the diversity and richness of the practice and…

5 Questions - Invisible Structures

Invisible Structures has created a special outdoor environment of hidden treasures, workshops, performances, art and science experiments guided by interactive performers to Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Gardens. Claudia Mosely from Invisible Works takes…

Edward Weston: Life Work and William Wegman: Family Combinations

A pair of fascinating photography exhibitions for the price of one

These two fascinating exhibitions by two very different photographers challenge John Steinbeck’s belief that cameras should be disparaged because ‘they are so much more sure than I am about everything.’ Weston was the natural, a pioneer and a comrade…

Atsuo Okomoto: Faraway Mountain

Japanese stone sculptor presents 12 pieces sculpted from same block

The first UK solo exhibition by Japanese stone sculptor Okomoto showcases the technique of ‘war modoshi’, or splitting and returning, and features 12 pieces sculpted from the same block which can then be pushed together to reform the original piece. The…

Garage

This new site-specific, collaborative exhibition developed during a series of micro-residencies in a New Town garage features work by UK-based international artists including Rebecca Key, Holly Fulton, Thomas MacGregor and Bob Moyler, and hosts various…

Julie Roberts: Child

Honest and compelling exploration of childhood

Julie Roberts’ new body of work takes the subject of childhood and explores the displacement of children in the mid 20th century. Her paintings do not make use of universal images; instead they are the result of in-depth research and working through…

Hito Steyerl: In Free Fall

Sophisticated film captures the global economic crisis

A theoretician, artist and filmmaker interested in documentary strategies in contemporary art, Hito Steyerl’s work focuses on the intersection between politics and aesthetics, specifically the status of images as they circulate globally. Steyerl is a…

Mairi Gillies: Natura Sensus

Hortisculpturist explores the relationship between art and plants

Mairi Gillies explores the interventionist nature of horticulture, which, as opposed to agriculture, isn’t always for harvesting, but rather for aesthetic, ownership and collection purposes. As a sculptor, she works with the notion of cultivating these…

Gemma Holt & Richard Healy: Shapes And Things

Making art from the everyday

A partnership instigated by Edinburgh gallery Sierra Metro, ‘Shapes and Things’ is the first collaboration between London-based artists Richard Healy and Gemma Holt. Both work to manipulate and divert the language of design, injecting ‘newness’ into…

Joan Mitchell

Arresting display of abstract paintings

Inverleith House really is a special place. An 18th century mansion reserved entirely for the display of art, its beautifully proportioned light-filled rooms enjoy unmatched views of rolling lawns and botanicals. The works that are exhibited within its…

Martin Creed: Ballet Work No 1020

Oh, do try harder, disgruntled of Sadler’s Wells

Three stars. That’s what Martin Creed’s getting, although I suspect he was aiming for one, and some outrage. Three stars because there are a couple of interesting dance moments, a few good laughs, and some of the musical numbers are quite good, although…

The Songbird

Giant Productions's sound poetry at the Botanic Gardens

Glasgow’s Giant Productions makes its Fringe debut with this interactive tone poem about an exotic songbird captured by a ruthless logger. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Botanic Gardens, and performed by a pianist, cellist and two actors, the…

Thomas Carlile's Landscapes of Memory

Public art exhibition spread across the city interpretable by touch phones

Keen-eyed observers will spot a number of black and white square barcodes amidst the shop signs and fly posting that decorate Edinburgh’s streets. But what is their purpose? Rachael Cloughton explains: The first one I saw was stuck to the concrete…

The Forest Café celebrates tenth birthday

Volunteer-run café is a true original in Edinburgh

The Forest Café’s tenth birthday, happening mostly on Saturday 14 August, but spreading its shambolic, joyous tentacles throughout the rest of the month, is one of those true causes for celebration. That an entirely volunteer-run, hippy-hearted…

Gilbert and George exhibit at the National Gallery

Retrospective of the iconic art duo

There’s something quite unnerving watching the three films that form the oldest contribution to this mini retrospective of Brit Art’s most enduring double act. Here they are, Gilbert and George, in grainy black and white, young men still in their 20s…