Press Coverage: Dwell at Open Eye Gallery

Installation walkthrough of ‘Dwell’ at Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh from 6 – 28 April 2021.

‘Back Rooms (Rosemount Place)’, Robbie Bushe RSA, oil on panel, 2021, 40cm x 87cm

‘Back Rooms (Rosemount Place)’ forms part of DWELL a solo exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery in April 2021

‘Dwell’ is a body of work by Robbie Bushe RSA exploring personal history and living spaces. It begun in 2018 from an indelible childhood memory of Bushe’s from 1975 in Aberdeenshire. It tells of his childhood, coming of age, loss, grief and adult responsibilities from the early 70s to the present, his paintings allowing us to peer in and speculate those shadows, figures and murmurs from the past.

‘Back Rooms’ depicts a cutaway of the three back rooms of the firs floor granite tenement flat in Rosemount Aberdeen where I lived off an on with my Mum from 1978 – 1992.

Robbie Bushe’s practice centres on the depiction of detailed, suggestive narratives, frequently set within expansive architectonic constructions. Bushe has exhibited his narrative paintings since 1990. Inspired by the characters and the places where he has lived and worked, his work has won several national awards, including the inaugural W. Gordon Smith Painting Prize. Most recently he is a shortlisted prize-winner of the 2020 John Moores Painting Prize at the Walker Gallery Liverpool.

Please contact the Open Eye Gallery to enquire about this and other works in the show.

 

 

These seven small work form part of 'Invasions and Excavations’ a solo exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery from 21 April – 6 May 2017.

Making very small paintings is not as straightforward as one might imagine. I used to call them ‘palette cleaners’ as I tried to make small paintings from the remaining mixed colours on my palette. I was kidding myself mostly as just about never did these paintings work out or did not require their own unique fresh paint. For me small paintings usually come at the end of a body of work, when my confidence is high and am more dexterous. They also enable me to try out some of the ideas which had not made it on the bigger works, or experiment with the colour palette.

These seven small work were all made as I came to the end of the works for the show. I have the illustrator Brecht Evens to thank for the inspiration on the colour palette for a couple of these – his work adorned my studio walls over the winter to remind me to be bolder with my colour.

Please contact the Open Eye Gallery to enquire about these and other works in the show.

Please contact the Open Eye Gallery to enquire about this and other works in the show.

‘The Sub Terrestrial Sports Complex’, oil on panel, 2016, 30 x 46cm

‘The Sub Terrestrial Sports Complex’ forms part of ‘Invasions and Excavations’ a solo exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery from 20 April – 6 May 2017.

I have a strange relationship with sport. My childhood is filled with my being the worst at virtually any sports that were thrown at me. I would bunk off ‘games afternoon’ to sneak home and draw cartoons and comic strips. But I was engaging and competing with sport in my private world and desperately wanted to me good at some sport. It never happened but now at least I take pride that I am a keen swimmer. I have always, however, really engaged with sports on tv and radio and the ensuing discussion down the pub – particularly big events. In Summer of 2016,  I watched a fair bit of sport – there was the Olympics, European championships and Andy Murray winning Wimbledon for the second time. As part of my ‘drawing a day’ regime, I would simply draw in a ‘flow state’ and let whatever I was doing or watching have an impact. These resulted in a series stadium environments built on several levels with rough approximations of sporting events (including golf on stilts).  I am not sure what I am getting at with this picture put it was the first of a new batch of pictures made in the summer of 2016 and I think I was just limbering up.

Please contact the Open Eye Gallery to enquire about this and other works in the show.

‘Centre for Life Supported Learning’, oil on panel, 2016, 60cm x 76cm

‘Centre for Life Supported Learning‘ forms part of ‘Invasions and Excavations’ a solo exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery from 20 April – 6 May 2017.

I have worked for many years in what used be called ‘extramural’ education; classes arranged for people who are not full-time members of a university or educational establishment. Also known as ‘continuing  education’ or ‘lifelong learning’, these classes provide a vital lifeline for those who feel excluded and are looking for a second chance, a change of career and to gain new skills, knowledge or experiences.

In the many years I have been involved in the art and design lifelong learning sector, I have been privileged to support and facilitate experiences which have genuinely changed people’s lives, whatever their age and background. I have also been aghast by misassumptions about this sector from the educational establishment; Over the years, I have said to me ‘part time study is half-hearted, ‘art and design is not serious academic study’ and even ‘bloody granny painters’ from someone who should know better.

‘Centre for Life Supported Learning’ is my tribute to the thousands of learners who stream into universities, colleges, schools and communities centres each year to transform their lives – and many travel from far and wide to attend. Evening classes are often buried away in the hard to get to bowels of unfamiliar buildings where signage is challenging, resources and equipment is scarce.

‘Centre for Life Supported Learning’, oil on panel, 2016, 60cm x 76cm

I really enjoyed placing poorly thought out and badly designed signage within the stairwell areas and who does not have experiences of waiting for slow, old and rickety lifts to floors you are not sure you are meant to be on? And all punctuated by the smell and hum electric floor polishers being escorted by cleaners in their regulation tabard.

Please contact the Open Eye Gallery to enquire about this and other works in the show.

Monday to Friday 10am to 6pm
Saturday 10am to 4pm

‘Battle for Middle Scotland’, oil on panel, 2017, 46cm x 60cm

‘Battle for Middle Scotland‘ forms part of ‘Invasions and Excavations’ a solo exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery from 21 April – 6 May 2017.

In recent years I have got into the habit of doing at least one drawing every day in my sketchbook no matter how small, quick or insignificant. This enables a continuity of practice during protracted periods where I am too busy within my day job for concentrated efforts on studio paintings. Little by little through, both observed and invented drawings, a world of ideas and thoughts get recorded and held for another day. During 2016 I took this idea one step further and made a much larger piece made up of many smaller drawings created and improvised in response to the previous one – with no overall pictorial plan.  It started with an observed drawing of the interior Edinburgh’s Royal Commonwealth Pool where I swim regularly.  I am fascinated with their 4 pool zones, the changes in height, its diving boards and the operational control – It feels like a James Bond baddies’ base. From there, the drawing went into a complete freefall where day by day I would add and invent annexes, people and chambers and landscapes and planes. I called it the ‘Accumulation of Small Advantages’ as that is how I approached it. The work was shown as an installation at Visual Arts Scotland FLY2016 at the Royal Scottish Academy.

‘Battle for Middle Scotland’ took as its starting point a section of ‘Accumulation’ and, while I started it on one panel, I tried to adopt the same improvisational spirit and actively hid sections while I drew out other parts. The planes in the sky seemingly like my made up planes I drew as a child when I created sky battles. As the muted colours of the painted layers developed, it became clearer to me this was becoming the story of an uninvited invasion on lands which are treasured and mainly unspoiled.  It could be the Scottish Borders or the heart of Perthshire or where I grew up in Aberdeenshire. I don’t know. But it is definitely a battle for the heart of middle class Scotland and this is where the title comes from. The zebras and the giraffes? I just don’t know.

Please contact the Open Eye Gallery to enquire about this and other works in the show.

‘New Hadrian’s Wall’, oil on panel, 2017, 76cm x 60cm

‘New Hadrian’s Wall’ forms part of ‘Invasions and Excavations’ a solo exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery from 21 April – 6 May 2017.

Walls, barriers and partitions are a central preoccupation in my work. Those who work within and around institutions or live in gated communities may be familiar with feelings of being both trapped and safe. Perhaps we are all increasingly willing prisoners happy to trade off freedom, diversity and creativity for safety and conformity. For many years, I have been embroiled in debates on admissions and access to higher education, widen participation and flexible learning.  I feel the injustices within our systems very deeply; I spent two years living and working in Oxford where the University communities are actively a gated community away from its indigenous inhabitants. And that is the way they want it to stay.

‘New Hadrian’s Wall’ centres around a glib and stereotypical idea that Scotland has become a haven for progressive ideals in this era of ‘Brexit’ intensified only this week with the snap election call at Westminster. The wall in the picture is built out of a series of stacked shipping containers open to reveal what is inside; I have included a final frame from a ‘The Broons’ strip by my childhood comic artist idol Dudley D Watkins and an iconic scene from Danny Boyles’ Trainspotting. The guards along the wall are various characters from BBC 70s scifi ‘Blakes 7’ and ‘Braveheart’. While the rhetoric around the current Scottish nationalism focuses on its on openness and tolerance, I am deeply saddened that there is an increasing appetite hard national borders across Europe and beyond.

The painting, of course is just that. But making it and exploring these themes has become an important visual therapy for me.

Please contact the Open Eye Gallery to enquire about this and other works in the show.

‘Cumbrae Court Theatre’, oil on panel, 2017, 30 x 46cm

‘Cumbrae Court Theatre’ forms part of ‘Invasions and Excavations’ a solo exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery from 21 April – 6 May 2017.

In April 2016, my mum Rose died shortly after her 80^th Birthday. Mum was many wonderful things over her rich, creative and generous life, not least someone whose incredible love and support gave us all permission to follow our dreams, make mistakes and have fun doing it. The last few years of Rose’s life were as rich and fulfilled as any; Mum would periodically reinvent herself, get rid of stuff, move and start again. Her final move to Largs brought her back in contact with creative, articulate and reflective people – people who became soul mates and creative collaborators. She was back in her element; She became a key member of the Largs Writers group, performing her own poems, prose, writing plays, designing sets and costumes.

Her richest period of creativity and acknowledgement came right at the end and I had never seen her so happy and fulfilled – and all from a small retirement flat in Largs. ‘Cumbrae Court Theatre’ is simply my tribute to Rose. It depicts her two room retirement flat as a stage set devised from a memory drawing while we were sorting out her stuff. Rose appears twice in it from different stages in her life. It was my first painting of 2017.

Please contact the Open Eye Gallery to enquire about this and other works in the show.