Abundant creativity at Small Paintings show – Daily Business Magazine

Small Paintings at Morningside Gallery

An annual Edinburgh art show offers something to suit most art lovers, writes ANDY MOSELEY

From the outside, Morningside Gallery may seem like another boutique shop thanks to its unobtrusive exterior. Step inside, however, and you find a year-round programme of exhibitions featuring the work of artists from Scotland and further afield. The Small Paintings exhibition is a perfect introduction to the gallery and the artists it features.

Now in its twelfth year, it includes more than 550 original unframed paintings, each of which are no more than 25cm in size.

This means that you don’t already need to have a large art collection that you’re looking to expand, or a large space on a wall that you’re looking to fill. With prices ranging from £150 to just shy of £1,000, anyone looking for a nice picture to fill a small space may find something to take home.

Morningside Gallery director Eileadh Swan said: “There’s something about seeing the abundance of creativity in this exhibition that seems to generate joy at the start of a new year for artists, gallery and clients alike. These paintings are small, but still involve a huge amount of work for the artists.

“These are generally not feature paintings to hang above a mantlepiece and this exhibition encourages people to really buy what they love.

“Many buy something every year and build their own walls of small paintings. Some will be following a particular artist while others will be drawn to someone new – it’s a great way to take a little risk with the freedom to try something different.”

The works on display cover a wide range of subject matter and styles, from landscapes, seascapes and city scenes to still life and portraits, and from figurative to abstract. As well as paintings from established artists, there is also work from emerging talent.

The gallery has grouped the paintings more on colour and aesthetics than on themes and artists. This makes it easy to see how what may appear to be very different paintings can actually sit alongside each other to make a balanced, contrasting collection, and also means that work by newer artists gets the same prominence as works from their more established peers.

Within the limited space of the gallery itself, there is only room for about 150 of the paintings to be displayed at any one time. However, the exhibition is also in a state of constant evolution as paintings are snapped up and taken away by visitors to the gallery or online buyers and new paintings take their place on the walls.

So, if you visit once and don’t see anything that takes your fancy, it’s always worth coming back another day to see what else is on offer.

Small Paintings runs until 1 February. More information at Morningside Gallery, Edinburgh | Contemporary Scottish Art

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