Jimmy Thomason and Calum Moncrieff - Dumping Ground
Saturday, April 22nd 2017 - Sunday, May 28th 2017
For their new show in Da Gadderie at Shetland Museum and Archives, artists Callum Moncrieff and Jim Thomason have created an unseen body of work based upon their shared experiences of growing up in the Lochside area of Lerwick. The show is aptly named, 'Dumping Ground'.
Twenty three framed works occupy the greater part of the wall space in the gallery. These are accompanied by several videos. Other than this there are a number of found objects, 'objects of time' displayed variously throughout the gallery. One commissioned piece is in fact a child's 'Hurly' which can act as a metaphor for the changes and passage of time this generation have encountered in the seventy years of Lochside occupancy.
Callum Moncrieff's framed works are mainly done in the medium of oil paint and reference the hills and seashore adjacent to the Lochside area. All are on paper within a black frame, float mounted their marking allows the viewer to encounter the brushstroke right to the edge of the image. These are quite loosely painted, but still recognisably landscape. Jim Thomason’s framed works are from archival photographs, wash tinted, they act as a counterpoint to the more gestural works of Moncrieff. Both artists have in the main used a desaturated pallete.
The shorter of the video projections are named 'Jonah' and 'Silverbacks' these reference the old military buildings in the Lochside area, that so intrigued this post war generation of children. The audio accompaniment for these is a harmonica, played in-situ as the videos were filmed. The longer of the videos is called simply, 'Lochside' a series of vignettes that encounters the nature of a substantially changed space.
The found objects are in the main old discarded mechanical parts, fully rusted with hints of Verdigris, in this case because of its saltwater influence, a basic copper chloride. As with most placed objects, the final presentation for these is likely to occur on the day the show opens!
Jim Thomason and Callum Moncrieff were brought up in South Lochside in Lerwick. Both maintain that the varied town, cum-dump, cum-country, experiences they encountered in this peripheral geography, greatly influenced their sojourn into and throughout the Art World.
The artists will be in Da Gadderie on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays between 11.00am and 12.00noon during the exhibition.
The exhibition opens at 2.00pm on Saturday the 22nd April and runs until the 28th March 2017.