Collecting the Contemporary exhibits four substantive paintings by the Scottish artists John Bellany, Alison Watt, Ken Currie and Callum Innes. The paintings were donated to Kirkcaldy Galleries by a Fife collector in 2023.
The galleries team felt they would make an interesting display of contemporary work, which has not been shown before at the gallery (with the exception of The Family by John Bellany, which was previously shown on loan). With their centenary coming up they also wish to place a focus on collecting art for the people of Fife.
The Family (1970) – John Bellany
The paintings are displayed facing each other on four different walls. The oldest of the four paintings, The Family (1970), is a large, colourful piece which depicts a woman and man, chained and padlocked together. The woman is holding a baby. There are two stakes behind them: one with a fish on top and the other with a parrot.
John Bellany grew up in Port Seton and his imagery often includes fish, which are also a religious symbol. At the time of the painting, John Bellany was going through great turmoil. He was struggling with alcoholism, as he did much of his life, and he had visited Buchenwald in the late 1960s, an event which affected him profoundly.
It recalls an earlier painting, The Bellany Family (1968), where Bellany depicts himself and his pregnant wife with concentration camp prisoners. He combines his personal narrative with a broader narrative about humanity. The symbolism of The Family (1970), with the baby now born, may imply that marriage is a chain, but who is chaining who? Does the fish on a stake signify a rejection of religion, and if so, where does the marriage fit into this? Does religion create chains of marriage? There could be many interpretations.
Figures in a Classroom (1984) – Alison Watt
On the adjoining wall, Alison Watt’s Figures in a Classroom also shows three people (one may be the artist herself) at art college with various equipment such as rolls of paper and brushes. However, unlike The Family there is nothing obviously detrimental in the relationships. It is more serene and less interested in big themes.
Alison Watt attended art college a generation behind Bellany, and she painted this picture when she was only 19 or 20. In the exhibition film, the curator Lily Barnes suggests that the painting is a celebration of this stage in Alison Watt’s life and being at art college. It shows how accomplished she already was. It is a complex composition but carefully structured. The colours tend to be low in contrast and her forms at this time were realist in orientation.
She often painted portraits, figures and still lifes. However, it is interesting that the title is ‘figures’ in a classroom rather than ‘people’ in a classroom; this may foreshadow her later shift to emphasising the drapery itself, with its abstract potential and mysterious ability to suggest a human form.
National Stadium (2000) – Ken Currie
Ken Currie also attended Glasgow School of Art in the 1980s, at the same time as Alison Watt. At first, he was an overtly political artist, preoccupied with the conditions of working class people, which is exemplified in his series The Massacre of the Calton Weavers (1987). He also often recorded terrible despair. National Stadium (2000) is about the 1973 coup in Chile led by General Pinochet against the elected government. Pinochet’s opponents were imprisoned in a stadium and thousands were murdered or tortured.
The painting depicts an illuminated person falling through an ultramarine space. It could suggest diving, hanging or death. It could also suggest an X-Ray or a sense of vulnerability.
Like Alison Watt’s later works, one gets a sense of mystery, of something otherworldly. Ken Currie has said in an interview he wants his work to hang between beauty and horror. The backgrounds are often void-like. He is interested in the body and mortality.
In his later paintings he displays medical or scientific practitioners with eerie illumination against darkness; this may signify hope with counterpoints of death and decay. It may also allude to the Scottish Enlightenment, in which the development of medicine and scientific rationality played a huge part.
Intense White (2002) – Callum Innes
Intense White appears to be a large white square with a slightly darker rectangle taken out; the sides of the rectangle are not evenly defined, so it seems to disappear when looking from different angles.
Innes is interested in colour. He may start his oil paintings with a layer of black then removes it. Colours may be added and taken away, producing interesting colour effects. He may mask areas off to make a clear edge, then soften the edge later. A sort of distillation of a painting process.
In an interview for Artlyst in 2023, Callum Innes said he researches his paintings by walking. Perhaps surprisingly, they are about landscape and light. They record a moment in time, but he does not refer to that in the titles as they may shut the painting down. Indeed, his works don’t ostensibly signpost us beyond the painting. Many of his works are given titles such as Untitled 4 (2024).
Nevertheless, one does also sense something spiritual about the changing forms, suggesting a world beyond the painting. It’s possible to see something parallel between Innes, Watt and Currie in this respect, whereas with Bellany, any spiritual dimension is directly alluded to within the painting.
Visitor Responses
These paintings are demanding in different ways. They are not tranquil seascapes, for example, so I wondered how visitors had received them. Curator Lily Barnes informed me that the team wanted to get people thinking and talking about their collection and she feels in general that has been achieved. The Family tends to be a favourite among visitors, but people have had a wide range of responses overall. She says people have been very receptive to the work, which is more contemporary than much of the work in the other galleries. Some may love a painting, others hate it and anything in between, and she actively likes hearing different responses to the works.
I found the exhibition unusual in that there were only four paintings, and there seemed a lot of stylistic difference between them, albeit with overlaps. However, I felt this enhanced the collection as the small number of paintings encouraged me to look more closely.
Personally, I think the exhibition is time well spent, and visitors also have the choice to look at the other galleries, which includes some Scottish colourist paintings.The exhibition is at Kirkcaldy Galleries, Fife from 31 January 2025 to 1 October 2025. Admission is free.
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