New Work Scotland 2010: Nicolas Party & Catherine Payton @ Collective

Successful conceptual art should (of course) contain a strong concept, but – crucially – it must convey that concept to the viewer. Unsuccessful conceptual art fails to engage the viewer and relies on a thesis couched in vague terminology to prop it up. The latter is currently on display at Collective.

The Collective’s New Work Scotland Programme is admirable; offering promising art students and recent graduates the opportunity to exhibit their work, and thus bring it to the attention of the wider public. Unfortunately, judging by the quality of work featured in the second instalment of NWSP, this opportunity is not always given to the most deserving of artists.

Commissions by Nicolas Party and Catherine Payton are currently on display. Party’s installation is dominated by a repetitive spray-painted pattern of blue and orange lines, covering the walls, framing two basic pencil and charcoal-drawn still lifes. The naïve style of the drawings seems an attempt to question prevalent aesthetic values. However, Party’s work has little intellectual impact; his investigation of visual representation offers no new perspective on a subject which has been tackled in a far more nuanced fashion by innumerable artists.

Payton’s installation is a classic example of a reasonable concept presented badly. Her work, inspired by a remarkable life experience, fails to transmit this interesting autobiographical tale to the viewer.  Payton’s installation includes an ensemble of objects, video and sound recordings in order to set the scene for the twenty-odd page screenplay the viewer is expected to sit and read, or take away for a bedtime leaf through. In reality her work does not function as a cohesive whole, the combination of object, video and sound is distracting and the screenplay is tedious.