Scottish Art Events and Exhibitions: May 2023

At CAMPLE LINE, near Dumfries, Kira Freije’s river by night (until 10 Jun) uses the nearby River Cample as inspiration. Freije presents new sculptural interventions that reflect on interior psyches and the built and natural environment, in particular response to the gallery’s rural surroundings. 

In Edinburgh, Talbot Rice hosts a group show titled The Accursed Share (until 27 May). Revolving around the concept of debt, nine artists (including Lubaina Himid, Sammy Baloji and Marwa Arsanios) unearth the origins of debt in enslavement and imperialism, and how it has manifested itself in contemporary issues such as the cost of living crisis. 

In Glasgow, The Modern Institute currently has a trio of exhibitions open, all until 20 May. In A Sunflower, Six Trees, Three Birds and Two Horses (One With Wings), Andrew Sim combines queer autobiography with folklore in a series of radiant pastel motifs of monkey puzzle trees, horses and sunflowers. Meanwhile, Andrew Kerr’s Flattening the Penny (in the gallery’s Aird’s Lane space) demonstrates the artist’s renewed interest in book cover design. In the Aird’s Lane Bricks Space, Tokyo-based artist Yuichi Hirako presents flamboyant paintings and sculptures.

The culmination of a one year residency exchange programme, All Islands Connect Under Water at the CCA (until 3 Jun) brings together artists Asha Athman, Islam Shabana and Samra Mayanja in an exploration of the ocean as a site of political, cultural and legal contestation. 

The Hunterian Collection have recently acquired a number of films by the pioneering filmmaker Lis Rhodes, which will go on display at the gallery from 12 May. The exhibition will feature films from the start of Rhodes’ career in the 1980s to more recent works, which trace a feminist and anti-austerity trajectory over the last four decades. In the East End, The Pipe Factory is showing Ghada Eissa and Nik Rawlings’s I was in the tide, the tide was in me (6-21 May), a new audiovisual artwork that examines personal experiences of bipolar disorder and neurodiversity.

On 20 May, DCA debuts an exhibition of new work by Saoirse Amira Anis, whose multidisciplinary practice centres radical care, compassion and joy. Anis will delve into Scottish and Moroccan folklore, drawing parallels with how they are deeply embedded in water.