Abstract, Issue 28

Jess Holdengarde, Glimmer | Stills: Centre for Photography, opens 7 Dec

In 2024, Jess Holdengarde was the first artist selected to undertake a new residency supported by the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust, to spend time in Switzerland as part of a partnership between the Stills: Centre for Photography in Edinburgh and the Verzasca Foto Festival.

Jess is a lens-based artist from South Africa, currently based between the Isle of Lewis and Glasgow, exploring the role of photography in the context of a time marked by environmental, economic and social crisis and the paralysis associated with the resulting disillusionment.

The new body of work exhibited in Glimmer, opening at Stills on 7 December, encompasses photography, writing, sound, and moving images, all rooted in a commitment to sustainable processes, such as their innovative use of plant-based developer.

WBGT supported Residencies at the British School at Rome and Porthmeor Studios

Since the last edition of Abstract, two residencies supported by the Trust have been completed, coincidentally by two artists both based in Glasgow.

Rae-Yen Song 宋瑞渊 spent three months working in the historic Porthmeor Studios in St Ives, where Barns-Graham had her studio from 1940 until the early 1960s. Run by the Borlase Smart John Wells Trust, the studios are close to Tate St Ives and the Penwith Gallery and houses a community of resident artists as well as short-term visitors. Rae-Yen is an artist ‘flowing with the immigrant experience of flux and resilience, hungry to ever-evolve and build things, guided by Daoist ways of worlding’. They were able to use the time and space afforded by the residency spending focused time on preparations for a major exhibition to be held at Tramways in Glasgow in 2025.

Another new WBGT supported opportunity was established this year in partnership with the British School at Rome for a Scotland based artist to spend 6 weeks on a research-focused residency.  A unique opportunity to spend time in the School’s environment of rich interdisciplinary research and practice, the first artist to travel to Rome was Aqsa Arif, a Scottish-Pakistani artist using film, printmaking, photography and poetry to construct installations exploring themes of dual heritage, migration and cultural dissonance. Aqsa’s work is currently included in the touring group show Jerwood Survey III, currently at Site in Sheffield and then coming to Collective in Edinburgh from 28 February – 4 May 2025.

Gift of Prints to Art in Healthcare

This year the Trust donated 29 screenprints by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham to the health and wellbeing charity, Art in Healthcare, with whom we have partnered since 2007. We have worked with them to display prints in hospitals and healthcare settings across Scotland.

Currently 10 prints from the gift are on display in Orkney at Balfour Hospital, and a further two are included in display at Forth Valley Royal Hospital, Larbert as part a project called Breathing Spaces. Supported by Museums Galleries Scotland and in partnership with Artlink Central, 15 artworks from the Art In Healthcare collection were selected for the project to be displayed in areas of the hospital that are dedicated to staff wellbeing, including spaces for reflection, quiet time and professional development

The Glaciers Limited Edition with Specially Commissioned Print | Now Available

We are delighted to share a first look of our limited edition release of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: The Glaciers. Alongside an exclusive hardback copy of the book, you will receive an individually numbered digital print of Barns-Graham and the Brotherton family ascending Grindelwald Glacier in 1949, created for us by Glasgow Print Studio, presented together in a slipcase.

The limited edition of 200 copies is available only from the Trust’s online shop for £150.

Buy Now

End of the Glacier on Film | Poetry Readings by Alyson Hallett

To coincide with the release of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham:The Glaciers Limited Edition, we present a series of films of poetry readings by Alyson Hallett from her 2023 publication, End of the Glacier. Initially commissioned to write a response to Barns-Graham’s glacier paintings for The Glaciers book, Alyson’s encounter with works from the series at the Hatton Gallery’s Paths to Abstraction exhibition led to outpouring of work. Twenty-seven of these glacier-inspired poems were brought together in the dedicated collection, End of the Glacier. Robyn Marsack, founder and former Director of the Scottish Poetry Library .described the collection:

“Painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912 – 2004) drew glaciers, poet Alyson Hallett looks intently at the painter and the glaciers, and out of these encounters comes a series of poetic studies as varied, excited, melancholy and disciplined as the drawings. Hallett experiments with form, and on the white pages her lines are as evocative as W B-G’s. ‘All forms of ice are musical’, she writes, and in her readings her poems are musical too. this ‘conversation’ between poet and painter is one that we are very fortunate to overhear.”

A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things | Screenings and more

Mark Cousins’ award winning film, A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things, looking at the life and work of Barns-Graham continues to be shown in cinemas across the UK. In the coming weeks there are screenings from Lochmaddy on North Uist to Aldeburgh in Suffolk, as well as Broadstairs, Eastbourne, Acton (Q&A with Trust Director, Rob Airey), Hebden Bridge, Glasgow and Cromarty. There are screenings tomorrow (Thurs 28 Nov!) in Cardiff and Berkhamsted.

On Wed 18 December, the BFI in London will host a relaxed screening for neurodivergent audiences, with their companions and assistants. Presented with additional Descriptive Subtitles of non-dialogue audio, this screening will also have audio description available.  There will be a post screening discussion exploring neurodivergent creativity hosted by Benjamin Brown and Sam Chown Ahern of Neurocultures Collective.

More screenings will be added over the coming months – for details of all screenings please visit Conic, the film distributor’s website:  https://www.conic.film/films/glimpse

We have received a lot of enquiries about future availability of the film through streaming services and on Blu-ray/DVD – details of these are yet to be confirmed, but we’ll let you know as soon as we can!

Christmas Shop

With two wonderful new publications launched this year and a large variety of cards and other books available, why not think of us for your Christmas gifts this year? All proceeds go towards supporting the charitable work of the Trust.

• We have a limited number of signed copies of our new The Glaciers and Children’s Book available on a first come basis. Buy now to secure your signed copy!
• We’ve released more stock of our popular 8 Lines Cards Set, with 10 cards priced at just £5.
• Our Inspirational Journeys catalogue has now been reduced to £12.50 and includes a free set of accompanying postcards for a limited time.
• For bags, cushions, tea towels etc. featuring your favourite Barns-Graham works, visit our partner ArtUK’s online shop

To receive your order in time for Christmas, we recommend placing orders before Monday 16 December.

Snow and Ice from the Archive

These photographs were taken by Rowan James in 1998 during a walk around the grounds of Balmungo on a particularly snowy day in January. Wilhelmina Barns-Graham maintained a lifelong fascination with the visual spectacles created by snow and ice. From the famed Glacier series, to Snow at Wharfedale I painted while she was living in Leeds in the 1950s; to her Variations on a Theme (Splintered Ice) series of 1987. Ice became a particular preoccupation for her in 1987. On 18 December that year she recorded a visit to Cameron Reservoir in Fife:

Nice walk after tea by Cameron. Iced over. Still see the geese and all the variety of lovely long grasses diamoned[sic] with ice – and stones making music thrown on the ice.

Greys, whites and ochres to pinks and blacks as the light shrinks. 

Where to See Willie

Through loans, gifts and permanent collections at partner museums, there are lots of opportunities to see Barns-Graham works across the country this winter.

Works from the Jerwood Collection, including their glacier painting, Winter Landscape, 1952 is currently on show at the Arnolfini in Bristol as part of Here Today, Here Tomorrow. On display until 2 February 2025.

Barns-Graham’s prints are included in several group exhibitions, with November IV, 1991, on display in The Wilson‘s, Cheltenham, Into Abstraction, until 2 February 2025. In Edinburgh, the City Art Centre‘s Inked Up: Printmaking in Scotland presents Another Time, 1999, alongside a diverse range of Scottish prints from the gallery’s collection.

To coincide with the exhibition, the City Art Centre are hosting a special event with Ann Gunn, author of the catalogue of Barns-Graham’s prints. A Different Way of Working will take place on 27 February at 14:00.

Works can usually be found on display in galleries such as Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art,Tate Britain, Tate St Ives, Penwith Gallery, St Ives and Pier Arts Centre, Stromness.