Beautiful Materials gallery has closed its doors in The Avenues Shopping Centre in Newton Mearns for the last time, but not before our group went for a visit to see the final exhibitions. The gallery was open in this location for around six months by artist and curator Nicola Atkinson who was given the disused shop unit by Outer Spaces, an organisation that provides spaces for artists to use as studios or for other creative endeavours.
Newton Mearns is quite a distance from the centre of Glasgow so most of the group travelled by bus whilst others drove there and met up in the gallery. It was a very pleasant journey passing through some lovely leafy suburbs. On arrival, Nicola told the group they could each choose a piece of her ceramics to take away for free. Everyone had fun looking at the many small colourful pieces on show in Nicola’s ‘Stuff etc’ exhibition and adopting their favourites to take home.
Also on show was an exhibition called ‘Making ends meet’, by Project Ability tutor Celine Mcilmunn. This was displayed in the aptly named Model Gallery, a miniature gallery within the main gallery space. This exhibition is composed of a series of small artworks created from fragments of shredded obsolete banknotes along with hand printed and toned cyanotype photographs.
The third artist showing in the gallery was Louise Shambrook, whose painting, printed on velvet fabric, hung in the ‘Above the sofa’ space at the entrance to the gallery.
After spending time in the exhibitions some of the group walked across to the nearby Fairweather Park for a walk in the sunshine before waiting for buses home.
The walking group is funded by The National Lottery Community Fund.
