From Hong Kong to Shetland

Necessity, it seems, is the mother of invention in the arts as much as it is elsewhere. In that spirit, the Fine Art Society of Edinburgh are pressing ahead with their excellent showcase of works by Shetland artist Ron Sandford. The exhibition has been set up in their Dundas Street gallery ready to be viewed when possible, but the works are also available to be viewed via a 360 degree online viewing.

In a ‘boatie hoose’ II, Mid Yell Voe

The exhibition will cover 30 years of work by Greenock-born Sandford, who is now based in Shetland but from the 1980s worked for six years from Lamma, a small island off Hong Kong. Living on the edge of pre-handover China and close to Macau, he was drawn to Chinese vernacular architecture as well as life as he found it around him.

Abandoned Junk Yard, Little Hong Kong

Island life clearly agreed with the former Glasgow School of Art and Royal College of Art almunus, who moved with his family to the island of Yell. From his studio, he draws the everyday, every day: still life, landscape and portrait in pencil, pen, ink and watercolour. From the windows of his studio and home, Ron looks across the Bluemull sound to Unst, the most northerly inhabited island in Scotland. A distinctive cleft in the cliff face defiantly sits in the backdrop of many pictures, a recurring motif like the container ships that lurk in the background of his Hong Kong work.

For more information or for a virtual tour, see www.fasedinburgh.com