Enclosed Spaces at Linlithgow Burgh Halls comprises paintings that are tied together by the theme of enclosed spaces. Whether interior or exterior, the spaces are settings for improvised fictions. Like theatre sets or dream arenas, the action happens in a place that is ambiguous or shifting.
Many of the paintings include figures, often alluding to family members and ancestors. Props, such as tables and chairs, shrubs, mirrors and windows form part of the environment, jostling with the figures or indicating their absence. The paintings do not follow any particular story line and are open ended although, sometimes towards the end, they stumble upon some aspects of my life which take me by surprise.
This combination of visual reality and imagination, logic and invention, speaks to me about notions of identity, personal history and desire in a non-linear way that is reminiscent of daydreaming. Risk-taking, spontaneity and deliberation are all part of these processes and lead to a layering and abundance of sometimes disorienting elements.
Most of the paintings are from the past six years covering themes of picnics, dining tables, childhood memories, games, gardens and ancestry, but I have included two from more than thirty years ago, ‘Magic Carpet’ and ‘Temperamental Weather’. Certain themes, such as play, are being revisited and it is interesting to see how old paintings relate to current ones.
Virginia Bodman says of my paintings in Enclosed Spaces, ‘Irvine’s working process for me has something in common with the child who, lying on the carpet or under a table, invents games and scenarios, talking to themselves all the while combining objects that are to hand with ideas from their experience and imagination, sometimes even destroying the world that they have fabricated when it seems not to match their needs or expectations. ‘
Enclosed Spaces is on at Linlithgow Burgh Halls until 18th May 2025. It can also be viewed online.
