Contemporary Painters
This room brings together four artists whose work engages critically with, and expands, the field of painting.
Despite their distinctively individual styles, they all display a sensibility towards contemporary concerns, including social connection, identity and multi-culturalism, whilst drawing from an eclectic range of sources and sharing an interest in the process of painting itself.
Image: Carol Rhodes, Industrial Belt 2006 © Estate of the Artist
Chris Ofili's paintings are renowned for their intricate layering, decorative surfaces and inventive use of media. His symbolically rich works draw from a wide range of sources including Zimbabwean cave painting, popular music, Biblical themes and mythology.
Using geography textbooks and aerial photographs as her source material, Carol Rhodes predominantly painted semi-fictional scenes of typically disregarded locations viewed from an aerial perspective, which makes them look almost abstract.
Callum Innes is known for his abstract canvases which the artist maintains are not abstract in themselves as they respond directly to the world in which he lives and the emotions that he experiences. The artist removes paint from the canvases using turpentine as a poignant way of suggesting human existence.
Victoria Morton’s paintings are influenced by fashion, art history and experimental music composition. In her abstract canvases, she aims to involve the viewer by creating a mind-expanding and overwhelming expanse of pictorial space.
Display accessibility
Location
Gallery facilities
Detailed information on accessibility at the National Galleries of Scotland
Parking for visitors is available at both Modern One and Modern Two. A donation is requested of £3 for up to 4 hours and £6 for 4-8 hours. Our payment meters have contactless capability.
Getting here
The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is located 15 minutes’ walk from Princes Street. It includes two buildings, Modern One and Modern Two, set in a beautiful sculpture park.
- Open daily, 10am-5pm
- Open daily, 10am-5pm
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