Edinburgh's Summerhall hosts Portobello artist's exhibition of sculptures from the shore
It can be wild and tempestuous - glassy and still. Much like the terrain of the mind.
But it’s precisely these fluctuations of mood characterising Edinburgh’s coastline that reeled in sculptor and artist Paul Anders MacPhail and now direct his art.
He calls the two mile stretch of sand in Portobello his studio and collaborator.
And now the West coast and Orkney-raised artist, who manipulates elements of the manmade and natural world capturing them through a surreal imagination, simple sculpture and the lens of his iphone, is staging his first major exhibition at Summerhall.
Resurrection: An Exhibition of Sculpture/Photographs explores the transience of moments in our lives through objects MacPhail finds washed up on the shore.
He began to play with perspective and discovered a sense of peace by the sea as the collective fear generated by the pandemic consumed the rest of the world.
And today he continues to explore a very different way of seeing and overcoming challenges.
“Sometimes in life things will seem bigger than they are,” he said. “I was the person in my own images standing next to these ‘giant’ structures. The tiny was becoming monumental. It took me a while to realise that these obstacles were not giant, they were small - perhaps just a lot of them. But in time I could step over them one by one.”
His dreamy often ethereal images are designed to convey the impermanence of everything - each structure and idea at the mercy of the tide.
MacPhail, who lives with his family in the popular seaside suburb, eschewed sophisticated camera equipment in favour of his iphone. “I chose my phone because these were personal moments that initially I just captured for myself. I just wanted to tell the bare truth without the manipulation of photoshopping.“
But now when people see my images they say; ‘my phone doesn’t take photos like that!’ Technology has definitely undermined photography but I hope to challenge this with my images.”
He added: “I want to suggest a sense of simplicity and calmness - the transient nature of the work is important, that lack of responsibility. The images I take are just my own memories - but the seductive inversion of scale invites the observer into this world.”
During the holiday period MacPhail invites people to pause and draw in a sense of perspective through his work.
The exhibition showcases his work with 15 limited edition prints.
- Paul Anders McPhail - An Exhibition of Sculpture/Photographs 13-15 December, War Memorial Gallery, 1 Summerhall, EH91LP.
- To see more of his work visit his Instagram page @paulmacphail or his website: [email protected]