Stove Kirk in Sandwick opens for first art exhibition

Stove Kirk curator and artist Gillian Bridle, with sail maker Davie Medes, who shares the kirk-studio space.

A kirk-turned-art gallery in Sandwick opens for its first exhibition today (Monday) – showcasing five local artists working with paint, sculpture and digital renderings.

“There are lots of artists and lots of creative people in Shetland – but not a huge number of places where they can show their work,” said the kirk’s owner and exhibition curator Gillian Bridle.

“Since we got the kirk we’ve been wanted to have it as a gallery space, but not on a permanent basis – to have a pop-up gallery where for maybe a month we could show various people.”

The exhibition includes two painters, Nina Price and Katie Leask, who both work with local landscapes but take strikingly different approaches to colour.

Leask, who recently graduated from Shetland college, works closer to realism “with a lot of feeling”, said Bridle, while Price creates “really light-filled landscapes – unusually coloured but full of texture and light”.

They are joined by Orkney-based Maiwenn Beadle – a fine artist by training and Artic skipper by trade – known for her larger, sea-inspired pieces.

Jordan Clark, a collections assistant at the Shetland Museum, will be presenting digital folk art with, Bridle said, a strong shot of influence from tattoo iconography.

Finally, Fionn Arnett creates found object sculptures, “from the textures of Shetland’s landscape and things that he has found on beaches and on his walks in Shetland”.

Without setting a prompt for the artists, Bridle said much of the work had come to run along similar lines.

“The theme kind of loosely comes back to storytelling and the sea and Shetland,” she said.

The exhibition opens today at 4pm, and will stay open for three weeks between 10am-4pm.

All of the artists, except Beadle, will be at the gallery’s opening on Monday at Stove Kirk, between Sandwick’s Carnegie Hall and the post office.