At the Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh, three artists open gateways into faraway worlds. The small, still gallery space transports viewers into strange and mystical dreamscapes, at once familiar yet undiscovered.
The central gallery space is hung with a collection of paintings by New Mexican artist Margaret R. Thompson, whose work depicts surreal and dreamlike realms infused with both natural and mythological imagery. Each of Thompson’s paintings spin their own magical narrative, their enigmatic titles evoking transcendent and ephemeral themes. Earth Garden (2022) is painted in moonlit shades of blue, populated with soft, spinning stars and glowing figures. While I Dream of Rain (2023) captures a desert landscape suffused with warm light, echoing the arid New Mexican plains Thompson works amongst. The natural, tactile essence of Thompson’s work is also striking; she frequently uses materials such as earth, sand, and raw pigment in her paintings, providing a bridge between our world and the next, binding the phantasmagoric to our earthly realm. Arusha Gallery does well to provide an intimate, quiet space for contemplation and appreciation, wholly detached from the inner-city buzz it is situated nearby.
The next room showcases works by Swedish artist Frida Wannerberger, whose art similarly evokes images one may have seen in a dream, showcasing small, delicate pencil drawings infused with strange and angelic looking figures characteristic to her artwork. I put a spell on you (2023) indeed invites the viewer into its surreal world as a girl, half-human and half-bird, gazes out of the drawing with glazed-over eyes. Wannerberger’s 160 x 100 cm oil painting, When the Wagner group is declared a terrorist organisation under UK legislation and you think about the world and life and the future (2023), dominates the room with its bright yellow background and majestic angel-figure. Yet it is the smaller, quieter pencil drawings that arguably pull the viewer into Wannerberger’s world; odd images haunting their audience.
Two brightly-coloured paintings by Charlotte Keates populate Arusha Gallery’s third room, fusing together natural imagery with architectural elements such as Deep Sleep Crashing Waves (2023), which simultaneously captures a neon-lit modernity whilst retaining the thread of ambiguity and mystery that runs throughout the works of all three artists.
Upon leaving the exhibition, I caught a glimpse of myself in the wall-to-floor length mirror hung amid Thompson’s paintings. Behind me linger the reflections of mysterious yet familiar dreamscapes and I found myself trapped within her work, almost expecting the mirror to become a portal into Thompson’s world.
Photo of Margaret R. Thompson’s Evergreen (2023) at the Arusha Gallery via Aisha Traub Chan