8 December 2011

Returns to the 1980s for art exhibition

Returns to the 1980s for art exhibition
'Larger Than Life' - Lamb Gallery, University of Dundee, Dec 10th to Feb 18th

image: 'Peace Rules the Day where Reason rules the Mind' by Colin Brown, 1986

'Larger Than Life', the new exhibition opening in the University of Dundee's this weekend, will take visitors back to the city's art scene of the 1980s.

The exhibition showcases art by students at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in the 1980s. Under the influence of the new Head of Fine Art, Professor Alan Robb, and his fellow tutors, a distinctive style emerged at that time of brightly coloured, highly finished and almost cartoon-like paintings which Robb terms the ‘Dundee Imagist School’.

Curator Matthew Jarron explains, 'Alan Robb encouraged his students to look at artists such as Giorgio de Chirico, Felice Casorati and the magic realists, and the result was a uniquely Dundonian response which was colourful but dark, realistic but also surreal. The work of artists such as Graeme Todd, Eddie Summerton, Ian Scott and Derrick Guild gave Duncan of Jordanstone an enviable reputation for its drawing and painting work. Many students from the time have gone on to national and international success.'

Larger than Life opens on Saturday December 10th in the Lamb Gallery, within the Tower Building on Perth Road. The show has been created as a response to the forthcoming exhibition A Painted World, opening at The McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery & Museum on 27 January and featuring work by Alan Robb and his contemporaries.

The Lamb Gallery exhibition runs from 10 December until 18 February (closed for Christmas vacation 23 Dec - 3 Jan).

Contact 01382 384310 or museum@dundee.ac.uk for further information

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk
MOBILE: 07800 581902