Alex Lopez, hosted by Alison Forbes @ Esplanade Terrace

Alex is a Chilean sculptor who has been based in Scotland for the past two decades. Working primarily in figurative work he is an expert in carving modelling and casting techniques. The work selected for the Garden Gallery exhibition will be a formal construction consisting of a carved red sandstone figure.

Title of work – Untitled - composition in stone

Anna Perch-Nielsen, hosted by PHPR Ltd @ Lower Joppa

Anna’s work is primarily an investigation of space. Her sculptures and installations are large and ambitious works that make use of a variety of media. Their scale and content require the viewer to enter into a relationship with the space that the pieces occupy, both physically and psychologically.

Title of work – Topiary Garden

My work is primarily an investigation of space.

The print takes as its starting point the recognisable, cultivated space of the garden. This is then abstracted and flattened. It becomes an imaginary, uninhabited space, incorporating elements of gardens that have been collaged together in a seamless way

By positioning the print within a real garden, the print both echoes and contrasts with the plants that surround it. The print offers an alternative space for the viewer to explore.

www.tarnation.co.uk/giallobeluga/

Andrea Geile, hosted by the Molonys @ Bedford Terrace

Andreas work is intended to challenge the notions of garden art and land sculpture. Constructed from forged steel poles the work will be planted into the hosts garden.

Title of work – Petalostia gigantea ‘Rostbraun’

The garden is a scene of fascination for Edinburgh based artist Andrea Geile who aims to create a contemporary version of ‘Gartenkunst’, challenging notions of garden art and land sculpture. Interested in our complex relationship with the ‘natural’ world, this work looks at the romantic notion of and desire for it. The title is inspired by research into Botany and Horticulture and she enjoyed naming this new cultivar. It is a quiet and unobtrusive work reflecting the setting and emulating the surrounding gardens. The group hovers above the planting and slightly moves in windy conditions like tall grass.

www.andreageile.co.uk

Liz Webster, hosted by the Dalriada Bar @ the Promenade

Playful, humorous and often irreverent, Liz’s work explores and responds to social and institutional realities, interactions and power structures. Working chiefly through live art, performance and intervention, and sculpture, and to a lesser extent drawing, video and animation her work can be tactile, interactive, or participative, and is usually mischievous or subversive. The work in the exhibition will consist of participatory workshops for DIY sailors.

Title of work – Float your own boat

The work will incorporate a participative cardboard boat-building event and launch ceremony entitled - Kiss Me Quick, Sink Me Slowly

Liz Webster launches Float Your Own Boat, another playful participative art project. Webster invites members of the public to follow in the wake of amateur boat modellers, DIY sailors and wannabe mariners alike by making themselves their own model boats, but with a smallish twist - or perhaps fold – these will be made of cardboard. With free workshops running on several weekend afternoons throughout August, it’s a labour of love and ultimate futility, given the boats time-limited seaworthiness. Take part in a workshop or come along on 30 August to the boat launch ceremony Kiss Me Quick, Sink Me Slowly when the small vessels will be dispatched on their watery, if possibly very short, journey.

Workshops are being held at the Dalriada Bar on Sunday 3 & Saturday 9/16/23 August 2008, 1-5pm.

www.myspace.com/lizwebster

Nicola Murray, hosted by Lee & Jenny Kindness @ Esplanade Terrace

Nicola’s interest in biological systems and science continues to have a strong influence on her art practice. The unexpected connections found between apparently random elements and the contrasts frequently discovered between the exterior and interior of things are themes that often crop up in her work. As well as dealing with tangible physical aspects of the world, Nicola is interested in exploring the relationship between our rational understanding of the way the natural world works and the more personal reality of our lives.

Title of work – 99

In 2005 I was artist in residence on a Russian icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean. Since my return I have experimented with time-lapse film, documenting melting ice in various forms. I wanted to zoom in close and look at ice on a domestic scale, exploring the physical and natural laws that govern us all.

99 evolved from this work. How many of us have memories of hurriedly gobbling a melting ice cream on a hot summer's day by the sea? The piece turns something domestic and intimate into a brief tragicomic meditation on human appetite, loss and altering states.

99themovie.info

www.eca.ac.uk/nmurray

Read on for video...

Clare Waddle, hosted by Jo Burns @ Esplanade Terrace

Creating two and three dimensional work Clare’s work is based around household craft and antiquated domestic objects and interiors. Focusing mainly upon furniture and ornament she explores the use of reproduction and preservation. Her work continually references the make up of the dwelling and human intervention alongside the traditional and kitsch aesthetic.

Title of work – Anchor Buoy

Anchor Buoy will take the form of on oversized circular lifebuoy; the piece is made up hundreds of interwoven small cast plaster anchors.

The work will be predominantly white with three orange stripes as seen on an original lifebuoy. Constructed onsite – the nature of the space will determine the final presentation.

www.amberroome.co.uk/past/smith_waddle