Ogilvie's obsessive interest in the sea lies deep within her personality and ancestral background. Her mother’s family came from the remote island of St Kilda while on her father’s side the family were renowned builders of clipper ships in Aberdeen, so her chosen path could not be more natural. “I prefer to see the work in this exhibition as pure drawing – in that it is solely executed in pencil and not embellished with watercolour or coloured chalks” the artist wrote at the time. “There is no compromise.”
This 1984 exhibition at Edinburgh’s Talbot Rice Gallery was supported by The Scottish Arts Council. Looking back at this exhibition today, it is possible to gain glimpses of the work to come. While here the artist has used pencil, she has gone on to re-create such installations using digital projections, screens and pools.
”For me, the most fascinating aspect of [this] work is the hypnotic effect of the millions of marks. That woven web of lines which define an infinite space, the subtle changes in their intensity across the vast surfaces lures the mind into a contemplative experience far beyond the initial response.”
“Beyond the surface lies the substance of the art.”
Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh
sea sanctuary
The sea has many voices. The extreme limitation of means Ogilvie used here, with such austere effect, was something she shared with several of her generation. Such austerity for Ogilvie however, is not a mannerism, an aspect of a style. It reflects directly her purpose and her inspiration.
“The two immediately appealing things about Elizabeth Ogilvie’s giant wave-drawings are their meticulous execution, and their attempt to do the impossible: to pin down fleeting moments from a subject that is never still. Canute-like, she attempts to still the waves to make sense of their ever-shifting patterns for us.”
serpentine summer show
Serpentine Gallery, London
Curated by Adrien Henri, Miranda Strickland-Constable & Tony Cragg, Ogilvie’s drawing installation featured in the Serpentine Gallery Summer Show 1981.
“It was no surprise that Ogilvie’s early work consisted of exquisite drawings of the effect of light upon waves. Within a few years she had diversified into similarly themed works on handmade paper which focused on the passage of time and timelessness.”
Clear Cascades! In the waves immaculate, the summer moon
Graphite on paper on board, 6 panels, each 244 x 61cm
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
art and the sea
Oh, how quietly and how still the heavy snow fades into the sea!
Graphite on paper on board, perspex, six fold screen, 183 x 366cm
An exhibition with David Nash, Susan Hiller, Will Maclean, Robert Callender, John Bellany, Elizabeth Ogilvie, Alan Davie, Ian MKeever, George Wyllie, Barry Flanagan, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Ron Haselden, Richard Layzell & Peter Randall-Page.
Vision alone is a poor means of conveying the power of the sea. These artists have turned away from the purely naturalistic, some by abstracting the essential linear aspects of the movement of water and wave forms. The emotional meaning of the sea is manifest in its kinetic qualities, its motion, its repetitive rhythms. These sequential images are difficult to convey in traditional visual terms. As a result many of the works in the exhibition are provocative and unsettling, challenging the eye and the mind.
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Modernia Taidetta Skotlannista
Exhibited at Amos Andersons Konstmuseum (Helsinki, Finland, 1978). Curator Lindsay Gordon wrote: “The Museum arrange[d] a large number of exhibitions on special themes, covering both contemporary and more traditional art. Most of the dozen or so special exhibitions held every year concern[ed] the visual arts, but applied arts, architecture and photography [were] also covered. The museum often invite[d] young artists to display their works, and art from other countries, especially Scandinavia…”
The Art Machine
Ogilvie with The Art Machine – created for The McLellan Galleries (Glasgow, 1990). This exhibition showcased a comprehensive group of British artists. A smaller version of show was exhibited in The Barbican, London.
Sea Sanctuary (ii)
After the Talbot Rice exhibition, Sea Sanctuary was shown at The Fruitmarket & Kelvingrove galleries.