and per se and: part VII - Susan Collis & Richard Forster

31 May - 10 June 2017

and per se and is a rolling sequence of exhibitions where one work is paired with another for two weekly periods, across a stretch of 12 months. For part VII of the sequence three crumpled sculptures, in graphite and paper, by Susan Collis will be joined by a triptych of graphite seascapes by Richard Forster. Richard Forster takes a documentary approach to time, process and sense of place. His drawings often act as a calendar of activity, and a form of storytelling. Saltburn-by-the-Sea, on the North-East coast of England is the birthplace of the artist and the site of one of the few remaining Victorian piers left in the UK. Forster photographs the sea at regular intervals from the edge of the pier and then, over several weeks, draws the photograph documenting the line of the incoming tide as the wave breaks. As Laura Cumming has put it, writing in the Observer, ‘photography extracts a moment and holds it forever intact; but it also freezes that moment, pushing it back into the past. Forster is effectively reanimating old photographs, bringing them back to life as unfinished stories through these deeply worked and pensive drawings.’ Susan Collis’ commission for the University of Edinburgh in Bristo Square, Edinburgh titled The Next Big Thing in a Series of Little Things will be unveiled in the late Autumn of 2017.