In her native Denmark, ceramic artist Lotte Glob is a household name. But in Scotland, the country she has called home for more than 50 years, Glob is virtually unknown outside art circles.
Despite this, Glob has become increasingly groundbreaking in her approach to art, influenced by the land around her studio croft near Loch Eriboll. Yesterday, a solo exhibition of Glob’s work opened at Kilmorack Gallery, in a former church near Beauly in Inverness-shire.
The Sutherland-based artist is well-known for leaving her ceramic creatures in the hills as an “offering” to nature and for letting the sea pick up more than 300 floating-stones before carrying them off.
This is the first time she has exhibited her ceramic creatures, and her first solo show at Kilmorack. Lotte Glob – Eriboll Creatures runs until April 15 and presents more than 100 sculptures as well as rarely seen paintings and etchings by the artist, who turns 80 next year.
Glob claims these friendly, colourful, goofy creatures come to her from Loch Eriboll, or from dreams, half-glimpsed things – and even from the clay itself.
It’s a joyous collection that has been celebrated by Kilmorack Gallery director Tony Davidson with the publication of an accompanying children’s book – as opposed to a lofty exhibition catalogue.
Glob was apprenticed aged 14 to Danish ceramicist Gutte Eriksen and went on to be influenced by painter Asger Jorn, a fellow Dane. Jorn was at the vanguard of a school of thought that recognised spontaneity and creating art playfully would break down barriers. In 1968, she moved to Sutherland aged 19 and never left.
Asger told Glob when she was just 17 that, “if you don’t go to an extreme, there’s no point going”.
This has become the creative maxim by which Glob lives her life.
If you haven’t caught Becoming Frida Kahlo yet, you are in for a treat. This three-part documentary series, made by a female-led team based in Glasgow, is now available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
Becoming Frida Kahlo: Actress on giving a new voice to Mexico’s legendary artist
Mexican artist Kahlo, who died aged 47 in 1954, is a global art superstar – but this stylish and informative series makes maximum use of archive footage, diary extracts, photography and expert voices on Kahlo to paint a vivid and humane picture of the woman behind the “look”. Unmissable.
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