Jan Patience: Get on board with brilliant street art at Glasgow’s SWG3

As a fifty-something mother of two young adults who lives in a suburb, I’m not the target market for an exhibition of painted skateboards.

But who could fail to be charmed by 34 skateboard-shaped original works of art by the UK’s leading street artists?

Deck The Halls opened last week at Yard Life, an urban arts gallery occupying one of SWG3’s archways on Eastvale Place, Glasgow.

This new show has been co-curated by resident Yard Life artist, James Klinge, together with Marianne Vosloo. Inspired by the sport of skateboarding and the endless creative opportunities afforded by the culture and communities surrounding it, Deck The Halls is full of vim, vigour and pack-a-punch colour.

Deck the Halls: New Glasgow art exhibition features skateboards as the canvas

There is work from London-based Fanakapan, renowned for his eye-tricking hyper-realistic style and designer, Phill Blake (Philth) and Sophie Mess, who has been described as a “surrealist graffiti artist for the soul”.

You’ll also find dazzling “decks” here by Mr Cenz, a pioneer of UK street art and Bristol’s own Inkie.

Scotland’s flourishing scene is represented too. This includes work by the artist behind some of the most vibrant murals in Glasgow, Molly Hankinson (I loved her subversive deck, The Ladies Room), Paisley-based graffiti artist, King Listy, illustrator Ursula Kam Ling Cheng and Edinburgh-based graphic designer/graffiti artist, ElphOne.

Australian-born SmugOne is now an adopted Glaswegian. His huge gable end freehand depictions of St Mungo and St Enoch have been taken to the collective hearts of residents and visitors to the city alike. For Deck The Halls, he’s scaled back, big time, with the snaggle-toothed skull-like Blue, which contrives to be simultaneously comforting and trippy at the same time.

The exhibition runs until Christmas Eve and all the work is for sale with prices starting at £300.

An exhibition dedicated to pink-haired British designer Zandra Rhodes has opened at Aberdeen Art Gallery.

Curated by the Fashion And Textile Museum in London, this retrospective looks back over half a century of a creative life at the cutting-edge of fashion.

The show presents 50 looks; one from each year of Rhodes’ career.

We roll from a 1969 ankle-length kaftan, screen-printed in silk chiffon, to a 2021 kaftan in recycled polyester, part of the designer’s KARISMATISK collaboration with IKEA.