Page 11 - Art First: Helen MacAlister: At the Foot o’ Yon Excellin’ Brae

Embedded in Scotland’s culture, Gaelic preserves ancient
idioms, ideas and traditions as if in some fathomless
peat bank. Serene and still, yet intensely alive, Helen
MacAlister’s work has its roots in this rich loam that
comprises the priceless bequests of Donnchadh Bàn
Mac an t-Saoir, Burns, MacDiarmid, Neil Gunn, Hamish
Henderson, John MacInnes and others.
This exhibition penetrates deep into language.
In so doing, it creates a new medium of itself that leaps
gaps and generations, fuses ideas and influences and
transcends, resolves and reconciles them. There are core
elements of concrete poetry and the choice essentials of
cryptic clues: creativity, ingenuity, imagination, economy
and enigma that lead to re-solution, revelation and reward:
the word revealed.
An Lanntair is pleased indeed to present
this exhibition when Scottish and Gaelic culture is more
examined and threatened yet also more valued and
relevant than ever.

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