There is so much on in Edinburgh in the summer that you have to be very selective. In addition to keeping up with friends and getting things done in the flat, we did manage to get out to a couple of exhibitions. I have been familiar with some of Bridget Riley’s work for a long time but the Scottish National Gallery has now got one of the largest collections of her work on display. It showcases the development of her work from life drawings done at art school, pointillism and some copies of Impressionist works. There are some preliminary drawings for paintings and rooms displaying the OP Art black and white and colour works that she is best known for. She painted her first abstract work in 1961. Her monochrome painting ‘Movement in Squares’

reminded me of a perspective study I had to do at school and still have on my monochrome wall in Edinburgh.

Others are very colourful. The large size of many of her works means that she has used assistants since the 1960s but mixes all the colours herself.

The other exhibtion I managed to get to was ‘Weird Plants’ by Chris Thorogood which is on at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. He describes himself as being fascinated by plants since childhood and finding was of illustrating them. The works in this exhibition were mostly oils. I was particularly interested in his painting of Ravenala madagascariensis or the Traveller’s Palm:

The reason it evolved blue seeds is that Madagascar has very few fruit and seed-eating birds which are hard-wired to prefer red, orange and yellow fruits in that order. Lemurs however, can only distinguish visually between shades of green and blue. They are attracted there fore to the seeds and aid in their dispersal. We have a trip to Madagascar planned for October so I will look out for the seeds. There is an exhibition of collage at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art which I must see on another trip. It is on until October so I should have no problem fitting that in.