In a small, elegantly proportioned hall in Leith, melodious classical music is played to the audience once they have taken their seats. They survey the thick rope snaking across the floor and follow it to its conclusion: a giant, wooden “stone”positioned amongst their seats. The music stops and a woman slides across the stage on her side, attached at her waist to the other end of the rope. She pauses to deliver an intimate and poetical narrative before leaving as she arrived, gliding horizontally before our eyes.
This was an artistic performance by Shelly Nadashi to forerun the opening of the New Work Scotland Programme exhibition at the Collective gallery. Nadashi’s work is presented alongside that of Jacob Kerray, but from December they will be replaced by the work of a different set of artistic new-comers: Nicolas Party and Catherine Payton.
Although somewhat obscure, I found Nadashi’s stage performance helpful as I stood before her exhibition pieces at Collective later that night.  It had elucidated the issues which her art addresses:  the relationship between performer, artwork and environment.  The rope which had featured in the performance had worked to symbolically tie the audience and performer together, whilst binding them both temporarily to their immediate environment: that charming, public hall in Leith. Her small exhibition at Collective explores this three-way relationship further through the aid of short film, puppet masks and a model stage set.
Nadashi’s work embraces Art in the fullest sense of the categorisation; it is the sort that doesn’t have to hang on walls. With its mix of live performance, film and inanimate objects it is the genre-defying type. But in fact, if conventional artwork is what you are after, it is noticeably lacking in this NWSP exhibition.  Jacob Kerray in the adjoining room fuses old-world portraiture with modern day pop-culture in a statement about celebrity, cult and power. His blurred, bloated faces are at times reminiscent of Francis Bacon, although he sounds a far more light-hearted note.
This year’s NWSP exhibition revels in new Scottish artistic talent in all its innovative, imaginative glory. You may have dismissed Collective in the past for the seemingly intimidating and inaccessible nature of its artwork, but don’t let it put you off this time: a visit to this exhibition will leave you thoughtful and reflective.