Until 11 November
Collective

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'Contemporary artist' is not a career choice for the light-hearted. For those not adept at schmoozing with Russian oligarchs, it can be extremely difficult to get a foot in the door.

It is therefore encouraging to see a gallery of Collective's calibre dedicating a show to the works of recent graduates art students.

The most interesting work to be seen here isn’t actually housed by the gallery, but is hung as an off-site installation in Craig’s Close; one of those narrow, cobbled, delicately urine-scented alleys you find dotted around Edinburgh.

Despite looking suspiciously like the abode of rapists, it's worth braving an excursion down here to see Jennifer Grant’s work. She has worked an eclectic assortment of glass vases, candlesticks, porcelain jugs into a junk-shop-assemblage neatly threaded together onto a string and hung up from the lofty buildings. The overall effect; of innocent, playful splashes of colour against the dirty brick walls is wholly charming.

The on-site works are less consistent. Michael White’s mixed-media sculptures are intriguingly beautiful with their contrast of shiny, plastic forms and crumbling, plaster formations. Elsewhere small, crudely painted canvases  of  soldiers, dead horses and stormy skies are hung simplistically in a largely bare room. These look potentially intriguing, but on closer inspection bear more affinities with GCSE artwork than anything else.

Artists Rachel McLean and Simon Gowing are also featured, who on the 22nd October will unveil a collaborative performance piece. This, no doubt, will be excellent; McLean was one of the absolute stand-out degree-show names last year. For the moment, the gallery displays their artistic dialogue so far:hundreds of pages of their e-mailed correspondence, are neatly stapled together and fasted to the wall with ring binder clips.

All in all, it looks marginally less exciting than the contents of an average accountant’s filing cabinet. If you find yourself with 5 or 6 hours to spare one day, by all means go and have a read. Despite a slight mix of standards, however, its still encouraging to see these burgeoning young artists enter the professional world, and certainly worth a visit. 

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