The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh. 1992
ROBBIE BUSHE'S New Paintings at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh takes as it's principal theme a humorous and affectionate look at the would be wilder moments of our lives - party time and it's aftermath.
Thinly painted, these oils, and gouaches are also beautifully crafted works, line, pattern, colour and composition all well thought out and playing their part in the final work.
The titles, sometimes irreverent, set the mood, 'Halloween, 'slice of Life', 'Party Popper' while in several our women folk are seen as heroic survivors of these social and self inflicted disasters, as in 'While she gets on with it, he gets off on it' and 'woman drinking wine with sleeping Man'. 'Party Aftermath', a gouache I especially admired has our hero still prone at the light of day, his ministering angels gingerly easing back the curtains and making with the restoring coffee. But what a clever piece of composition this is, each individual gesture perfect and so acutely observed! And how atmospheric is the light in these pictures, whether natural or artificial which suffuses these hilarious scenes, blending figures and backgrounds with kindly shadow; in the cozy 'Halloween Party' throwing relief at the stooping 'dookers' In the 'Cat disturbs the card players' focusing attention on the wandering mog and the outstretched arms.
There is a nice contrast, too, in these works between the somewhat orgiastic goings-on and the classical control of the artist's technique which has one coming back again and again to enjoy some particularly felicitous passage. A first class exhibition which surely augurs well for the gallery in 1992
Richard Jaques: The Scotsman 21st January 1992
Solo Exhibition At The Scottish Gallery
Edinburgh January 1992
ROBBIE BUSHE, only two years out of college, has bravely mustered more than 50 paintings and drawings for the gallery's main salon. He is, for the moment at least, a 'slice of life' social narrator, a voyeur of human foible in dim domestic interiors or seen from the tops of a bus. The squalid dreariness of urban living, relieved only - and perhaps too literally - by many comic extravagances like 'Party Piss Up' and 'Bath Full of Beer', suggests that the artist would probably prefer to be somewhere else, but cheerfully makes the most of current limitations. He has wit, can draw, his figurative style has original flair, and there are pleasing harmonies in his subfusc palette. One to watch I think.
W Gordon Smith: Scotland on Sunday 19th January 1992
