Rough Cut Nation at Portrait Gallery :: Creative Dundee - Amplifying and Connecting the City

Rough Cut Nation, a collective of young Scottish artists (most of whom hail from our sunny City of Discovery) are taking over Edinburgh’s prestigious Portrait Gallery.

As part of the Edinburgh Festival, the Rough Cut collaborative are creating a dramatic installation; a remixed version of Scottish history inspired by William Hole’s 1890’s artworks. Headed up by Richie Cumming, a familiar face at the DCA, the show promises to be a heady concoction of cotemporary art and music, a must for any discerning Festival goer.

Forget the stuffy conformity of a National Gallery – you won’t find any gilded frames or hushed silences here; you might however stumble across a suitcase full of spray paint and a MacBook blaring out some hypnotic mixed-up beats.

Our artwork is translated through street art and graffiti culture; imagery is spray painted, pasted, projected and embedded directly into the walls of the gallery.

We’re half way through the month long installation process and the gallery is already unrecognisable. The walls are works in progress; masked artists armed with battered cans of spray paint climb scaffolding and ladders to recreate the history of Scotland with a funked-up twist.

Rough Cut Nation will feature artwork from Elph, Fraser Gray, Kirsty Whiten, Mike Inglis, Peter Martin, Jason Nelson, DUFI, Machism, Paco, Johanna Basford, Janie Nicoll and Skint.The project will also feature artwork produced by young people working with Rough Cut artists on offsite projects.

Celebrate the opening of Rough Cut Nation with us on Friday 7^th August from 5pm, with a bottle of Zeitgeist in the Rough Cut Café and bag yourself one of 100 black and white prints by me (well, we couldn’t have you going home empty handed now could we?). All café furniture has been customised by the artists and will be auctioned off at the end of the show on 30^th August.

There will be live music by Tut Vu Vu and A La Fu and thanks to the folks at Avalanche Records, more live music every Friday until 28^th August, see below for the band list. The musicians below are busking for glory and are not paid to perform, so check out their website and support Scotland’s music scene.