Visual Arts Scotland (VAS) is a leading platform for national and international contemporary artists.
The society was originally founded in 1924 as an organisation for women artists and since the 1980s has championed craftspeople, makers, designers and applied arts practitioners. Today, our membership is composed of fine and applied artists, celebrating the best in innovative contemporary visual arts. The conversation between disciplines - to encourage challenging and ambitious ideas - is at the heart of Visual Arts Scotland’s mission.
VAS has a vibrant, active and participatory membership of over 800 practising artists. The society provides a platform to support and connect them, and to showcase their work. Members and non-members alike are welcome to submit work for our prestigious Annual Exhibition.
Our Annual Exhibition offers the opportunity for emerging and established practitioners to showcase new and unseen work and engage with a wider public; to generate debate, to test out and exhibit challenging and ambitious ideas within the context of Scottish and international culture.
Our membership categories cater for artists at all stages in their careers, whether new graduates, emerging artists or established practitioners. All are welcome to contribute to the continuing development of Visual Arts Scotland.
The President and Council represent the wide array of disciplines that VAS promotes.
Tavienne Bridgwater is an artist/curator based in the Scottish Borders. She is Director of The Tim Stead Trust, and has worked within the arts sector for 12 years for Arts Organisations such as The Henry Moore Institute & The Pipe Factory. Previously the Arts & Enterprise Officer at Wasps, she has organised over 300 exhibitions, residencies, art fairs & events including producing Scotland's largest Artist & Makers Market.
Tavienne has worked in a freelance capacity presenting talks for various universities in Leeds, Liverpool, London & Glasgow on her Artist/Curator led practice as well as mentoring recent graduate Artists and curating various exhibitions all with a focus on the sculptural.
Contact: president@visualartsscotland.org
View Artist ProfileKam Chan is an artist and producer. She is the Engagement Producer for the Data + Design Lab where she manages and facilitates networks to co-create and collaborate across the Edinburgh Futures Institute at the University of Edinburgh.. She is a Co-Producer for the Architecture Fringe curating and delivering exhibitions and events expanding the narrative of how we inhabit and share spaces beyond ourselves . She is interested in the intersections of communication, connection and consensus.
Contact: vice-president@visualartsscotland.org
View Artist ProfileHannah is a mixed media artist based in Edinburgh, interested in art as storytelling and the exploration of the inner world via figurative, abstract and sculptural pieces. She recently studied to become a creative therapist and creative arts facilitator and is committed to taking the healing power of art into the community. Instagram @knechtliart
View Artist ProfileCharles Young is an artist living and working in Edinburgh, where he studied architecture at Edinburgh College of Art. His sculptures, in paper and wood, and stop-motion animations draw from the forms, structures and histories of the built environment.
Contact: Treasurer@visualartsscotland.org
View Artist ProfileAmanda Airey has worked in the creative sector for over 20 years in a number of roles from bid writing, economic development, curation, and strategy. A fine art graduate, she continues her art practice focusing mainly on landscape and the natural world.
For the past three years Amanda has worked as Vice President for Visual Arts Scotland and is a fundamental implementor of the residency programme, overseeing residencies such as From One to Another, Rose Cottage Residency, and the Bothy Project.
Contact: development@visualartsscotland.org
View Artist ProfileVicky Paul is a visual artist and PR Consultant who has worked within the creative industries for 25 years. Before setting up VJP Media, an arts and culture PR agency, Vicky was an award-winning radio presenter. Vicky's abstract paintings are inspired by the many states of the human condition and rooted in her spiritual practices. She has exhibited in the UK, and her paintings are part of private collections in the UK, USA, Canada, Japan and Dubai.
Contact: comms@visualartsscotland.org
View Artist ProfileToni Harrower is an abstract painter who loves working in a range of mediums from oil paint to resin. A celebration of colour and the enjoyment of paint are the basic ingredients in her work. Toni is now a full-time artist living and working in Moray, graduating from Gray’s School of Art in 2016.
View Artist ProfileNiamh Hughes is a painter whose work reflects upon the ambiguity and familiarity found in the ordinary. Graduating from Gray’s School of Art in 2023, she continues to work in Aberdeen City and South Shire.
View Artist ProfileGabriella Carboni is a painter and educator located in Los Angeles, California. Originally from Boston Massachusetts, with Scottish roots, Gabriella received her undergraduate degree in Studio Art from Skidmore College, and her MFA in Painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her work focuses on intimacy, kinship, comfort, touch, and connection. Gabriella teaches at ArtCenter College of Design and Armory Center for the Arts.
View Artist ProfileAlison Laing is an Edinburgh born painter whose work explores traces of life in unpeopled landscapes. Her work is characterised by her bold brushstrokes and energetic mark-making. She graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2021 and has gone on to exhibit her work in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Dundas Street Gallery, and the Royal Scottish Academy. Her work View of Old Town from Greyfriars Kirkyard was selected for the inaugural Scottish Landscape Awards exhibition at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh, in 2023.
Anna Gormezano Marks is a visual artist, interested in architecture, movement, written and unwritten languages. Drawing based, her work explores themes of illusion, structure accumulation, poetry, form, space and memory, with supporting work consisting of writing, photography and material experimentation. Taking observations from society's challenges and nature's beauty, destructing and human behaviour; how we value and navigate communal spaces, forged personal routines, sacred rituals and visceral reactions; How we communicate, share history, mark time, record actions and all the bits we frequently miss in-between.
Vincent, the artist behind FUNOMΣNOLOGY, is a way-weird trailblazer with an instinct for ecological collaboration. His portfolio spans performance art, installation art, songwriting, singing, drawing, painting, sculpting, videography, rug tufting, voice acting, film acting – as well as performing and recording music. He is also an apprentice in commercial comic-book-art creation and more recently artist/brand collaborations for packaging and advertising. He is big into fantasy roleplay - a gnome at heart - and carries that with him no matter the adventure.
View Artist Profile