Porteous Brae Gallery, which Alistair Peebles opened last June in Dundas Street, Stromness, will reopen on May 10th. A varied programme of exhibitions is planned, including new etchings by Diana Leslie, new drawing and painting by Marian Ashburn, work by artists from the recent Triangle Arts Trust workshop on Hoy (this will take place at Shopping Week), and an exhibition by Isla Holloway and Amy Todman. Work by Alistair himself, and by many of those who featured in the gallery last year, will also be displayed on a regular basis. Plans are also well advanced to bring Alec Finlay to Orkney, when he will speak about his recent work on wind turbines with NaREC.

Meantime, visitors to the gallery may remember Alistair’s Crusoe Night, a black circle intersected with quotations taken from the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (the same work on a smaller scale was shown in 2006 at the Loft Gallery in his exhibition with John Glenday, Road Works). This work, further enlarged, is now on show in Koltsovo International Airport in Yekaterinburg in Russia, one of a number of circular works, or “tondos”, selected on a competitive basis by an international award panel. It forms part of the ILLUMINATORS public art and design program.

The exhibition, which runs till June, was opened on April 11th. Appropriately enough, this was the eve of the Day of Cosmonautics: Russian cosmonautics started in Koltsovo, where the first jet engines were tested. The organisers say, “The project is aimed to create a positive, emotionally rich environment in the waiting rooms of the international terminal. The exhibition provides the passengers and guests of the airport with the recent achievements of international contemporary art.”

Once again, it is expected that Porteous Brae Gallery will remain open till October.