Neil Clements's work displays a morbid fascination with testing the limits of supposedly extreme elements of artistic production. Here, notions of individualism were strongly linked to absolutist principles. The appropriation of romantic imagery by Black Metal bands such as Burzum's use of nineteenth century painter Theodor Kittelson poses the question of how much influence evocative pictures have on the decision to demonstrated one's theories as something more than merely theatrical.

A field recording made around the site of Fantoft stave church, burnt in 1992 by members of the Norwegian Black Metal scene provided the sparse backdrop to the paintings in the show. The paintings were delivered black on black, trademark metal, uniform and inscrutable. Yet the paintings dwelled on how despite a claim to radicalism, they were constrained by their own ultimately aesthetic nature. The subjects depicted, winding paths, isolated housing, and ruins became symbols of this distance, or gap between the idea as pure idealism and an extreme act itself.

Download the exhibition information here

Read the New Work Scotland 2005 newspaper here

New Work Scotland Programme was an initiative launched by Collective in 2000. Through an open call, New Work Scotland Programme identified and supported some of the most promising new artists working in Scotland - providing them with the opportunity to create new work and bring it to the attention of a wider public. The 2005 participants were Alberta Wittle, Neil Clements, Will Duke and Alexander Stalmann.

New Writing Scotland grew out of New Work Scotland Programme and was initiated in 2004 in collaboration with Edinburgh College of Art's Centre for Visual and Cultural Studies to promote creative writing about the visual arts coupled with targeted support to the exhibiting artists - providing them with them with their first artists text.