Nice pass @RGIArt Annual Exhibition

I dropped into the Royal Glasgow Institute (RGI) annual exhibition today in the McLellan Galleries on Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street.

I was wearing my art lover/George Wyllie hat and with the latter in mind, this shows George's Five A-Side team checking out Barbara Rae's big bold painting on the left.

What do you think the big guy's saying?

'Oi mate, the goal posts have changed again...'

It's been a decade since RGI has been in residence here at the McLellan.

They were displaced in 2003 when Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum was being refurbished and exhibits were stored here for the duration. The council decided not to reopen the McLellan once the Kelvingrove stored exhibits departed and so RGI has held its 'annual' at the nearby Mitchell Library in the intervening years.

RGI curator Lynne Mackenzie and Mark Osborne have made a little film of the show which is worth checking out if you can't make it.

RGI on film

It's a grand Victorian space and no mistake. The RGI have invested £100, 000 into this year's exhibition, which is free to view and it was really buzzing when I went in.

Not bad going for a cold and breezy Wednesday in November. It's a really well hung show (ooo er missus) and I was bedazzled by over 500 exhibits, from paintings to original prints to photographs and sculpture.

It's a mixter-maxter cross section of the best Scottish art around. The usual suspects are represented but there's also work by young artists, just emerging onto the scene.

I recognised some from recent degree shows. Catherine Cameron, for one... I remember seeing her large monochrome prints at Glasgow School of Art degree show. She won the RGI prize for work by a recent Scottish graduate.

Another fairly recent GSA graduate, Robin Leishman, has presented work which is also quietly memorable. His long tall painting of a soldier in a gas mask is so confident, even though there are patches unfinished. It just works.

My friend Lynne Mackenzie (who has done a sterling job in putting RGI out into the world for a new generation), was with me and she told me Robin is currently artist in residence with The Black Watch.

Robin and another young artist, Jonny Lyons , whose work I recall from this year's Duncan of Jordanstone degree show in Dundee, share the Glasgow Art Club Award. There's a common thread in both artists work of trying to reimagine the world of boy's toys and games for adulthood.

You know an art has hit the spot if you can recall it clear as day in your head, months or even years later. Theres too many artworks to single out really. I love Sue Biazotti's work and she has a big knock-out painting on show this year of a single moon in a muted pared down landscape, called Moon and Wave.

Simon Laurie is a familiar name on the Glasgow scene too and his work is shifting direction slightly into figurative 'still lifes'. Loved them. I hadn't seen any of former GSA lecturer, Robin Hume's paintings before - only his sculptural work. But his painting, Early Morning Neighbours, is a stoatir.

And Ruth Nicol's BIG gallus Glasgow from Riverside works a treat in this elegant setting. That woman is going places, I tell you... The wall of wee paintings is an artwork in itself... loads of red dots there, which is good for artists' morale as well as their bank balances.

Delighted to see Absent Voices lead artist, Alec Galloway's big painting, Lovesong - Under Titan's Gaze, inspired by his personal family connection to Greenock's once mighty sugar industry, also displayed here.

(I'm involved with spreading the word about Absent Voices , which blips as SugardSheds1.)

The RGI annual show is on until December 8 so if you're in the Weeg doing Christmas shopping in Sauchiehall Street it's worth escaping the madding crowd and dropping in for a look-see. You might even be tempted to spend money on art instead of panic buying daft Christmas gifts (like a I do!)

Oh, there's also a wee side show of work by 20th century design doyen, Robert Stewart, who lectured at GSA for many years. His influence and impact on design has been immense.

He designed for Liberty and many other major names. The new V&A in Dundee should be hot footing it over for a look. There's an important design archive here which should be preserved for the nation. And I suspect it's just the tip of the iceberg, from what Lynne was telling me. She'd been speaking to his family about the vast archive which they have in their possession.