Alexander Guy and William Caulfield El Paso vs El Paso Cupar Arts Festival hosted the official launch of El Paso vs El Paso, an exhibition of both painting and live music conceived by artists Alexander Guy and William Caulfield, which ran concurrently in two venues. Caulfield and Guy employed a wild west theme of gun-slingers and country and western music to remind people of a time when “men were men and women were women; the east neuk meets the wild west”.  

Judy Spark Tuning To Ether Judy Spark explores the contrasts and parallels that exist in our experience of alienating technological culture and nature, where we are no longer fully comfortable with either. There are fascinating facts about Cupar’s relationship with technology to be found in the town’s history including one of the town’s “listening stations” run by the Foreign Office which existed at Hawklaw, just outside Cupar, for the purpose of gathering transmitted material to be examined by the code-breakers at Bletchley Park. In conducting further enquiry into this and other apparently little-known aspects of… Read More »Judy Spark

Allison & Bray Mistress of the House This collaborative installation by Elaine Allison and Pat Bray drew the viewers attention to the beauty of the building’s characteristics – brickwork, windows, and the encroaching plant life. The artists were inspired by the pressure and force of the ivy against the window of the disused warehouse and the beautiful light filtering through it.  

Richard Demarco Small and Secret Places Widely recognised as one of the outstanding draughtsmen of his generation, Richard Demarco produced a wonderful series of drawings of some of the historic closes of Cupar and related them to the closes of the Old Town in Edinburgh and to similar features in his family home town of Picinisco, south of Rome. In so doing he “drew attention” to Cupar’s closes as they are today, asking us to cherish them with the same love and attention that the capital has bestowed on its own ‘small and secret places’.… Read More »Richard Demarco

Fiona McGarva Linea Labour-intensive flax-spinning and linen manufacture was extensive in Cupar and the surrounding area through the 18th and 19th centuries with the majority of weavers working from home. This exhibition, with took its title from the Latin word meaning “linen thread, string, or cord” drew attention to an aspect of Cupar’s rich local history through an evocative series of installations in the former Fishers laundry building on Kirk Wynd. Fiona McGarva uses a variety of glass techniques (blowing, flameworking, kiln forming, gilding, cold working) to create mixed-media glass sculpture, lighting and tableaux based… Read More »Fiona McGarva