This from an article in today’s Edinburgh Evening News, Paranormal Portraits Are A Blast From Past:
AN explosive series of portraits is set to bring to life the Capital’s murky past as part of a new art festival.
Internationally renowned Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang is to create 12 gunpowder portraits for the inaugural Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF).
Using gunpowder exploded on to handmade paper, the pictures will immortalise well-known and in some cases, much feared, figures from Edinburgh’s history.
Among those going on display at either the Fruitmarket Gallery or the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (SPNG) this summer will be images of Sherlock Holmes’ creator Arthur Conan Doyle, who was fascinated by the supernatural; occultist Aleister Crowley; and Sir George Mackenzie, better known as “Bluidy” Mackenzie, the 17th-century judge who executed hundreds of Covenanters.
The historical subjects were chosen by the SNPG and writer James Robertson because of their links to paganism, alchemy, the supernatural, the paranormal or violent crime. Others in the line-up are writers James Hogg and Hugh Miller and legendary “wizards” Michael Scott and Major Thomas Weir, who was burnt at the top of what is now Leith Walk in 1670.
Sounds intriguing!
See the whole article here…