Roger Ackling
Until October 30; Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh

When I walk into a gallery to find that all the exhibits are tiny, I can’t help feeling an initial ripple of disappointment. I know it doesn’t make sense, and usually I’m proved wrong, because big statements don’t always come in big packages. In the case of Roger Ackling, small is beautiful, and his tiny wooden objects have no problem commanding the austere white spaces of Ingleby gallery.

These little bits of wood – spheres, clothes-pegs, chess pieces and discarded off cuts – are burning with energy and power. Or, more precisely, burnt with it. Ackling must be a patient man. For the past 35 years he has drawn on wood by using a magnifying glass to concentrate the sun’s rays. Charcoal lines wrap around the wood, untouched by any physical drawing tool.

There is a real bursting sense of concentration in these unassuming little treasures. Imagine how you would lapse into a trance, slowly edging a magnifying glass around the surface of wood to create precise, even, lines of velvety black. Think of that human focus combined with the incredible power of the sun, captured and channelled into these unwanted scraps.

Add to that some rubber bands, stretched around the edges of the wood, and you have a huge sense of potential energy along with the mental and solar energy which have been channelled into the objects already. What started out as debris has now become invested with power. It has the same spiritual beauty as a prehistoric monument made from unshaped stones, hauled into place by determined men, and arranged to channel the rays of the solstice sun.

Ingleby gallery is unusually well-suited to the display of Ackling’s work. Its bare wood floors echo the wood of his objects. Its blackened fireplaces, coal in the grate, echo the charred lines incised into them. Its white walls allow the pieces to dominate the room, however tiny they are. As soon as you walk in, you are drawn to them. And you soon forget your disappointment about their size.

Catrìona Black, Sunday Herald 24.10.04