Sue Tompkins
Until February 11; Modern Institute, Glasgow

Two years ago, painter Hayley Tompkins was nominated for the Beck’s Future prize, and now it’s the turn of her twin sister, Sue. The sisters, who regularly collaborate, share a profoundly personal aesthetic. Whether it’s Sue’s words or Hayley’s watercolours, their artistic statements are defiantly tentative, if such a thing can be possible.

The day after her Beck’s nomination, Sue Tompkins performed at the opening of her solo show in Glasgow. She paced the floor with a microphone, singing David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen lyrics from a crumpled sheet of paper. If anyone had hoped for clues to her cryptic concrete poetry, answer came there none.

It’s a hopeless task, trying to interpret Tompkins’ work. Clipped typewritten phrases flutter on thin sheets of paper, with the occasional smeary oil painting to pin them down. In the first untitled collection of pages, you might recognise a Bowie lyric; you might like the rattling sound of a meaningless sentence (known as nonsense vocables to afficionados of Gaelic mouth music); but you are still baffled.

In the next untitled work, you wonder about the significance of the careful pattern of creases within which the quickfire words nestle. Only one thing is clear: one has to fold an A3 page somehow, to type the words in that position with an electric typewriter.

In another work you find yourself side-stepping to your right, working your way across three pages as you read “you always say no to/ Ibitha/ the sun shines constantly./ Where are you?” Then you must drop to your haunches and tilt your head to read the last line, low down on the wall: “Portland”. Your downward lunge encapsulates the bitter, glowering punch-line.

You may not have understood what you were reading, but you performed the poetry perfectly. Tompkins was choreographing you all the time.

Catrìona Black, Sunday Herald 05.02.06