Renowned Scottish print studio and charity Peacock & the worm is celebrating 50 years contributing to the cultural wealth of the nation with an exhibition of international artists. The print studio just opened an exhibition at Aberdeen Art Gallery, which kicked off at the same time as the Nuart street art festival we attended in June 2024. 

Included among them is 2024 Turner-prize nominee Delaine Le Bas, one of seven artists whose work features in the new show, entitled New Aberdeen Bestiary.  Local artist Sadie Main is joined by Delaine Le Bas (England), Julio Jara (France), Pedro G Romero (Spain), Carla Filipe (Portugal), Joy Charpentier (France) and Abdulrazaq Awofeso (Nigeria). 

Each chose an animal, real or imagined, and has explored its symbolic, social and cultural significance, creating a print or series of prints centred around each animal. The title of the exhibition stems from the medieval illuminated manuscript known as the Aberdeen Bestiary, currently held in Aberdeen University’s Special Collection.  A Bestiary is a compendium of animals paired with moralising or allegorical explanations derived from classical texts about the natural world and early Christian works.  The Aberdeen Bestiary was produced in England around 1200, has illustrations of remarkable quality and arrived in the city in the 1600s, when it entered the library collection at the city’s Marischal College. 

The new show also draws inspiration from The Scottish Bestiary, a portfolio of poems by Orcadian George Mackay Brown and prints by seven Scottish artists, created at Peacock and published by Paragon Press in 1986. 

Nuno Sacramento, Director of Peacock said: “The New Aberdeen Bestiary project has gathered new stories and voices over the past three years. It is rooted in Peacock’s ethos of making, using contemporary art and printmaking to propose an ethos of collaborative working. 

“The works have been exhibited individually at our gallery space on Aberdeen’s Castlegate, The Worm, over the last two years but this is the first time all the works have been brought together in one place and they can be viewed for free by anyone, seven days a week for the next six months. The New Aberdeen Bestiary has been inspired by its 12th century predecessor, in particular what can be discovered in the margins of that text – the notes, comments and corrections, sketches and doodles. Traces of past users are also evident in what is missing from the pages: excised illustrations, missing folios – all speak of a travelled history and multiple changes of hands."

“In the new show we wanted to focus attention on what happens in the unexplored territory along the margins and we are delighted with the resulting prints which are now on show. This year we are proud to be celebrating five decades of telling stories through image-making, of training thousands of artists, and of preparing the leaders that will take Peacock into the future - so that in another 50 years, the Peacock is still singing and dancing.”

‘New Aberdeen Bestiary: Unexplored territories along the margins’ is open now and runs until January 5, 2025. Entry to Aberdeen Art Gallery is free.  To view Peacock’s extensive collection of printworks, which are available to buy, helping to fund work in schools and communities, see: https://tinyurl.com/PVArts