Barbara Dickson & Fionna Carlisle

Episode Ten. Recorded at The Unforgetting Exhibition, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh

This week, I’m at Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery with artist Fionna Carlisle and the legend of stage, screen, and music, that is Barbara Dickson…

Fionna’s glorious painting, Eleven Red Roses, was shown in the gallery in the 1980s, and – as such – she features in Holly Davey’s fab exhibition, The Unforgetting, which is a role-call of the 354 women whose art has been shown there since the mid-1970s, from Tracey Emin to Yoko Ono.

Holly dug deep on the Fruitmarket’s archives, giving a voice to many female names that had fallen silent, and been forgotten, along the way – and also giving each of them a physical presence with clay figurines.

Barbara Dickson has recently had her portrait painted by Fionna – who splits her time between Scotland and Greece – as part of Fionna’s ongoing Women With Form project, that’s also seen her paint the likes of fab author Val McDermid, playwright Jo Clifford, force of nature Judy Murray and Glasgow blues queen Maggie Bell…

So the three of us caught up, and had a wander round The Unforgetting, and Barbara remembered her days in 60s folk pubs and clubs with Billy Connolly and The McCalmans – and being on Top of the Pops with Strawberry Switchblade – while Fionna recalled her early shifts working in the Fruitmarket, and being charged with taking Jean-Michel Basquiat out partying, when he was in town…

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