Animal Art: A New Exhibition at Glass & Thompson

If you are looking for a special gift this Christmas, a stop for coffee at Glass & Thompson could be the answer. From Thursday the Dundas Street cafe will host a new exhibition of beautiful mosaics, linocuts and monoprints by Edinburgh-based artist Freya Levy.

Freya held her first show at Glass & Thompson in April: it all but sold out. People loved Freya’s mosaics, which incorporate glass, tiles and found items such as medieval pottery from Edinburgh beaches and the banks of the Thames to create beautiful pictures. A stunning cockerel mosaic found a particularly appropriate and distinguished home when it was purchased by Monsignor Michael Regan, Dean of St Mary’s RC Cathedral  – Monsignor Regan chose the picture as a retirement present for Monsignor Charles Canon Burns, a Major Canon and former Archivist at St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City. The cockerel is the symbol of St Peter –  the perfect gift for an official of the Basilica.

Freya is an emerging artist working in a variety of media, including prints, mosaics, fused glass and ceramic sculpture; she has previously exhibited in London and Edinburgh, and sells her dichroic jewellery at Primavera in Cambridge and Frivoli in London’s Chiswick. Freya enjoys using lots of colour in her work, and especially likes the translucent quality of glass and mosaic; she is inspired by animals and the natural world, and shows a ‘…wonderful level of detail and…imagination and dexterity…. in both the use of colour and material.’ (Clare Cousens)

The exhibition opens today and will continue until Christmas 2014. Glass & Thompson is at 2 Dundas Street and is open 9am-5.30pm Monday to Saturday and 10.30am-5pm on Sundays. Freya’s website  has more information about her work; she is happy to discuss commissions.

So treat yourself to coffee and cake…or lunch, brunch or what you will…and solve your Christmas present problems without setting foot in a shopping centre. Or just buy it all for yourself….