Nicola Atkinson Artist Beautiful Materials Design Studio
BM Gallery G77 6AA Launching on Sat 10 - 4, 15 Nov 2025.
A shopping centre can be a thoughtful place, bringing people together to shop, chat and eat out. It’s a shared space where one’s world is focused, a perfect place to have a gallery and engage with an audience for artworks and ideas.
Beautiful Materials Gallery
THE AVENUE: The Shopping Centre was built in the 1970s and is the main retail centre in Newton Mearns. It is a busy community hub with many regular visitors who seem actively interested in engagement with new ideas.
INSPIRATION: A shopping centre can be a thoughtful place, bringing people together to shop, chat and eat out. It’s a shared space where one’s world is focused, a perfect place to have a gallery and engage with an audience for artworks and ideas.
LAUNCHING: Sat 10 - 4, 15 Nov 2025. VESSELS: A Conversation about Materials, Nicola Atkinson
GETTING TO BM GALLERY ,THE AVENUE G77 6AA : Bus 38, Train Patterton Station & Walking, Bike A77 or Car M77.
OPENING HOURS: Open every Saturday 10 - 4. The public can also request to make a visit by appointment. The gallery window is set up so the public will be able to view artwork when it is closed.
IDEA: Beautiful Materials Gallery’s mission is to be a public facing art space, located in a shop space at The Avenue, Newton Mearns. We aim to reach out to new audiences and provide a clear dialogue and conversation with them about the artists and artworks.
WHO: Beautiful Materials is founded by artist Nicola Atkinson who is an internationally acclaimed artist and curator, she is known for recent public artwork in Linlithgow. In her artistic life, she has created one hundred and forty seven public art projects, temporary and permanent in villages, towns, cities and museums around the world.
Nicola’s interests defy boundaries through socially engaged artworks. They range from designing challenging, inclusive artworks in shopping centres in Santa Monica Place, to being a curator in the artist-run Gallery Bulkhead, to creating recent public artwork in a bus shelter at Linlithgow Cross.
Atkinson’s recent solo exhibition, Vessels, was a striking exhibition that extended from the walls of the gallery to a model of Linlithgow Burgh Halls Gallery. It included the transformation of a high street bus shelter and the placing of art in people’s homes. The exhibition asks the question, ‘How do we look at art and its materials and what are its boundaries?’
COMMUNICATION : Accessible communication is key to the success of most art ventures. We will have artist tours and talks about every exhibition. Beautiful Materials Gallery will provide information on all artworks; exhibition concept, the artist, statement and their contact details. On the following: Beautiful Materials, instagram and web site, an A4 poster on the gallery window and A6 postcards for the public to take away. Also throughout the Avenues Shopping Centre, including the public notice board and distributing the postcards to the 44 shops. As well as with the Outer Spaces and their instagram.
INSTALLATION AND MATERIALS: : Beautiful Materials & the artists will be responsible for install and uninstall of each exhibition.
FUNDING: Beautiful Materials Gallery, in the Avenue Shopping Centre space is provided by Outer Spaces, a contemporary visual arts organisation for free. There is no funding for exhibitions. Supported by donations by the public & the artists.
OUTCOME: Beautiful Materials aims to support the advancement of the arts through the Avenue Shopping Centre gallery space. It will increase public exposure to, appreciation of, and involvement in the arts. It will provide opportunities of participation for people who might otherwise be excluded.