Edinburgh Art Festival 2025 - At Edinburgh Printmakers - Robert Powell

Artist Robert Powell shares a window into his playful and satirical world with an immersive installation at Edinburgh Printmakers

Robert Powell: Hall of Hours at Edinburgh Printmakers until 2 November explores time through Powell’s unique imagery capturing humanity’s complexity, grandeur, and folly in intricate and thought-provoking compositions.
Inspired by medieval Books of Hours, this multimedia exhibition featuring prints, sound installation and animation reflects on how we experience, order and preserve time and features a 4.5m high city sized non-numerical clock that explores time as an experiential concept

Drawing on the socially critical works of Hogarth, Bosch, Ensor, Goya and Japanese Ukiyo-e artists of the Edo period, Powell’s wit, surgical eye and grasp of human history sets him apart

Robert Powell: Hall of Hours will be one of two exhibitions Edinburgh Printmakers will showcase as part of the 2025 Edinburgh Art Festival from 7 – 24 August.

Speaking ahead of the exhibition artist Robert Powell said: “When my young son turned one he developed an obsession with clocks and seeing this I was reminded what magical objects they are. They measure time but because time is such an ineffable thing they actually seem to embody it. There’s a crossover between the inexplicable and inexpressible and the physical, tangible world. From the iPhone to renaissance automata or the Astronomical Clock in Prague there’s something quite fascinating about them. So thinking about time as something that is experienced rather than measured I wanted to create this guide through time, a vast human driven clock drawing from medieval manuscripts like the Book of Hours.

Creating these works I have been mindful of the effect of climate change on time, the sense of history following along a particular telic trajectory to an end point in the future. Of the seasons being put out of joint so there are no more natural markers of time, and the fear that the end of the clock is imminent.”

Edinburgh Printmakers CEO Janet Archer said: “Hall of Hours is an epic undertaking by the artist Robert Powell and we are delighted that the scale and ambition of his work can be fully realised in this solo exhibition. The intricate detail, exploration of the human condition and rich layers of visual storytelling will demand repeated visits as audiences see and discover ever more layers and nuance in the artists’ work.

This solo exhibition also showcases the potential for using the medium of printmaking as a starting point for a multifaceted exhibition featuring sculpture, animation and sound installation.”

Mark Daniels, Executive Director New Media Scotland said: “Back in 2014 our Alt-w Fund first supported Robert’s practice to create ‘The Thinking Machine’ with Hadi Mehrpouya. This veritable box of delights opened our eyes to Robert’s practice and when Aberdeen Performing Arts provided the opportunity to support his practice again, wejumped at the chance. ‘Chronoscope’ dramatically scaled Robert’s capacity for world building, and now at Edinburgh Printmakers our journey through time has a whole new momentum.”

Robert Powell: Hall of Hours supported by New Media Scotland’s Alt-w Fund runs from 1 August to 2 November in Gallery 1 at Edinburgh Printmakers and is part of the Edinburgh Art Festival (7 – 21 August). Hall of Hours is a new body of work that expands on the themes contained within a previous work, Chronoscope, an animated clock co-commissioned by Aberdeen Performing Arts and New Media Scotland’s Alt-w Fund with investment from Creative Scotland in 2022.

Robert Powell and Edinburgh Printmakers have continued to collaborate with Mark Daniels at New Media Scotland to realise this new exhibition.

Running concurrently in Gallery 2 at Edinburgh Printmakers is Aqsa Arif: Raindrops of Rani, a solo exhibition using film, printmaking, photography, and poetry exploring dual heritage, migration, and cultural dissonance, drawing inspiration from folklore, mythology, and cinema.

Robert Powell: Hall of Hours
1 August – 2 November 2025
Gallery 1, Edinburgh Printmakers
Castle Mills 1 Dundee Street, Edinburgh, EH3 9FP
Wednesday – Saturday 10am – 6pm
www.edinburghprintmakers.co.uk

Artist Robert Powell reveals his largest exhibition to date at Edinburgh Printmakers which opened this weekend. Featuring a 4.5 metre high human clock with over 1000 characters it captures moments in time as experiences. Robert Powell: Hall of Hours is part of Edinburgh Art Festival and runs until 2 November. PHOTO Neil Hanna