David Lemm: Initiated Desiring Universe

David Lemm: Initiated Desiring Universe

Preview: Friday 20 March 2026, 6 – 8pm

Exhibition: 21 March – 7 June 2026.

Hawthornvale Space

Viewable from the street every day between 7am and 7pm.

Free, no booking required.

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop is delighted to present a newly commissioned installation by David Lemm.

The project is informed by structures, reciprocities and underlying narratives encountered on Findhorn beach. In this liminal environment, Lemm became attuned to visual parallels within the lifecycles of provisionally made geometric anti-tank defences and the constantly changing dune margins, bolstered by a sinuous natural grid of marram grass and tree roots. 1940’s concrete, produced by hand from beach sand and pebbles, is now crumbling and returning to the beach with metal reinforcements exposed, echoing organic fibres protruding the eroding coastline.

Initiated Desiring Universe continues Lemm’s interest in tensions between image and object, surface and substrate, commonplace and uncanny which he has extended through experiments with pewter casting, printmaking and casting sand, utilising similar shuttering techniques to the beach defences.

The resulting installation considers the coast as an embodied, relational and imaginal space. Found and constructed materials, held in precarity and poise, hint at unseen complexity; playfully challenging notions of landscape as a solid backdrop upon which human activity occurs.

David Lemm

David Lemm is a visual artist based in Edinburgh. Informed by encountered environments, moments and systems, his approach is underpinned by process led investigation. He often works with collected or existing materials reassembled into new contexts, engaging with notions of perception, intent and site specific narrative. Recent work has focused on sculptural assemblage and installation, combining printmaking, drawing, timber and found objects. 

Lemm studied Animation at DJCAD (2006) and began his career working in design and illustration. His practice has developed through numerous residencies and research projects including the Jon Schueler Scholarship, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Skye (2017), LOCUS Public Art Trail, Lerwick (2020-21) and Artist in Residence at Royal Brompton Hospital (2020-22). Lemm has presented solo exhibitions in Edinburgh, London and recently at Moray Art Centre, Findhorn (Fastenings, 2023) Group exhibitions, include Reduct: Abstraction and Geometry in Scottish Art, RSA, Edinburgh (2020), Scottish Landscape Awards, Kirkcudbright Galleries (2025), Edition One:Materiality, No Place Art, London (2025) and his Mapping Eigg series (2014) is currently included in the V&A Dundee Scottish Design Galleries.