Hudinilson Jr, ‘Collage Untitled’ 1980-2009

Kicking off this week is the Glasgow International, an 18-day visual art festival featuring an expansive range of work from over 150 local and international creatives.

A mass of locations across the city are hosting installations, sculpture, film, photography, ceramics and stand-up comedy, with the majority of work previously unseen in the UK. That these varied creative categories are represented in such high esteem is an invigorating reflection on support for contemporary art in a landscape of quickly shifting mediums and methods.

Here are our top three picks.

Hudinilson Jr
Hudinilson Jr’s works of diaristic collage use tomes full of images collated from newspapers and magazines, letters and memos from friends to form his complex messages. Working in São Paulo since the 1970s until his death in August last year, the artist’s work addresses issues of sexuality and the personal and political freedoms arising from the end of Brazilian military rule in 1985.

Well worth a look, if not for the intelligent way mixed mediums are combined then for the historic journey each piece takes.

Hudinilson Jr runs until 21st April at McLellan Galleries, 270 Sauchiehall St, Glasgow, G2 3EH

Hudinilson Jr, ‘Collage Untitled’ 1980-2009

Khaled Hourani
The Palestinian artist’s work has had a mammoth influence in the growth of contemporary art in Palestine, using comedy and the surreal to heighten the impact of current events and social movements. Hourani brought Picasso to Palestine (quite literally) in 2011 with the Picasso in Palestine project, which carried an original masterpiece to the West Bank for the first time in history.

This retrospective exhibition combines existing and new paintings, installations and conceptual work from throughout Hourani’s career.

Khaled Hourani runs until 18th May at the Centre for Contemporary Art, 350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, G2 3JD

Khaled Hourani, ‘Untitled’ 2010

Avery Singer
Fictional, stylised figures occupy bizarre combinations of spaces in New York-based Avery Singer’s work. The artist’s cubist and constructivist influences jump from the canvas, her use of volume and form building the likes of nightclub-goers and artists in their studios.

Most intriguing is Singer’s dry sense of humour, monochrome colour palettes and vagueness of expression heightening a major sense of disconnect from you, the viewer.

Avery Singer: Summer Residency runs until 21st April at at McLellan Galleries, 270 Sauchiehall St, Glasgow, G2 3EH

Avery Singer, ‘The Studio Visit’ 2013

Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art runs until 21st April at numerous venues across Glasgow.