In her first major exhibition, Kirsty Whiten reveals a sharp observational eye. Her pencil drawings revel in the way a facial expression can show the soul or a small gesture can hint at a story. She also tells us much about the lives that inspire her through the liberal inclusion of chunky cardigans in her work. They suit the comfortingly old-fashioned, largely feminine domestic space she is interested in.
The show is called Right on Mum, and many of the images are about family connections across generations, or female friendships and alliances. Quietly and skilfully, Whiten draws us into individual relationships. A mother dances a jig as her children play in front of her; from the way a suave deputy head teacher stands next to a beautiful supply teacher, we just know they are an item. Whiten also explores the vexed self-images that many of these women have. Her heavily shaded portraits capture the textures and lines that mark time on skin, the lived-in quality of faces. In one work, a nervous hostess grins edgily while offering canapes. Whiten draws the woman naked to show us how she feels.
Several of the most powerful images reflect Whiten's work at Edinburgh's Dumbiedykes housing estate, along the road from the site of the new Scottish parliament. Here, Whiten continues to use pencil, but draws on tinted paper in bright, uncomfortable, garish colours, harsh lighting as the backdrop to some harsh lives. Again, it is connectedness that intrigues Whiten, the networks we create to get through life. She draws two small boys, brothers or close friends, dressed in similar knits and brandishing toy guns; elsewhere are serene young women at play, their broad faces all expectation. In a rare decorative flourish, and with an unusual focus on a solo subject, Whiten draws a tired old man, lonely as well as alone, next to a panel of curves and swirls. It looks like decorative wrought iron, but it also looks like a map of most lives: more a tangle than a neat linear progression. This pattern is precisely what prompts Whiten to draw.
· Until July 14. Details: 0131-220 1260.
