Hunted Projects is pleased to present The Edinburgh Saints, a solo exhibition by Scottish-born, London-based contemporary artist and poet Robert Montgomery (b.1972).

The exhibition's central painting began with a memory: Montgomery and fellow artist Jason Herzmark reading poetry live on a pirate radio station broadcasting from Calton Hill on a winter night in 1992, set up with the help of Herzmark's friend Razi, who wanted the station to carry only poetry. For Montgomery, that night has come to stand for a whole era: a bohemian Edinburgh of dreaming, adventure and discovery, of nights spent painting and reading poetry until dawn.

From that memory, the painting grew to include a constellation of figures Montgomery calls his "Edinburgh Saints," people who shaped that period of his life. Andrew Brown, the visionary and mercurial director of the 369 Gallery, who gave Montgomery his start as an artist. Justin Fashanu, who played for Hearts at the time and was part of the same City Cafe circle; still the only openly gay professional footballer to have played at the top level of British football, and, in Montgomery's words, "a brave and articulate and cool guy" who was kind to them when they had nothing. Paul Reekie, Montgomery's favourite Edinburgh poet, whom he never met but whose poem "Caesar's Mushroom" circles the painting's frame in gold. Shirley Manson, singer of Garbage, whom a thirteen year old Montgomery idolised long before finally meeting her, years later, in Istanbul. And Andy Anderson and Jason Herzmark, his teachers and gurus of that period: Anderson a 1970s Dada performance poet who had dropped out of Edinburgh College of Art decades earlier yet remained a fixture on campus, urging students to keep believing in revolution; Herzmark a fellow student who introduced him to Joseph Beuys, Rudolf Steiner and theosophy, and whose own work, fragile boats built from beeswax and tears, embodies a quiet, entwined vision of nature and human spirituality.

"They are all my Edinburgh Saints, my underground saints, and I wish I was up on Calton Hill with all of them right now, drinking wine and shouting poetry into the wild night sky."

Alongside the painting, the exhibition brings together three further text works drawn from Montgomery's poetry, including a light work and two paintings, extending its meditation on memory, friendship and the poetic voice. Each piece carries his instantly recognisable bold capitalised script, a visual signature as distinctive as the words themselves. These works sit within a wider practice built on the idea that language can offer a moment of pause inside an oversaturated visual culture, a preoccupation running from his earliest billboard poems through to the light and fire works for which he is now known internationally.