Alex Katz and Cy Twombly meet on Orkney

The Pier Arts Centre in Stromness, Orkney - a stunning 18th century converted warehouse that perches serenely on the remote Scottish island's North Sea coast - might not seem like an obvious place to find the works of two major late 20th century American painters. Yet Stromness is somewhat of a cultural gem; the Pier Arts Centre hosts an impressive collection of British Modernist Art, and is now the site of one of the Art Fund's ARTIST ROOMS exhibitions, Beautiful Being - Cy Twombly and Alex Katz (until 4 June).

The natural, honest and sentient beauty of Orkney is the perfect setting to view the work of these artists together and complements the cool, easy aesthetic that is common to both artists' paintings. (Despite both diverging from American abstraction, they otherwise have little in common).

Katz favoured figurative, landscape and still-life art that made use of bold, unmodulated colour, flat surfaces and simplified forms, the effect of which is a pre-Pop practice executed with precision, attention to detail and an economy of means. Twombly, quite unlike Katz, layered colours and lines of watercolour and gouache to create a more spontaneous and lyrical aesthetic that is capable of evoking moods and seasons.

The Pier Arts Centre is juxtaposing one powerful Twombly watercolour from 1979 alongside 20 small paintings by Katz, which span 40 years from the late 1960s. This unexpected comparison celebrates the simple act of painting and highlights the effortlessness and beauty that is shared in these artists' paintings.

Follow the link to Northings for more information on the works on show in Beautiful Being, and to e-architect for of a photographic tour of the Pier Arts Centre.