I am a Glasgow based Visual Artist who trained in Painting at Edinburgh College of Art and MFA at Glasgow School of Art, 95-97. My work explores the psychological intersection between visual and aural cultures, often working with spoken word performance or installations using a combination of media (text, imagery assemblage, sound, video and performance). I often work out-with regular gallery spaces exploring possibilities created by socially engaged projects, residencies or collaboration with other artists or the general public. My artworks use a process of translation to re-appropriate cultural signifiers creating vibrant eye catching works that dredge through autobiographical references or by obliquely referencing the prevalent socio –economic situation. The accumulation, sifting and editing down process is one that I employ for project works as well as my own practice, using collage techniques, images, information through text and anecdotes. Recently I have been developing spoken word performance to accompany exhibited works in order to add another layer or dimension, including other artists or the audience directly in the evolution of the work. My most recent solo exhibition ‘Rough Edit’ for Interview Room 11 Gallery, was located in the former Jobcentre located near Edinburgh Castle, where I signed on as an art student, at Edinburgh College of Art. It felt like a very loaded place to make new works, and the timing was also important, being just before the Independence Referendum, which was obviously a very politicised time. I made several large scale installations, using newspapers and magazines, old clothes, and paint, recreating familiar images with an irreverent and rough, yet painterly aesthetic, such as the tsunami from Hokusi’s Wave and the portcullis image employed by Westminster.
Tsunami
Blowing your own Trumpet
One Step
Recent residencies I have undertaken tend to use collaboration as a modus operandi, and include a Creative Lab at CCA Glasgow, 2012: a Collaborative Residency for Counterflows Music Festival 2013, with Berlin based sound artist, Annette Krebs, at CCA Creative Lab; a Rough Mix cross platform collaborative residency for Magnetic North Theatre Co, at Tramway March 2013; a Protest and Propaganda Lab at Metal Liverpool; and a Team Effort residency at South Side Studios, Govanhill, Glasgow.
Recent exhibitions include Sluice Art Fair, London; Turin & Marseille Artists’ Exchange for WASPS’s Studios; ‘Rough Edit’ at InterviewRoom11, Edinburgh Art Festival 2014, ‘East End Transmissions’ at the Pipe Factory: ‘New Wave’ at the “Old Hairdressers”, ‘Seven Inch’ and ‘Record Store’ at Monorail Records, Glasgow and Avalanche Records, Edinburgh; ‘Fools Gold’ at the Briggait Project Spaces.
Wealth
I am currently President of Scottish Artists Union, (the main representative voice for visual and applied artists living and working in Scotland, campaigning for better working conditions for the artistic community); I am also a Freelance Representative for Engage, the National organisation for gallery education; and a Regional Advocate for the Paying Artists Campaign. These involvements doubtless have an indirect influence on my practice through an ongoing preoccupation with the politics of creativity and cultural engagement.
At the moment I’m up on Lewis, about to start a project for ‘Mapping The Arteries’ through An Lanntair, using the bus routes of the islands as a starting point to develop artworks that will be sited in the iconic bus shelters of the islands. This commission will be an interesting way to develop new works that further consolidate different aspects of my practice.
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