Oliver Braid is an artist living in Glasgow. He studied at Falmouth College of Arts and Glasgow School of Art. He has recently exhibited I’ll Look Forward To It at Collective, Edinburgh as part of their New Work Scotland Programme (2011) and My Five New Friends, his first large scale solo exhibition, at The Royal Standard, Liverpool (2012). Throughout 2012 he co-hosted the weekly pop-philosophy radio show with the artist Ellie Harrison, the Ellie & Oliver Show, through CultureLab Radio, Newcastle. As part of the Ellie & Oliver Show in 2012 he co-presented five special radio shows for Edinburgh Art Festival and co-curated a special radio show festival for Glasgay. He was a founding member of the therapy group for artists, Artists Anonymous. In January 2013 he will present a new solo exhibition, Snorlax Beanbag, for the Intermedia Gallery at Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow and embark on a four-month long production residency at Triangle, Marseille, sponsored by Patricia Fleming Projects and Creative Scotland.

In the lead up to his new exhibition Oliver has been reflecting on his last fifteen years of making artwork and how his theory of art and human relationships developed synchronically between the ages of 13 to 28. For the past ten weeks Oliver has been presenting short weekly essays through his Tumblr that examine the ‘Top Ten’ most important artworks that he produced between 1997 and 2012, their impact on his studio work and their influence on his life. For Central Station, Oliver has selected an edited version of these texts and images, presenting an overview of his process to date of ‘becoming an artist’.

Full copies of these essays, along with regular updates on Oliver’s other work, are available through his Tumblr, whilst a more studio-centric overview of his current practice can be found on his website.

Extracts from Oliver Braid’s Top Ten (1997-2012)

Number 10. Hot Dogs. 1998. Oil on canvas board.
“In order to correctly capture the forms of the women featured in this painting my mother and I undertook a life model field trip (a package holiday to Spain) where she took photographs of me on the beach, slyly positioned in front of larger ladies enjoying the hot weather… Around the time that I was making this painting I had an argument with one of my best friends over a piece of fried chicken. I had been at my friend’s house for dinner and her mother had served an unequal portion of chicken wings.  As I was the guest it was decided by my friend’s mother that I should receive the additional wing. Arriving at school the next day I discovered my friend was no longer speaking to me, leaving me to speculate that the harsh treatment had its roots in my unquestioning chicken consumption. Upon recounting this event to my mother that evening she decided a just retribution must occur, suggesting I should take a bag of frozen chicken wings into school the following day to throw at my friend. She may even have gone specifically to Co-op that evening to purchase the reprimanding wings required for the action.  The next day, as instructed, I left the house with a bag of frozen chicken wings, but en-route to school I ‘chickened’ out (or arrived at a saner solution) and threw the wings away in a dustbin.”

Number 8. Fake Tattoo Drawings. 2004. Felt-tip pen on skin.
“At this stage in my life I was still quite scared of men. One of the reasons I never made larger or more solid artwork was that I was trying to avoid the workshop, where I would have to explain my ideas to (and maybe work with) a male technician. It wasn’t really until late 2006 that I developed ‘strategies’ to enable me to cope with and talk to men without feeling scared or needy… One evening, when I must have been drinking, I persuaded a couple of my male friends to allow me to draw tattoos on their bodies in felt-tip. I have tried to obscure their identities in the images. One of them allowed me to go as far as drawing on his chest and I even seem to have a vague memory of him wearing only his boxer shorts. This was part of another very elongated period of my life during which I was catastrophically bad at distinguishing between acts of male friendship and inclinations towards homo-romanticism… These difficulties with relating to other men and my occasionally unethical attempts to combat this came to greatly motivate several of my more recent works between 2009 and 2012. As I move towards 2013, where I hope to replace pre-determined rational ‘strategies’ with more intuitive and passionate approaches to experience, it seems appropriate to mark this earlier work; a small, drunken gesture that was the butterfly to the hurricane.”

Number 7. Second Year Studio. 2005. Studio.
“Quite early on into the first term I began to notice that neither of the other two students that were allocated this studio seemed to use the space. After becoming accustomed enough to the spacious settings, I quickly began to display work and build experiments over every surface available in the room, every desk, every wall; I built an installation on the ceiling and moved a large blue paddling pool into the centre of the floor space.

Occasionally I would come into the studio and find one of the other students in there. I would find him sitting amongst all of my things and I would always apologise for how outrageously I had advanced over the space. He would always tell me it was fine and things would carry on as normal.  This relationship was working out perfectly until one day, without my knowledge, this other student had a tutorial in the space with the head of third year. Afterwards the tutor came to find me to say that he wanted to talk to me about the studio. I was flattered to hear he had been admiring my ambitions until I quickly realised that he was actually very angry with me. Apparently I had dominated the space to such an extent that other students felt they could no longer work in there. I tried to reason with him, explaining my theory that allowance of space should really be relative to the amount of time spent in the space. As Cher from Clueless would say, I was ‘brutally rebuffed’.”

Number 3. Jamie Radcliffe: The Exhibition. 2009. Ultimate Romantic Gesture.
“Continuing to respond to Quentin Crisp’s provocation that art did not help people to express themselves I wanted to try and find a way that ‘being an artist’ could help me better improve my own relationships with other people. I had probably also been watching the film Never Been Kissed and was inspired by the closing scene where Reese Witherspoon waits for the man of her dreams to rescue her from a baseball pitch. So, yes, when the exhibition came out I described it as an ‘Ultimate Romantic Gesture’. Despite this, I can’t pretend that I went into Jamie Radcliffe: The Exhibition completely innocently. At 24, how could I ever have thought that sending a PowerPoint of Jamie’s photographs and personal information (secretly downloaded from Facebook) to 100 artists and asking them to make a work in response to him was going to go down well? My only defence is optimism – but I was not unaware of the ‘naughtier’ side to this work.

It’s important for me to admit that, because after this exhibition I began to use words such as ‘naughty’ and the excuse of ‘misguided optimism’ and ‘failed seriousness’ as a way to behave exactly how I wanted. Over the last year I have been trying to face up to this lapse of responsibility and address it seriously, before this approach to working ruins my personal life completely.

Where to find out more:
Website | Tumblr | Facebook | Twitter

//////

Want to read more blogs by artists? Look here.

What:
This September Liverpool will play host to CAVE – a new and unique model of art fair.

Housed in Baltic Creative’s new Campus building, CAVE will give visitors the opportunity to discover the work of 45 of the UK’s most dynamic and currently unrepresented artists, offering the opportunity to buy work at a price to suit any budget. What makes CAVE unique is its focus on the artist with the organisers taking no commission or exhibition fees; the full sale price of each art work will go directly to the artist.

Y Morals by James McLardy

Coinciding with the opening of the Liverpool Biennial 2012, CAVE will run from 13 – 16 September, existing independently of but alongside the festival. CAVE aims to give emerging artists an ambitious sales & exhibition platform and the opportunity to engage with wide audiences. Playing on it’s independent position; CAVE is exhibiting some of the most exciting art being produced in the UK today. Painting, drawing, sculpture and film will exist alongside performative encounters, secret talks and urban shamanic rituals.

Oliver Braid

CAVE, the brainchild of Flis Mitchell and Kevin Hunt (artists and curators based at The Royal Standard in Liverpool) was born out of a desire to create a commercial platform for emerging and unrepresented artists during the Biennial, something that has never happened before. CAVE supports the very best creative talent the UK has to offer, removes gallery mediation, and creates a dialogue directly between the artist and the buyer; stimulating the local and wider regional art markets within the UK.

Tom Nolan

Flis explained “We feel that the time is right for something different, an ambitious and exciting commercial addition at the time of the festival.”

Kevin added “People will be able to buy something bespoke, hand-made and original, for less than many factory-produced blips consumed on the high street, engaging directly, with the artists who made the work.”

When:
CAVE Art Fair runs from 13 – 16 September 2012 at Baltic Creative Campus, Liverpool.

Find out more:
Website | Facebook | Twitter

//////

Browse through our event bulletin to find more events.

Every Friday lunchtime in 2012 artists, friends and flatmates Ellie Harrison & Oliver Braid are joining forces to co-host a regular half-an-hour slot on Culture Lab Radio.

Broadcast LIVE from their lounge in the West End of Glasgow, the Ellie & Oliver Show aims to explore the philosophies that surround and inform their everyday lives and is set to an eclectic soundtrack that reflects their unique weekly topic: universal themes such as ‘identities’, ‘obsessions’ or ‘routines’.

An audience friendly, upbeat inquiry into contemporary living, the Ellie & Oliver Show offers a rare insight into the day-to-day lives of two of the freshest and more unusual new voices on the Scottish art scene.

Already being hailed as the perfect antidote to a sometimes over serious and insincere art world, the Ellie & Oliver Show emphasises honesty and optimism as its co-hosts use their close friendship to help each other negotiate their individual, and sometimes idiosyncratic, ways in the world. Unfazed by embarrassment, Ellie Harrison & Oliver Braid continue to welcome this weekly interlude from their hectic work routines as an opportunity to ‘catch up’ LIVE on air – offering personal and provocative interpretations of their theme, which seem to strike-a-chord with likeminded listeners, both locally and across the globe.

Ellie Harrison & Oliver Braid were invited by Culture Lab Radio to develop this new show – their first major collaboration – following their highly successful hour-long pilot broadcast as part of Wunderbar Festival in Newcastle in November 2011. Now, only nine episodes in, they are already developing a cult following. Curious fans tune-in LIVE during their Friday lunch break in anticipation of the latest topic of discussion, whilst others listen again or on- the-go, as the handy iTunes podcast and Mixcloud online archive mean that you need never miss a thing. You too can keep up-to-date with the unfolding weekly adventures of Ellie & Oliver – as they chase love, success and harmony across the airwaves and beyond.

Live from Glasgooow, it’s the Ellie & Oliver Shooow!

Visit the Ellie & Oliver Show website
Hear some of the shows you may have missed
Follow the Ellie & Oliver Show on Twitter
Like the Ellie & Oliver Show on Facebook

Here’s a taste of the Ellie & Oliver Show right here:

Ellie & Oliver Show jingles were written and produced by Glasgow-based musician Shortlegs, with logo design by Glasgow-based illustrator (and Central Station member) Emily Chappell.

—

Oliver Braid – GSA MFA

Originally featured here
Now: Recently selected for Collective’s New Work Scotland Programme.

Since graduating Oliver has worked with The Mutual to make Love Made Easy: A Pansexual Speed Dating Event. He was invited to move into a new studio at Ironbbratz, where he met Gary Birnie who updated his website

In April Oliver produced ‘I’m 26 & I’ve Got Nothing’ for the Red Shed at BBC Scotland, and has now been announced as a participant in Collective’s 2011 New Work Scotland Programme

Oliver’s also told us to watch out for his most ambitious solo project to date ‘My Five New Friends’ at The Royal Standard in Liverpool, later on in the year.

—

Rocca Gutteridge – ECA MasterCATS

Originally featured here
Now: Producing ArtaChat

Rocca was one of the MasterCATS – Masters in Curation & Theory – at Edinburgh College of Art, and has been creating her own ways of engaging arts audiences. Says Rocca:

“Since last year I’ve been pushing Artachat as an informal education structure, to be used by artists, audiences and arts interested!

The next big event I’m doing is the UK Border Walk in partnership with Deveron Arts, Artachat, Artsadmin and Manifesto Club.  UK Border Walk is a 77k walk along the English / Scottish border from Upsettlington to Hungry Law via Shid Law with an Artachat halfway along the path. The Walk and Artachat will raise awareness around the problematic Points Based System used to gain visas for International Artists. More info.

We’ve got some fantastic speakers all to be announced with a new website I’m building as part of a residency at Deveron Arts.

I’m also undertaking a 15 month pARTners residency (funded by Creative Scotland) with the Mela Festival.  I’m working with breakdancing, hip hop youth kids in Muirhouse.  We’ve just returned from a residential with Ugandan break-dance troupe Tabu Flo and are now working on a unique performance for the Mela Festival.”

–

Michael Corr – DJCAD Graphic Design

(Featured work June 2010)
Now: Working as a freelance artist
Central Station profile

We were intrigued, as a self-confessed cross-disciplinary site, to see Michael Corr’s progress from Graphic Design graduate to ‘expressive artist’.

Michael writes: “Since studying Graphic Design, I’ve found myself leaning towards expressive art, which I’ve had an encouraging response to so far. I feel that my knowledge in design has contributed to my practice as a fine artist, and helped develop my sense of style.”

Michael was recently awarded the Cuthbert “New Young Artist” Award from the RGI (Royal Glasgow Institute).

—

We also though it would be interesting to look at two graphic designers who we featured, who did end up working in industry, for two high profile, but markedly different companies.

—

Lizzie Malcolm [GSA VisCom / Graphics]

Originally featured here
Now: working for Dutch design company Lustlab, an offshoot of graphic design studio LUST in The Hague, NL.
Central Station profile

Lizzie tells us: “The aim of the studio is explore unstable media, working in a process based environment with an emphasis on research and experimentation. Our most recent project was Res Sapiens, an installation at the Salone de Mobile in Milan. I approached LUST for an internship after graduation because I had started experimenting with interaction in my degree show at GSA, and shared their fascination with information, technology, researching and “The Future”…”

—

Ian Ritch [DJCAD Graphic Design]

Originally featured here
Now: Working for Landor
Website

Landor Associates is a design firm with offices around the globe, renowned for branding and experience work on multinationals such as BP and Fed Ex.

//////////

See more of our Top 5 selections here.

Preview:
Glue Factory, Friday 11 June, 5–7pm
CCA, 7–10pm

Exhibition Runs from Saturday 12 – Saturday 26 June
This year’s MFA is sited in The Glue Factory*. Used earlier this year for Glasgow International, the space provides a much less uniform space than the awesome, hangar like Tramway, with odd quirky rooms and warren-like staircases. Today, after weeks of sunshine, Glasgow is buckling under an intense rainstorm, and The Glue Factory resembles a bit of a leaky ship. This is a familiar Weegie set-up then - unsuspecting, post-industrial, grimecore warehouse plays shelter to conceptual work, which in turn pays site-specific homage.

It’s possible to identify two broad (and very generalised) strands present at the show. One is the site specific, post-industrial kind mentioned above, the other a more detached practice which relates to contemporary phenomena – chiefly data and the internet.

In the post-industrial, site-specific camp are artists like Sarah Forest, and Olga Schulz, who has installed an interestingly minimal sculptural shelter based on a peeling poster.

Tom Harrup has taken all the heavy-duty rawness almost full circle. His light installations take apart and celebrate machinery – everything is recycled, junk-yard-sourced and unfinished – yet in the darkened space these are two of the most hypnotic and graceful interventions you’ll encounter. Rings of light ebb and float mid-air, a theatre iris breathes a pattern against a dull brick wall.

Perhaps Tom is the conceptual bridge to the other camp of artists who deconstruct the technical and the digital. Ellie Harrison needs no prior introduction to Central Station members, and her works often have an online presence. She shows her witty General Election Drinking Game in it’s entirity here. Emily Donnini has made a slick piece which re-presents top google-searches of various countries as stop-frame animations back-projected onto floated glossy perspex screens.

Maybe the most intriguing graduate is Oliver Braid. Braid has presented a framed drawing – six pencil portraits in a detailed but slightly schoolboy style. Five of the portraits are of male graduating BA artists whom Braid considers to be the ‘hottest’ in the year. The images are culled from their Facebook profiles. The 6th image is a distorted reimagining of the artist as a sort of Facebook Zombie. A tangled off-white sculpture made from glue sits atop the frame – “the content of his gluepot”, Graham Ramsay, one of the MFA tutors explains.

How do I begin to unravel Post-Relational Aesthetic Onanism via Social Networking? Do I even want to? Seeing as we’re exploring the medium here, I have, in the interests of thorough research, befriended Oliver Braid on Facebook*, and will attempt to get him onto this very platform, and perhaps he can have the last word. Who knows, he may already be lurking as I write. In the meantime, here’s a Quentin Crisp quote from his artist’s statement:

“People who have learned to sing will always have richer, rounder voices. People who’ve learned to dance will always have bigger, bolder movements, but as for pottery and basket-weaving, what good are they? The moment the doors of the evening institute clang shut behind you you are back where you started. On the way home you might get into an argument with a stranger at a bus stop. It’s no good saying I can’t express myself you’ll have to come and see my baskets.” Quentin Crisp, 1980

*UPDATE. Friend request accepted.

Thanks to Graham Ramsay, MFA Tutor, for the tour, and to Kirsty Barr for organising.