It’s that time of year again, summer has sprung and the art & design students of Glasgow have collated the sum of 4 years experience into one eclectic whirlwind of a show. The Glasgow School of Art Degree Show began on 13 June and continues until 20 June, featuring work from graduating students across the schools of Design, Fine Art and Architecture.

Due to the fire which devastated the Mackintosh building this time last year the Fine Art show is taking place in the Tontine Building in the Merchant City while the Design show is running in the newly built Reid Building in Garnethill. Despite the physical distance separating the two shows, the work exhibited across the two venues maintains the strongly unique spirit that ties The Glasgow School of Art students together.

Entering the Tontine Building I was excited to see how the Fine Art students had adapted to their new space and curious to find out how it affected the work they produced. The first piece that caught my eye was Jess Kelly’s beautiful installation ‘Translucent.’ The work effectively acts as a walk-in kaleidoscope with seamlessly moving images projected behind a screen within the structure. The viewer becomes immersed within the installation and becomes part of the artwork itself.

Jess Kelly, Translucent

From sculpture I moved through to the painting rooms, this is where I found Anna Thomson’s work. Her large-scale paintings display serious skill with a deep understanding of texture and subtlety of palette, a perfect combination of bold and understated.

Anna Thomson

Anna Thomson

After leaving the bright white of the painting room, I ventured into the darkness of a windowless alcove where I bunkered down on a huge beanbag, intrigued by a voice that echoed around the small room. When the visuals began, I knew this was a piece worth getting comfortable for.

Jack Boutwood

The short film by Jack Boutwood explores collective memory through an intimate and engaging series of pondering thoughts and observations on modern existence. This skilfully written narrative is refreshing in its honesty and simplicity, nostalgically reminding the viewer of the beauty in the common everyday.

It was time to move on, although I could have stayed much longer revelling in the wonders of the fine art studios, I knew there was so much more to see. Entering the Reid building you cannot help but be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the place; it is without doubt a fantastic building to exhibit within. As I enter the Communication Design Department I was struck by the vast array of varying styles of work, ranging from fine art style large-scale installations to cutting edge graphic design.

Romany Rowell, Time Through Colour

It was the work of Romany Rowell that first caught my attention, in this thought-provoking and frankly very clever piece of work, Romany investigates the way in which time is measured – in numbers – alters our perception of time. The aim of this project is to challenge the viewer’s perception of time by use of colour, light and movement.

Hannah Jane Nixon

At the other end of the Communication Design spectrum is the highly appealing and humorous work of Hannah Jane Nixon, her brightly coloured screen prints display a bravery and uniqueness all of her own. Obviously inspired by popular culture, Hannah has also made a comic book based on the childhood of tennis superstar Roger Federer.

Another Illustration graduate who stood out for me was Sam Russell Walker.

Sam Russell Walker, Bygone Magic Stone

‘Bygone Magic Stone’ is a double sided poster book born out of the idea that each generation looks to their predecessors for inspiration, imparting their own interpretations, creating a kind of Chinese whispers through time.

Calum Douglas, Only the dead have seen the end of war

From the Photography department of Communication Design I spy the work of Calum Douglas. Calum produced a series of powerful images as a response to the unseen and misunderstood aspects of war. The series shows a body of simplified and re-appropriated images that represent key events throughout the Middle Eastern conflict over the past three decades. The way in which the images are presented invites the viewer to question what they see.

Leaving the Communication Design department my head is spinning with all that I have witnessed but I am eager to see more as I venture into the fashion and textiles exhibit space. In this room I feel like a kid in a candy shop, the colours and textures of the work screaming out to be held, stroked and worn. Hardly knowing were to begin I am drawn, as if by a tractor beam to the explosion of pattern on display by fashion designer Luis Miguel Sanchez Garzas; nothing about this work is mundane, everything about it makes me happy.

Luis Miguel Sanchez Garzas

Luis Miguel Sanchez Garzas

There is a passion for abstract forms and playful use of scale alongside a surreal use of found objects, all of which speaks of a great humour that warmly invites the viewer to rethink both traditional forms and functionality within fashion.

I was also very impressed by the work of Elinor McCue, who, like myself is a great fan of fringes. Elinor uses a mixture of hand cut leather, laser cut mdf and acrylic to create her wonderful fringed panels.

Elinor McCue

All in all this year’s Glasgow School of Art Degree Show has been a great success with too much quality work to go through in one review, I have not even mentioned the work of Product Design or Architecture but I strongly advise taking a look at the intriguing designs of Cheng Zhai Wei and the exciting concept piece ‘Tent in the Tenement’ by Michael MacFarlane.

If you want to see more, the show will be running until 20 June from 10am-5pm daily. Information on artist and designers who are participating in the show can be found here.

See Emma’s work online here.

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For more events, see our Weekly Bulletin here.

Rachel Boyd finished Secondary School this year and will start the Portfolio preparation course at Tramway’s Open Studio in August. She collaborated with Glasgow CAMRA to produce the logo for this year’s Glasgow Real Ale Festival (GRAF), and has worked alongside Hamilton Sculptor Allan Potter to produce a design for The Merryton Roundabout Project, entitled ‘Working Hands’, commissioned in August 2011.

As a major focus of the GENERATION festival is to engage a younger audience, The Glasgow School of Art asked 18 year old Rachel to review Graham Fagen’s exhibition – Cabbages in an Orchard; The formers and forms of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Graham Fagen. She interviewed Graham and her review of his exhibition which is currently on display at the GSA’s Reid Building is below.

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My first confrontation with the Reid Gallery was met with the intrusion of faceless teeth.

Open, vast and echoing; I entered in through the mouth of the Reid Gallery. Two giant, wooden doors enclose its gape. Launched in 2014, each new show brings forward the thought processes of each forthcoming artist into aesthetic contemplation. To paraphrase Jenny Brownrigg, Exhibitions Director of The Glasgow School of Art: “A gallery is almost like looking into someone’s head…”

In Cabbages in an Orchard; The formers and forms of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Graham Fagen, contemporary Glasgow-based Artist Graham Fagen has manipulated the notions of “Nature, Thinking and Form.” Each element of this exhibition is divided into ‘Schemes’. ‘Scheme’, by definition, may relate to an ‘estate of social housing’ or the precise, intent arrangement of each artwork in kinship to another. Firstly, a Scheme for Consciousness. A series of faceless teeth, aligned randomly, group themselves on three separate walls of the exhibition. Taken primarily from a previous work, Under Heavy Manners (2011), Fagen projects a sensory approach to representing the most common of human forms – our teeth, felt with our tongues; front teeth, then back. Their sculptural relations, titled Scheme for Support, are just as tactile. All three of these toothy impressions (divided into three separate sculptures) were supported by mounts of concrete pillars. In one, the bloodied, gummy-looking mould presides over a ceramic mould of two clenched fists, expressing the distance between the teeth and the hands; thinking and doing. Unlike Under Heavy Manners, these newer developments attempt to “draw consciousness”:
“I argue that everybody in the world has teeth, we’ve all got them, and at the same time, they’re unique. But they are a form, they do a job. Another thing we’ve all got is a consciousness – but you can’t see consciousness in the same way you see teeth. I think that’s what I’m interested in; a collective consciousness…the consciousness of a community, or a culture, but also of the individual.”

Scheme of Consciousness continues. Indian ink – in variants of colour, size and shape – penetrate through paper, manifesting each twinge and trip of feeling as we drag ourselves along missing fillings; the enamel detail hinting at long-softened veneers. “Perhaps all heads are mine…but no two heads are the same; No two thoughts are the same – perhaps that’s what thinking is like, what consciousness is like.” As Fagen muses, these inverted views of the skull – marked by two bulbous splodges of ink, nostrils or eyes – delve deep into our ‘roots’.

The title of this exhibition is another point of interest when considering the gallery as a thinking space. ‘Formers and Forms’ is a phrase coined by Fagen to describe his creative practice. It refers both to what defines our character – the formers of location, family background, childhood and occupation – but also to anatomical, even architectural, structures which ‘form’ the environment and encapsulate our strongest sense of being.

One such ‘former’ is exemplified within Scheme for a Cannabis Tree House. Consisting of a collection of photographs taken from Fagen’s background growing up in the Scottish New Town of Irvine, he seems to pinpoint his greatest influences upon some very ordinary landmarks: a tree, collared by an old tyre; the outside of his childhood home; a rosebush in the garden. Original colour images are juxtaposed by their opposites – inverted colour schemes that imply an exuberant ‘flipside’ to a typical suburban upbringing.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Watercolour, Cabbages in an Orchard (1894), is reminiscent of such a concept. The young Mackintosh was christened as one of ‘The Immortals’ for a then revolutionary approach to visuals; visuals which transcended time and place in the name of creating small philosophies: one of which is evident in Cabbages in an Orchard. This subject matter, however banal, reincarnates the humble cabbage as a symbol of endurance. Use of purples, pinks and greens create a weighted undertone of ethereal beauty; highlighting the cabbage not as a vegetable or even as an object – but a balloon, hung high in the sky. Composition instils common ground between Fagen and Mackintosh. This symmetry between their works is emphasized in placing of the twelve ‘heads’ within Scheme of Consciousness to reflect the position of twelve Cabbages in Mackintosh’s Orchard.

Cabbages in an Orchard is featured alongside other Mackintosh watercolours The Tree of Influence (1896), and The Tree of Personal Growth (1896). These three watercolours were originally published in ‘The Magazine’; a student-run publication founded by Mackintosh and his peers – arguably, all of whom were the ‘formers’ for his creative development.

Mackintosh’s titular references to creative development almost insist upon his role not just as an artist, but as the philosopher to Fagen’s Sociologist:
“I like them [the watercolours] all the more for that sense of searching. I think what I’m always trying to do within my work is find something worth searching for.”

A notable influence upon the respective artists is their mutual focus on botany; intrinsically, the belief that the plant is at the core of all living things. Whilst Mackintosh endeavoured to preserve the meaning behind these symbolic forms through watercolour, Fagen’s pragmatic approach to Conceptualism once again relies upon preserving the literal, actual beauty behind nature. A realist at heart, his work Scheme for Nature features a fig tree cast in bronze. After casting, Fagen left the plant outside to ‘weather’ for about a year. This has since caused the plant to age and develop outside of its precious overcoat; allowing the viewer to observe a work of creation in its existing form.

Scheme of Conscience, a bronze sculpture, imitates the organic, linear form of Mackintosh’s watercolour trees. Each branch extends out toward cubes of concrete, mild steel, ceramic and gold lustre; united, alongside Scheme of Nature, in a quality of preciousness. The emblem of tree – at least, its capacity to grow, and establish itself within the soil – is symbolic of the potential of the human mind; an idea as significant to Fagen as it was to Mackintosh.

I left the gallery. Teeth gurned. A lone bronze tree, facing outward onto the Mackintosh Building, blinked in the light. The watercolours – more relevant now than ever – remained.

Cabbages in an Orchard; The formers and forms of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Graham Fagen runs until 29 August at the GSA Reid Building. For more information about the exhibition, see the GSA website. To see more from Rachel Boyd, check out her blog.

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Kim from Central Station gives an overview of a selection of works on show:

Entering the newly opened Reid building with a camera in hand and a notepad, Lesley Booth (GSA Press Officer) greets me and outlines where each programme is located. I head to the press launch where I get chatting to two journalists who seem mightily impressed that I’m here for the show; they reveal they’re actually here to try and interview a couple students on how the fire has affected them. I realise I’m in the wrong place and head downstairs to see the graduates’ work. On the upside, the Design students have the honour of being the very first to exhibit in Steven Holl’s specially designed building.

‘Speak & Speak Immediately’ by Lyndsey Smith

‘Saudade’ by Cliff Andrade

Aptly, I come across Lyndsey Smith’s photographs of journalists and can’t help but smile at the natural order of things. Cliff Andrade is another photographer who catches my eye with his photos of the island of Madeira, he explains his journey exploring heritage.

The typography is especially strong this year. Nicholas Davis presents ‘Life of a Letterform’ which challenges the perception of form in a refreshing way. Additionally, Zheng Li’s 3D letters and screen prints grabbed my attention with the letters themselves appearing to be in motion.

‘Life of a Letterform’ by Nicholas Davis

’3D Letters Photography’ by Zheng Li

Using the first perfect number as her starting point, Alice Rooney uses #6 to create systems dispersed across 6 sheets of acetate. Sean Mulvenna also uses systems, albeit in a very different way. Inspired by the Augurs of Ancient Rome (religious figures who interpret the will of the Gods by studying bird flight), Mulvenna has cleverly introduced a method of divining narratives.

‘Perfect Circle’ by Alice Rooney

‘Augur’ by Sean Mulvenna

Female empowerment and gender inequality is explored in both Franc González and Rachel-Jane Findlay’s works. González has scanned the female figure in 3D and returned it back into the physical world as an unrefined 3D print. Findlay’s study of female action heroes screen printed as movie posters reinforces the strength of the woman’s role.

‘Untreated Bodies’ by Franc González

‘The Development of the female action hero: Sarah Connor’ by Rachel-Jane Findlay

The Visual Communication department seems to be such a tight knit, organised bunch. They keep a regular blog, hold events and even have their very own Twitter page. Perhaps the lack of physical barriers (they work in an open plan studio) is a real advantage in growing together as a collective.

Catriona Clark

Nicole McCarron

Of the jewellers, I was particularly drawn to Catriona Clark and Nicole McCarron’s angular pieces and Kara MacAulay’s red seaweed-like necklace which hangs beautifully near Jordane Symington’s contrasting materials.

Kara MacAulay

Jordane Symington

The Fashion and Textiles work is not to be missed, in particular Michelle Ho’s futuristic prints and Catherine MacGruer’s geometric designs. As well as Laura Muir who makes kitting look cooler than ever with her ‘Knit, Knot, Knit’ merino wool creations.

Michelle Ho

Catherine MacGruer

Laura Muir

Each Fine Art graduate has a digital print hung anonymously in the McLellan Galleries. I ask Lesley for a floor plan, however none seems available at present and I sincerely hope the artists gain recognition for the public opening. Interestingly, in most cases, it is still possible to distinguish the painters from the sculptors, photographers and environmental artists. Below are a selection of prints I enjoyed.

Unfortunately, the Product and Interior Designers were still installing their work at the time of my visit, though I’ve since been told there’s much to see!

You can download a short guide to the show online here. A 214 page limited edition book of prints featuring each student print is available in The Glasgow School of Art Shop.

An open studio event for the Digital Culture programme takes place this Thursday 19 June from 10.00 – 16.00. Degree Show 2014 is open to the public until 21 June.

Words and photos by Kim Stewart.

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Please visit here for more Degree Show reviews on Central Station.

I recall the first installation day of Michael Stumpf’s exhibition; This song belongs to those who sing it. A small section of lemon yellow appeared on one of the walls, rather like a patch of mould in the corner of the gallery. I strolled through as the install team pondered over the best way to fulfil their next task: to cover the entire wall in tin foil. I watched as the initial length was applied in the corner butting up to the yellow growth. An assortment of rags and cloths were used to rub the strip of foil onto the pre-glued wall. Over the next week, the full width of the wall was meticulously embellished with silver foil.

The gallery must have been a hive of activity over the weekend as, on Monday morning I was greeted by two glowing walls of colour – one of lemon yellow, and the other of yellow and pink, creating a coral colour, both layered with coloured washes, highlighting the layers of history in the walls.

Tuesday was a traditionally dull grey morning in Glasgow. I battled against the wind as I approached the, soon to be opened, Reid building, from the East. Looking up, I was surprised to notice the words “NOW SING” peering down at me as they confidently marked their place on the balcony, and emitted a vibrant energy.

Returning to the Mackintosh Museum, the gallery display cabinets usually hidden behind faux walls were being revealed. The copper pillars of the cabinets faced the silver wall, their shiny surfaces reflecting me, you, us, in them.

The next few components seemed to appear in a flurry.

a gold stalactite form hanging from an overhead beam,

a carved sandstone rock with a cast bronze twig sticking out of it on which a glass band hung,

a giant pink rock suspended from the ceiling by a long narrow band of denim, rather like a conker on a string.

The works that hang are grounded by the positioning of a heavy acrylic resin O (one violet and one red) under each. As the movement of people through the space causes a gentle swaying of the cords, the cast rings sit ready and waiting to catch what hovers above.

‘Endless long bowed phrases’ (2014), denim, plywood, steel, tube clamps.

Three other acrylic resin rings are rooted to the floor, their weightiness contrasting with the triangular frame that hangs at the other side of the museum, acting as another prompt to gaze up, and be reminded once again of the Mackintosh gallery in which we are standing, with all its history and peculiarities.

‘Perplexed’, paper, calico, aerosol paint, denim, acrylic resin, steel, tube clamps (2014)

This attention to context brings me back to the display cabinets that have been stripped back to their original state and one lovingly clad with denim. An assortment of small delicate objects are placed inside, like relics from an architectural dig. That famous saying “the context is half the work” plays in my mind. In this case, the context has been used as a material, an important element in the exhibition.

Such consideration has also been given to the audience. Regular tours circulate the prestigious Mackintosh Building, congregating in the gallery and inspecting the architectural features. In a studio next door, a critique is in progress, the work being rigorously examined. In the gallery, the two text works on facing walls, “Looking at you” and “Looking at me” encourage us, the audience, to investigate our own relationship to what we see.

Several days later at its official opening, all eyes are on the Reid Building. In the words of Liz Lochhead, who was commissioned to write a song to mark the momentous occasion, the Reid is

“the bonny new building,
the new kid on the block”.

As I gaze at its glass paneled walls, I notice in the reflection, a familiar vibrant pink ring hanging from the Directors office, drawing my attention back to the Mackintosh Building and inevitably upstairs into the museum.

‘Ring’, cast acrylic resin (2014). Mackintosh building, Director’s Balcony.

So, just as the students at the Art School gradually move through their studies and emerge as graduates, and in a similar way to how in Benjamin Britten’s, The Young Persons Guide to Orchestra, the orchestra is broken down into constituent parts only to be brought together to form a full orchestra, my understanding and appreciation of the exhibition developed with each new encounter.

Perhaps I reached the chorus when I attended the final event programmed alongside the exhibition. A tap dancer conversed with the objects in the gallery, offering a new perspective on the installation. The atmosphere in the gallery was one of anticipation and excitement as the gathering scrutinised each other’s footwear, calculating who would be the one to burst into dance. A young man, dressed in tight jeans and a Michael Stumpf customised jumper climbed the stairs and we all watched in silence as he ‘eyed up’ the gold suspended sculpture, Perplexed.

Tap dancer Greg Robertson performing in Mackintosh Museum, Photo: Michael Stumpf

It was as he stood, hands folded across his chest, gaze moving up and down the work, that I considered the scale of the hanging form, its relation to the human body and I was reminded of the image of the rock in jeans that featured on the exhibition invitation. His foot began to tap on the wooden floor, producing a rhythm that shifted in pace; from steady contemplation to excited energy, albeit without any ‘jazz hands’. He travelled effortlessly around the space, activating and animating the work as he moved up close to it, naturally returning to the gold sculpture before finishing.

The enthusiastic applause that filled the gallery as he disappeared down the stairs was, for me, a fitting response to this joyous exhibition that celebrates materiality, embraces colour and generously considers the context and audience.

Michael Stumpf talks about his GI 2014 exhibition at GSA

Michael Stumpf: This Song Belongs to Those who Sing It runs until 4 May at the Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh Museum . For more information see the GSA website.

For more about Glasgow based artist Helen Shaddock, see her My Process article on Central Station here.

All images unless otherwise stated by Janet Wilson. 

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‘Caesura’ is the inaugural public exhibition for the Reid Gallery, located in the new Glasgow School of Art (GSA) building, The Reid Building, designed by Steven Holl Architects. A ‘caesura’ (pronounced say-sura) denotes a brief, silent pause in poetry or music, during which metrical time is not counted. As the new Reid Building welcomes people and springs into life, occupied by its community, visited by the public, this exhibition is intended to act as a pause in time, the beginning of a new chapter for the art school.

Linear Construction No.1, Naum Gabo (1942 – 43). Perspex and nylon monofilament. On loan from The Pier Arts Centre Collection. As part of ‘Implicit Form’, Raydale Dower (2014)

Steven Holl Architects’ buildings have often been inspired by the connection between architecture, music and poetry. Steven Holl has spoken of the Reid building as a ‘Zen-like response to the Mackintosh building’. He has also inspired the title of the exhibition with his quote: ‘the twilight of northern cities …offers a caesura, a silent uncertain suspension for reflective… thoughts’. The new works commissioned for ‘Caesura’, offer the opportunity to encounter, experience and reflect on this new space.

‘Fabric’, 100% silk (2014) Briggs & Cole, as part of ‘Temperance 3/5′. Photo: Janet Wilson

The three commissions are by GSA graduates Raydale Dower (MSc Sound for the Moving Image, lives and works Glasgow), Briggs & Cole (Product Design / MFA, live and work in Glasgow) and Heaven Baek (MFA, lives and works Seoul). The resulting work responds in different ways to this new architecture, the show’s themes and this specific time in The Glasgow School of Art’s history. The graduates are from different disciplines, reflecting a guiding principle in the design of the Reid Building which was to create space for cross-disciplinary endeavour.

‘Seongbuk district Seongbuk resident’ (2014), Heaven Baek. Film still (HD, 23 mins) Image courtesy of the artist

Raydale Dower explores the links between sculptural and sonic form in Implicit Form,  situated alongside three references:  the work of the Russian sculptor, Naum Gabo (1890-1977); the oscilloscope patterns of US mathematician and artist Ben Laposky (1914-2000); and Le Corbusier, Xenakis & Varese’s  “Philips Pavilion” which designed for Expo ’58 in Brussels.

‘Poème électronique, Revealed Structure, (After Iannis Xenakis, Le Corbusier & Edgard Varèse, 1958)’ Raydale Dower (2014). Based on original architectural plans and engineering drawings, courtesy of Le Corbusier Foundation, Paris. Piano wood. Photo: Janet Wilson.

Heaven Baek has created a new video work entitled Seongbuk district Seongbuk resident using another Steven Holl Architects building, Daeyang Gallery and House, as the creative location in her city.

‘Seongbuk district Seongbuk resident’ (2014), Heaven Baek. Film still (HD, 23 mins) Image courtesy of the artist

Briggs & Cole examine the relationship between the Mackintosh Building and Reid Building through a variety of objects including an oak and steel board room table that brings together imagery from the architecture of both buildings, an etched mirror, a 4m-long silk wall hanging, a brass plaque and a glass vase.

Briggs & Cole, as part of ‘Temperance 3/5′. Photo: Janet Wilson

Caesura shows in the Reid Gallery in the Reid Building until 4 May. For more information see the GSA website.

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On display from now until 23 March at the Macintosh Museum, ’Drawing on Holl‘ aims to illuminate the creation of the Reid Building. Curated by Mark Baines, the exhibition explores the architectural dialogue between old and new. The exhibition features several 3-D models and numerous watercolour drawings by Steven Holl Architects, which document the design process, all arranged chronologically from the initial competition entry in 2009.

Image by Janet Wilson. Courtesy The Glasgow School of Art.

‘Circuit of Connection, Reid Building, The Glasgow School of Art’ (2012). Courtesy Steven Holl Architects.

Image by Janet Wilson. Courtesy The Glasgow School of Art.

Image by Janet Wilson. Courtesy The Glasgow School of Art.

Image by Janet Wilson. Courtesy The Glasgow School of Art.

‘Drawing on Holl’ runs at the Macintosh Museum from now until 23 March 2014. For more information go the the GSA website.

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