Glasgow Independent Studio and Glasgow Project Room

Glasgow Independent Studio, formed in 1995, is an artist-led organisation that operates without any public or external funding. GIS currently has over 50 members encompassing a broad range of arts practice, including traditional drawing and painting, printmaking, illustration, animation, digital media, on-line work, sculpture, installation and everything in between, all sharing a space together within premises on the fourth floor of Trongate 103.

Glasgow Project Room is the more public face of the organisation. GPR is a non-commercial gallery, which is funded by the members through the rent of the studio spaces. It is located on the first floor within Trongate 103, at the front of the building. GPR provides a dedicated space for artists to show new work. A committee of GIS members curates the Project Room, and shows are open to local, national and international artists, no matter what stage their career is at. The ethos of GPR is to build a really strong community amongst all artists, without commercial or conceptual pressures.

Kevin Hutcheson

Kevin Hutcheson is an artist working mainly with Collage and Printmaking. He studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in Dundee (BA 1997), and Chelsea College of Art & Design, London (MFA 2002). He has exhibited widely, including most recently the group show ‘The Associates’ at DCA, Dundee (2009), and a solo exhibition at Glasgow Project Room, Glasgow (2010).

I used to work in the old Glasgow Independent Studio in Osborne Street for a long time (above the 13th Note, next to the Project Room), and have had a space on the 4th floor of Trongate 103 since we moved here around 2 years ago.

There have definitely been some improvements since moving into this new space – its warmer in the wintertime, and we have better facilities generally. It has also been good being in the same building as the Print Studio where I’ve made some work recently.

My studio is bright, south-facing. I’m near the corner of the building, above Transmission, and if I’m working on a Saturday afternoon and have the window open, I can hear the trad jazz coming from Lauries bar below on Parnie Street, which is a pretty nice live soundtrack to work to.

Rachel Duckhouse

My space in Glasgow Independent Studio overlooks King Street and is in the heart of Trongate where there’s always so much art stuff going on. GIS is full of different kinds of artists doing loads of interesting work. We’re in Trongate 103 now, which houses many other arts organisations such as Glasgow Print Studio, which is perfect for me as I’m a printmaker there. I can go backwards and forwards from the etching press or screen printing tables to my studio just upstairs. My practice constantly shifts between studio based drawing and printmaking at GPS. My most recent work is a series of etchings currently showing in the Long Gallery of the Tron Theatre, also in Trongate. They are large geometric, abstract pieces named after the first series of expeditions to Mir, the first modular space station, built in parts and assembled in space over time.

Maria McCavana

I’m a visual artist whose work includes drawings, photography and sites specific sculpture.

I’ve been in my studio just over 2 years, when I first moved in it took a while to get used to it’s flat, clean walls and no rising damp. It’s a modest little space that requires constant tidying. It’s the perfect space for projecting drawings onto the wall or intensely drawing under a desk lamp, which I spend a lot of my time doing at the moment. I love working there early in the mornings, as the light is beautiful or late in the evenings for the silence.

I use part of my studio for making and the other half for my collecting. At the moment I’m collecting newspapers, a few months ago it was toy soldiers and the time before that it was pictures of the sea.

Penny Sharp

I have had a studio space at Glasgow Independent Studio for about 8 years now and love the artist-led ethos of GIS. The layout of our studios, with studio walls that don’t reach the ceiling, means that members are able to close the door to the outside world, but still hear each other working – I think this helps forge the community spirit and camaraderie.

My studio space (Durty Gurty, number 30) is full of a mish-mash of all the different projects I am simultaneously working on. It’s crammed with inspirational materials I’ve not had time to properly look at and lots of other bits and bobs of whatnot that I’ve collected with the intention of making work with. It’s a space which needs time.

My practice mainly revolves around the act of drawing, quite often uses text and more regularly utilises multiple layers, both physically in the construction and contextually in the narrative and interpretation – my work occupies a space somewhere between medieval tapestry and 60’s American underground comics.

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‘Where I Make’ invites readers behind the scenes of artists from many disciplines to share photographs and a little insight about where they create their masterpieces. See more from the series here.