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Black Cube Collective
Annual Show September 2015
Ronald Binnie My research as a PhD student and my practice as a visual artist intertwine around the problematic question of the ‘animal’. Artists have long been fascinated with using the form of the nonhuman animal and have employed a diversity of methodologies and strategies to explore their ‘otherness’. This very concept of an animal ‘other’ belies the inescapable reality that humans are simply one species amongst many others. More recently, I have been rediscovering the process of painting and moving towards an investigation of materials that whilst experimental is concurrent with a narrative context of environmentalism such as the undifferentiating pollution of natural systems by companies such as British Petroleum on which this painting is based. Ronald graduated from Edinburgh College of Art with a first class degree in BA Hons Painting and subsequently gained an MFA in Painting. He is currently a PhD candidate in Visual Culture and lectures at Edinburgh College of Art. He is a founding member of Black Cube Collective. www.ronaldjbinnie.com/
Mexico, (2015) Oil & graphite on board, 100 x 100 cm
Magdalena Blasinska Blasinska’s painting taps into a number of conceptual veins in contemporary painting: nostalgia, memory, anonymity and identity. She often draws on human experience of history and its documentary forms, art, nature and popular culture. Her paintings examine how the memory is collected, recovered and understood. Blasinska’s preoccupations are many layered, but she still places painterly focus at the forefront of her work, blurring in elastic borders of abstract shapes and defined objects. She is particularly interested in gestural representation of pictorial elements, constantly looking to extend her vocabulary of mark making. She often challenges an image by exercising full potential of paint upon the same subject matter, which results in diluting the pre-‐mediated image. Her work reflects the creative process, displaying various painterly techniques, forms and patterns, which engage the viewer in a spatial dialogue. www.magdablasinska.com
Flagellation of St Anthony, (2014) Oil on linen, 101 x 51 cm
Edwina Bracken I am interested in the process and phenomenon of painting. Questions about phenomenological considerations have led me to experiment with the boundaries of painting and its inherent object-‐hood. In recent work, I have created an expanded field through the inclusion of furniture. The liminal space between the work and the viewer is addressed in the placement of the seat. The re-‐representation of the paintings on the seat upholstery counterpoint the wall exhibits and problematise the empirical value painting holds while making that involvement and dialogue actively present in the work. My current line of enquiry involves the experimentation with other media including sound and sculpture to develop new routes into the production of multi-‐sensory and immersive installations. www.edwinabracken.com www.vau.org.uk
What Does Thinking Look Like? (2014) Oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm each & bespoke upholstered armchair
Ross M. Brown
My work channels the experience of architectural space through the medium and history of painting. I am drawn to ambiguous spaces on the edges of the built environment where boundaries between civilization and nature, order and disor-‐der, past and present have become blurred and indistinct.
Exploring subject matter found within abandoned Modernist architecture, I employ a painting process which pits rigidly constructed perspective against the fluid materiality of poured, smeared and dripped paint. Layering chance-‐based processes upon a precisely plotted framework, each painting undergoes a series of constructive and destructive phases; mirroring each site's descent from a rational, geometric state into one of ambiguity and flux. www.rossmbrown.co.uk
The Hacienda, (2010) Oil on canvas, 150 x 120 cm
Sarah Calmus
P.I was created from the lyrics of Pure Imagination, written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley for the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. In a momentary creative lull, solace was found in the repetitive action of layering the lyrics over themselves, creating stages of overlaid text. This text was overlaid digitally upon itself fifty times, each layer becoming a new page, a new visual adventure, until the lyrics became so dense that they turned the space black. The last stage of the process overlays the same text and lyrics in white, suggesting the cyclical nature of the process and allowing a new cycle to begin in the imaginations of those who view it.
The P.I film was created from the scrolling image of the PDF version of P.I. There are many versions of PI. This one happens to be blurred. It is with hope that the blurring of the text allows space for the individual to become lost in the hypnotic rhythm of the flowing text and therefore their own imaginations.
The video was part of a combined work for take-‐over exhibition TRANSLATIONS at Generator Projects, Dundee, 2014. Sarah Calmus is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in Edinburgh and is a recent Art, Philosophy and Contemporary Practices graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. Interested in immersive, environmental and experimental creative experiences, Calmus' work ranges from large-‐scale light installations to month-‐long nomadic social interventions with thematic focuses of interaction, perception, space and play.
http://cargocollective.com/sarahcalmus
P.I, (2014) Still image from film, 5 minutes, 55 seconds
Andrew Connor
Andrew Connor is an audiovisual artist, whose area of interest is the intersection of sound and vision, especially in creating immersive audiovisual work. His aim is to create intensely immersive works, creating highly abstract sound and visual work that envelops and fascinates the audience.
Canto (2015) combines music synthesis and manipulation of real world sounds in combination with abstract 3D CGI animation and timelapse photography. The work is loosely based on Dante's Divine Comedy, split into three sections depict-‐ing Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. www.andrewconnor.net
Canto, (2015) Audio-‐visual animation, 11 minutes
Paul Corbett
My sculpture examines minimalist ideals of industrial material and commercial colour as well as popular subject matter. Minimalism invented a new vocabulary of aesthetics, this language cites a means for me to juxtapose certain visual and practical elements: material, space, symmetry, situ, colour, function, and using them to augment a selection of contemporary objects. [email protected]
http://cargocollective.com/paulcorbett
SKP, (2015) CLS 150 x 105 cm
Kristina Cranfield Largely concerned with migration, borders and human identity, Kristina’s work is presented through films, installations and photographs. She continuously experiments with these mediums, finding unconventional techniques to tell and capture compelling visions.
What is the future of citizenship in Britain and what new rules will be proposed for immigrants to become citizens? Manufactured Britishness is a project derived from the compulsory and very real Life in the UK test, which examines skills for integrating into British society. The project critically explores the assessment program contrived by Britain in testing for citizenship by proposing a future manifestation of the Life in the UK test. In this future, we see immigrants as an exploitable material, a living currency, compelled to sustain national identity in order to maximise capitalistic agendas.
Kristina has given talks at TEDx, UCLA and Liverpool Salon. Her works are exhibited internationally and published by Dezeen, We Make Money Not Art, Grafik, Line Magazine amongst others. Her films have been screened at a number of international galleries and film festivals. Her film Manufactured Britishness has been added to the library collection of the Live Art Development Agency.
[email protected] www.kristinacranfeld.co.uk www.kristinacranfeld.com
Manufactured Britishness, (2013) Still image from film, 14 minutes,
Sarah Dale Informed by the Scottish referendum of September 2014, my work has recently focused on flags and Nationalism. I present Nationalism as a necessary ideology and flags as its visual metaphor. I produce imagery that seeks to visually question the apparent paradox of a unified, yet liberal society that holds freedom of expression as its imperative ideal. I use kinetic sculptures to create repetitive narratives, and subvert appropriated objects to instill in them life and movement. These draw upon my previous career as an international coach driver, constantly on the move they are fleeting temporary structures, reflecting a transient philosophical perspective and inducing a soporific state. http://sarahthebus.wix.com/sculpture-‐animation
Subjective Antiquity, (2014) Balsawood, whitewood, cotton, plastic & electrical components
Christopher J Deeks
Hyperplasia explores efforts to control and manipulate the human body (in this case, body building) through a Deleuzian theoretical framework. It looks at the body, not as a fixed form, but as something fluid and changeable. Organs and body parts explosively growing, reproducing and changing. The foundation of body building is formed around the process of destruction in order to build. Hyperplasia is a hypothetical realisation of that.
Graduating from the University of Plymouth with a 1st Class Honours in Fine Art, Christopher J. Deeks has developed a primarily digital practice that explores the body, narrative, evolution and structure.
At University, Deeks was awarded the 2013 Critical Studies Award for his disserta-‐tion "Plastic Trauma: How Physical Interventions to the Human Body are Perceived in Contemporary Art", whilst also co-‐founding a small arts publication called P.U-‐L.P. In the past 5 years, he has exhibited across the country, including 2013's Black Cube Collective Annual Show. More recently he has joined an Essex based art collective to put on local exhibitions and works as a Graphic Designer and Print Technician in Colchester.
www.christopherjdeeks.com
Hyperplasia 1, 2, & 3 (2015) Digital prints
Spike Dennis My recent works have explored our relationships with the Internet and the boundaries between the digital and physical worlds. This has included critiques on our social interactions, personal privacy, sex, death, censorship, identity and the dissociative imagination.
We’re More Than The Sum Of Our Pixels continues in this vein, using the Internet as a source for from which to reflect on our digitally interconnected society. The photographs upon which these works are based are photographs of people who have died. They have been sourced from the public domain; websites, blogs, and social media channels, which act as digital shrines to these individuals.
Death provides a chance for us to pause and reflect, and an untimely death offers an opportunity for the media to play a significant role in a memorialising process that reassess the life of the individual by highlighting features that have contributed to the image over time. We’re More Than The Sum Of Our Pixels investigates how death is made visible and questions whether the camera discloses all facets relating to the presence of death. The authentic face of death is primarily displaced in favour of a recognisable visage that assumes characteristics of the immortal.
www.spikedennis.com
We’re More Than The Sum Of Our Pixels 2, (2015) Embroidered Photograph
Jennifer Fergie Detail within simplicity has always been at the forefront of my work as I explore new possibilities of how everyday objects, colours and mundane circumstances can be captured to depict more intriguing and surrealist scenes. After experimenting with collage, I found that my greatest interests lay with paper. Paper has been the most dominant component in my practice. Manipulating the shape of paper until it becomes unrecognisable has been a recurring theme, handling and changing the paper, capturing its new form until it becomes unrecognisable. As I explore the possibilities of each piece I find my interests reverting back to the beginning of the paper's journey. The first fold, tear or bend is captured as its natural form is discarded to create something more complex. The papers' new journey is forever captured. I make work from the objects around me, the simple and everyday. Each item has a connection of nostalgia, as I am unable to throw even the simplest of receipts away. My work is a way of cataloguing the items I hold onto in my life that I am too connected with to discard. http://www.jenniferfergiephotography.com/
Pigs Ear, (2015) Photography, 18 cm x 12 cm
Tyguepaulo Gacita,
Throughout my creative studies I have gained and developed many skills in different areas of craft and design, which I can enable into my own designing process. From the basic hand skill techniques of a maker, wide range knowledge of production processes and the understanding of materials, through interaction, experimentation, investigation and exploration to design thinking and research are important parts in my design practice. Working independently and the attitude of being self-‐taught gained me knowledge of the foundations of creative software, encompassing the use of Adobe suite InDesign, Illustrator and basic Rhino Cad.
http://tygueg.wix.com/tyguedesign
Existence, (2015) Stoneware ceramic, 14.8 x 21 x 10 cm
Ed Hadfield Urban word artist Ed Hadfield uses a ‘wish mentality’ employed by utopian thinkers in the pursuit of restructuring their world, to extract positive aesthetically felt experiences from his interactions with everyday environments.
These small truths of what it means to exist that are valuable in their own right, are then placed back into the urban environment as ‘signs’ where they can have a gentle positive affect on the way people interact.
His post-‐studio practice is specifically located between his job as a restaurant waiter and domestic environment, where he navigates the stresses and strains of ordinary existence. From these tangibly felt common experiences he taps into human values.
Ed is influenced by philosopher John Dewey’s notion of ‘an experience’ being strikingly felt, unified & consciously undergone; whilst also pursuing within the boundaries of his lived environment more contemporary notions of ‘an experience’ including fragmentation, reflection and events occurring in the twilight of consciousness.
The work Urban Interventions was originally installed as street signs outside train stations in London, giving commuters a generous value to take with them as they rush toward their contractual work environments.
Street sign installation video: http://youtu.be/E00BslE5L20 www.edhadfield.com
Urban Interventions 1, (2015) High Intensity Microprismatic Vinyl & Aluminium 51cm x 51cm x 2cm each
Maira Hashmi I have a strong conviction that art is a metaphorical statement of our subjective world-‐view. My work tends to focus on the meaning of existence by visually reflecting the complexity of human existence in a simplistic manner that touches the soul of the audiences. My work, emanates from a metamorphosis of self-‐realization into social consciousness. It offers a glimpse of my soul and the complex world I live in. In my view the purpose of art is to resist established norms and challenge dogmas in order to bring all fraction of society into the fold so that humanity and sanity could prevail. I try to visualize these themes through stylized figure compositions and mundane domestic objects for instance, boat, umbrella, cage and birds. My art practice focuses on these seemingly ordinary things from daily life and their ‘real’ connection with us. This“ realness” inspires my creativity. My sculptures tell the visual tale of my artistic journey, my joys, sorrows, contemplation and angst of a female being. https://twitter.com/mairahashmi92 [email protected]
Bows and Vows, (2015) Mixed media sculpture, 53 x 42 cm
Ian Healy
I combine culled images from a variety of sources into a vision of a world, which include sticky personal memories and an eye to the history of figure painting. Paintings can include full figures, to cropped or cut-‐off figures, or even simply a hand. I will often use devices such as ‘Rucken figur’ (the figure from behind), or the face in concealment. They are initially formal in approach, with an emphasis on surface. I use wet on wet technique to achieve spontaneity, and like to make visible the physicality of the medium of oil paint, this use of paint is integral to the finished works. This in turn introduces moments of abstraction into the works often by accident; which makes the act of painting very exciting and legitimizes the painted Image anew. Ultimately the work itself is about the medium and how it raises questions about representation and identity. www.ianhealy.co.uk/
Polka Dots, (2015) Oil on panel
Matthew Herring Tay, Spey, Clyde, Tweed, Dee, Forth, Don, Avon, Findhorn, Nith, Deveron, Beuly, Glass, Affric, Concon, Ken, Lochy, Spean, South Esk, Leven, Endrick, Conon, Meig, Annan, Esk, Isla, Oykel, Earn, Ayr, North Esk, Teviot, Ythan, Lossie, Nairn, Lyon, Ericht, Ardle, Whiteadder Water, Blackadder Water, Moneynut Water, Dye Water, Bothwell Water, Faseny Water, Till, Glen, Wooler Water, Leet Water, Eden Water, Leader Water, Darnick Burn, Gala Water, Yarrow Water, Leithen Water, Quair Water, Eddleston Water, Talla Water, Fruid Water, Eye Water, Ale Water, Biel Water, Water of Leith, Almond, Carron, Pow Burn, Black Devon, Bannock Burn, Allan Water, Teith, Goodie Water, Braan, Tummel, Garry, Allt Camghouran, Gaur, Luther Water, Water of Tarf, Water of Mark, Water of Lee, Bervie Water, Burn of Monboys, Burn of Muchalls, Dulnain, Nethy, Druie, Feshie, Tromie, Allt Mor, Calder, Truim, Mashie, Ness, Farigaig, Enrick, Coiltie, Foyers, Moriston, Allt Doe, Oich, Shin, Tirry, Fiag, Merkland, Evelix, Fleet, Brora, Wick, Thurso, Forss Water, Strathy, Naver, Borgie, Hope, Keisgaig, Sandwood, Rhiconich, Laxford, Inver, Abhainn Bad na h-‐Achlaise, Kirkaig, Polly, Canaird, Ullapool, Lael, Broom, Dundonnell, Gruinard, Inverianvie, Ewe, Talladale, Grudie, Abhainn an Fhasaigh, Kinlochewe, Sand, Kerry, Badachro, Erradale, Craig, Torridon, Balgy, Applecross, Toscaig, Kishorn, Taodail, Attadale, Ling, Elchaig, Glennan, Croe, Shiel www.matthewherring.net
Shifted Scotlands, oil and acrylic on board, 20 x30 cm Overlapping Scotlands, oil on board, 22 x30 cm
Two Scotlands, oil on board, 21 x 30 cm Two Scotlands, one black, one white, oil on board, 21 x 30cm
Roxana Ionescu
Since 2004 my work meant for me installations that use natural elements, shaped and express with the sculptured pieces. Forceful wind, air bubbles, plastic wrap, three-‐meter size pictures as well as furniture used as a symbol (piano chair, piano itself), or architectural structure-‐like pillars, helped me express or put into visual the contrasting concepts that surround us all.
Tranquility, expensive pieces of sociological collapses, obstructive structures, build fading glory and immense necessity of freedom, very much declared but yet somehow not attainable. Society creates dependencies from sugar/salt to drugs and alcohol that make this collapse hidden. Nature at its best is fragile but persistent, always fighting for us and fighting with our messes. With paint or sculpture, with natural elements and concepts, there is a lot to express; the structure of us becomes a very good imagery. Translation from fact to art permits our creative inheritance to take such a different discourse that is wonderful. +004 0729 360 179
Air Comfort, (2008) Installation
Study,(2015) Limestone
Neil Johnstone In all of my work I like to have multiple layers, multiple meanings and multiple interpretations both figuratively and conceptually.
The Maritime series of three prints are digitally manipulated marine-‐related images of my father in the merchant navy in the late 1950s, interwoven with current images from places he visited. They are concerned with time and memory and erosion and personal history. http://artbyneilinprogress.wordpress.com/ http://facebook.com/Neil.A.Johnstone
Dunedin Jim, (2015) Manipulated photographic print on Hahnemuhle paper, 61 x 50 cm
Marion Kennedy I make hand thrown stoneware ceramics. Most greenware is hand burnished before biscuit firing in an electric kiln then a sawdust firing gives the finished effect.
I love the feel of clay and its plasticity. I also love how we talk about pots in terms of body, neck, shoulder and foot, making them very human. Forming pots on the wheel -‐ opening out the clay and closing it in again -‐ is like a mouth forming sounds. I like to keep the natural clay surface which is warmer to the touch, preferring not to encase or hide the clay in a hard, glassy, glazed shell. The final sawdust firing gives the surface a finish which I have little control over and is left to the fire and smoke to create.
The overall effect I'm trying to create is natural and simple. I like to create shapes and surfaces which are smooth like beach pebbles or rough and irregular like artefacts uncovered at an archaeological dig. With the latter I'm aiming to make something less uniform and more primitive. My aim is for the pieces to feel both ancient and modern.
http://plumtreeceramics.wordpress.com/ http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/PlumtreeCeramics
Open Bowl, Stoneware, 5.5 cm x 8 cm
Svetlana Kondakova The 7 deadly sins are effective in instilling guilt with the premise that everyone will be able to relate one or more of the ‘sins’ to themselves or others in their lives. This series of paintings in particular addresses each of the ‘sins’ in excess. Sloth represents laziness, the most common limiting factor to our ability to achieve our highest potential. I have chosen a young, fit looking model to highlight the concept of waste. This guy is so lazy that he cannot be bothered to put his food on a plate or to hold his own drink. The pose and composition both work to convey a sense of immobility, while the clinically white pillow and tubes of the beer helmet hint at disability. The elongated limbs remind us of the namesake animal and the whole setting implies a very American persona, deliberately playing on a certain stereotype. His tattoo reads a Greek expression ‘Siga Siga’ which literally means ‘Slowly Slowly’ and represents an attitude to life that can be summarised as ‘taking it easy’.
Svetlana believes that human figure is an incredibly powerful image that is able to connect with audiences on intrinsic emotional levels. She utilises the figure and portrait to create personifications of issues potent in our contemporary society. Furthermore, by employing mythology and allegories she speaks about timeless and universal social, psychological and political. Svetlana is a Russian-‐born artist who grew up in Scotland and graduated from the Edinburgh College of Art in 2011. She is a founding member of Black Cube Collective.
www.svetlanakondakova.com/
Sloth, (2015), from the series 7 Deadly Sins, Oil on canvas, 180 x 110 cm
Ralph Klewitz
WZ156_Inst1 and WZ158_Sculp1 belong to a body of works in which I was in-‐trigued to use banal objects of everyday life to create artwork. By rearranging the objects, they lose their original functionality and simultaneously gain a paradoxi-‐cal expression. I experienced this new artistic proposition as a negotiation between real, dream and fantasy worlds. In this context I found it interesting to contemplate the fleeting thresholds between existing and imagined environ-‐ments made out of, and represented by, objects.
Whilst reflecting on my artistic process, I realised another quality that refers back to the production. Thinking back how I have playfully combined the objects, I found it fascinating that the final pieces have been given a playful aesthetic. The transformation from rationality to play is thus another angle that I consider is in-‐herent in the artwork. This playfulness might then be contextualised with an approach that the objects could have been arranged experimentally. From this perspective, I suggest that the processuality of the artworks’ making could evoke negotiating the state of artwork’s completion: does the artwork represent a con-‐cept, a prototype or is a final piece as such?
An alternative approach could be to perceive the artwork as a suggestion of an expansion of originally intended dispositions. The notion of absurdity that is in-‐herent in some of the artwork might disrupt the search for a new functional meaning of the objects. This jolt in the contemplation process that I experience tempts me to interpret the artwork in multiple directions. The shift from utilitari-‐an applications of the objects to open ended perceptions is thus an additional quality that I appreciate in this group of works.
http://ralphklewitz.blogspot.com/
WZ156 Inst1, (2015)
WZ158_Sculp1, (2015)
Dimitri Kosiré Born from a Russian and Paraguayen family, Dimitri Kosiré works and lives in Paris where he was born in 1968. With an ‘informal’ brushwork, his painting “reaches forces that include messages quite different from those of the banality of current art forms and which is linked to the inner universe of the Being and to its existential problems in the contemporary world. It is the ordained representation of the chaos surrounding contemporary man in his relationship with the cosmos“, written by Belgica Rodriguez in the last publication about Kosiré’s works. His paintings brings us back to the evocating power of a painting “read by means of the most blazing part of felt sensations. Powerful and tonic, it provides it with the freshness of an independent eye.
www.dmitrikosire.com
Monochrome, (2014) Mixed technics on canvas, 73 x 60 cm
Monochrome, (2014)
Mixed technics on wood, 80 x 60 cm
Yulia Kovanova Yulia Kovanova‘s work aims to investigate the inter-‐connections in nature and connections between humans and nature through movement, exploring the constant shift and change of the pattern. She is looking to strip all unnecessary layers in her work to unveil the ‘essence’.
Through interrogating the constantly shifting relationship of humans within environment, Yulia aims to find ways of breaking through the human-‐made barriers to be present and connected with the world around. She has been largely inspired by Japanese aesthetics, in particular shadows and silhouettes.
Originally from Siberia, Russia, Yulia is now based in Edinburgh, Scotland. She studied art, linguistics and cultural studies in Russia and is currently undertaking an MFA in ‘Art, Space & Nature’ at Edinburgh College of Art, the University of Edinburgh.
The piece presented at the Black Cube’s Annual Show 2015, was originally exhibited at the Edinburgh International Science Festival 2015 and is part of a project researching bird life in Scotland, done in collaboration with Edinburgh-‐based artist and photographer Kenny Lam. www.kovanova.com/
In collaboration with Kenny Lam, Untitled, (2015) Still from video
Jean-‐François Krebs My work is a physical illustration of poems that I wrote in the past or most recent ones. Through an exploration of my own history, I transform traumatic events into performances, re-‐write the story, and try to transform personal history into personal mythology. My work is about physical impact of mental state on the body, gender identity, and attempts to transform the body or its appearance in order to impact the mind. Because my work often shows graphic contents, I make it a priority to avoid shock value, and to emphasize on the meaning, the aesthetics, to allow the spectator to get past the strong physical response they may have, and access the piece.
Poem 1, (2015) Live performance & video, 15 minutes, Charcoal & black ink
Colin Lawson
I am interested in the extended life of painting. Through collaborative projects with musicians and artists, I work with tools such as file sharing, animation and projection to research the various applications of painting and the space painting can occupy in contemporary art. I have always been fascinated by surface, surfaces of paint, surfaces of sound. I am greatly influenced by ambient music and in particular its ability to envelop the listener without drawing attention to itself. From the early experiments of John Cage through to present day recordings, I have been working towards a visual equivalent of this remarkable discipline. It is not my intention to illustrate sound however. My compositions are informed by responses to repeated notes and subtle variations in aural textures: the gradual introduction of stronger rhythms and the smaller, hidden sounds which surface periodically. My aim is to create an unobtrusive form of painting which will encourage attention rather than demand it.
www.colinlawson.net/
Primary Two (Parts 1-‐3), (2015) Oil and Enamel on Canvas
Rory Laycock
Rory Laycock’s work explores the platform of the Internet and how people launch their likes, dislikes and opinions in the social-‐media platform. The trampoline becomes a metaphor for this by making connections to social activities through group and individual play. The act of bouncing can be linked to the build-‐up of public interest and performance, where ideas are ‘thrown around’ a space. The two differently sized platforms (trampolines) that are physically present in the installation attempt to explore this continual launch of oneself onto the wider online world.
Despite the Internet platform being a continuously fluctuating one, it is viewed from a very stationary perspective. Therefore, the trampolines attempt to explore this motionless quality whilst the monitors divulge the rapid movement of the Internet. The small trampoline highlights an individual’s boundaries within the physical space of the installation, acting as a bridge to the large platform.
Beneath the trampolines will be a structure of wires and technical playback equipment, conveying the Internet’s technical construction that is kept away from the public view, of which will become a major feature of the work. Beneath the cloud and wireless systems that appear to us, are the cables and technicalities that operate this system.
www.rorylaycock.com
Group Play, (2015) Video Installation 5.5 x 4.3 m
Beth Longmore
Concerned with everyday observations, I aim to create interventions which elevate the unnoticed yet provide a pause to reflect on our own position within a larger system. Through photography, film and installations I aim to unravel the viewers’ relationship with familiar elements of their surroundings. Objects that function within a large network, such as pipes are wires, are isolated and repositioned in a space. I am interested in questioning these quiet details, positioning the viewer in an uneasy position, flickering between the objects perceived role in an invisible system and its physical intimacy within a space.
The act of reading and understanding surfaces we encounter in our everyday surroundings is a process equally poetic as it is empirical. Focusing in on a particular area is as much about exploring the gaps in our vision as what is actually there. Through accentuating small features of our lived space I hope to create tangible pauses within which the viewer can engage. www.bethlongmore.co.uk
Untitled, (2015) Photograph
David MacDiarmid David MacDiarmid’s practice explores the intermediary zones which lie between the boundaries of subject areas. He draws from sources such as geometric theory, domestic design history, and representations of science in the media to create his abstract works.
His sculptural realisation of this research interrogates the idea of forms which can appear to be in semi or partial states of existence, never fully being part of one definition or another.
Cutting, creasing, tearing, assembling. Crafting spurs the notion that these objects may have been made for a purpose, but their forms suggest they could be some type of scientific model, or an unidentified industrial remnant. The process of making is laid bare. Touch forms a connection, as a record of making and as memory of these everyday materials which we have experienced. His palette is drawn from the everyday; the stuff which surrounds us in our homes: glass, mirror, wood and plastics. He uses their inherent familiarity as an invitation to engage with the work. We are invited to discover the materials in these pseudoscientific forms which begin to establish their individual identities, and create for themselves their own uncanny nomadic personalities. www.davidmacdiarmid.com
The Sculpture of Cosmic Speculation, (2015) Glass, wood, brass, acrylic mirror, tapestry yarns
Megalomania III (Frontispiece), (2014) Faux marble cast tiles with concrete cast tiles and gold leaf mounted on board,
David McDiarmid David McDiarmid’s studio practice seeks to examine the concept of megalomania in architecture; the means by which the built environment is often purposefully designed, constructed and used as a tool for power and propaganda.
Many of McDiarmid's paintings and models play with ideas of scale and form, taking inspiration from historical examples of power architecture in order to depict ambitious plans and proposals for structures which will never exist in reality.
Scaffolding is a recurring motif in McDiarmid's work, its significance derived from its paradoxical position as both a fundamentally temporary structure, and its irrevocable status throughout the history of construction, where conceptually it time and again outlasts the permanent structures derived from it.
In producing his work McDiarmid incorporates materials and processes typically associated with architecture and construction. He often paints on surfaces cast with cement, plaster or concrete, juxtaposing them with precious materials such as gold leaf and faux marble to further explore the artifice of grandeur.
Integral to the development of McDiarmid’s work is the consideration of how the installation and presentation of his paintings and models in an exhibition can influence the viewer behaviourally or emotionally, like the architecture of power is designed to do. www.davidmcdiarmid.co.uk
Calum MacGillivray An artist and illustrator based in Greenock, Scotland, Calum MacGillivray’s work explores narrative, mythology and the mysteries of the natural world. Fascinated by the phenomenon of human perception, his practice addresses the lingering superstitions that persist within contemporary society. The irrational fear of a flickering shadow; the shudder of dread as a gnarled branch brushes against exposed skin – these experiences are captured and preserved in the imagery and atmosphere of MacGillivray's work. His practice serves as an exploration, delving into the depths of an eerie and mysterious imagined world. MacGillivray employs new media and technologies in conjunction with traditional techniques, striving to produce works that intrigue and surprise. www.calummacgillivray.com
The Bird, The Stag & The Wolf, (2015) Engraved wood & watercolour, each 32 x 32 cm
Jamie Alexander McMillan Memory supplements our experience of the past as an ethereal collection of moments from time and place. However, memory is flawed as the mind has autonomous control of remembering, forgetting and the occasional creation of false, artificial, and screen memory. In essence, my work explores everyday experience and sensory reflection through digital cinema. Our past and present experiences influence our futures through memory and relics of the past that are imbued with memory. We can often live through these experiences of the past, however the recollection of those experiences becomes a trip through time and space and also through authenticity and the truth of reality. Can we trust our senses? Especially a sense within a memory. My work entices the senses to remember or to feel, but also to reconsider and question ourselves and the boundaries of reality and dreams. In today’s contemporary context of digital culture, memory becomes even more complex, with our generations’ digital memory existing completely online; consumable, forgettable, disposable, but potentially eternal and forever. These drastic changes to our lives over the past decade have yet to even come to fruition, and have begun to show their effects on our culture. www.jamieam.com
Untitled (Memory One), (2015) HD Video
Connor Maguire Connor Maguire is a Printmaker and recent graduate from the University of Edinburgh. He is currently concerned with the potential of silkscreen printing by bringing a unique and personal style to inject painterly expression to an otherwise photographic medium.
Clothing has a rich history within the art world, as printmaking indeed has a strong position within the world of clothing. The conflation of these two creates an implicit commentary on how each, art and society, have an impact and influence on one another to form a commentary on how the two exist, not in contrast, but in union with each other.
Prominent artists of mention and influence include Andy Warhol’s work in the 1960s and his satirical approach to the world of consumerism and commercialism. The pioneer of this anti-‐art aesthetic, Dadaism, also forms a strong line of thought for its equally satirical and ironic stance towards the world of commodity fetishism and the commercial art world.
Profile of a Man, (2015) Screen print
Michele Marcoux What can we know and how do we know it? How does the trace, memory, relic of one thing morph into another and form a path we follow?
My practice explores the fragmentary nature of identity, memory, and perception. Through a range of formal approaches – drawing, painting, found objects, text, moving image, I assemble, erode and combine to create a non-‐linear record of my explorations. Work is grouped together but can also be considered in isolation.
I am interested in the provenance of objects, texts and found materials which, allude to my own past but also to a common past. I am also interested in exploring the inherent qualities of materials, discovering the work that emerges by chance. Initial inquiries become mind maps, journals, wall-‐sized collage and further refinements occur in paintings, drawings, moving image and the juxtaposition of these within a space. www.michelemarcoux.com
Who Are the Disappeared from Your House? (2014) Collage & acrylic on board, 60 x 60 cm
Karen Maxted I am interested in conducting primary research to create my art, thus ensuring its originality and my intimacy with the subject matter. The paintings submitted are an extract of a body of work based on urban movement. More specifically, these pieces are an analysis and representation of relationships between the movement of a series of individual train passengers around a city – their destination. The data subjects are anonymous, and the data collection is clinical and precise. The subjects control the final outcome of the paintings in the routes they take around the city; they build a narrative and the collection of journeys starts to build a language to draw with. The works are pseudo-‐science, every bit of data on the canvas requires a reason and the paintings are drained of colour to foreground content. The external appearance of the work arises not from achieving a visual aesthetic but from the data that has been collected. Execution is subordinate to conceptualisation of the piece. Despite the integrity of the visual output I am cryptic with my viewer in order to provoke curiosity and ensure that the work is not entirely accessible, leaving interpretation of the work to the viewer’s imagination. [email protected]
Constructed Painting 1a, (2015) Paint & ink on board & balsawood
Andrew Payne
Andrew Payne is an artist who has been fascinated by the effects of light on his local landscape for many years, firstly as a photographer and now as a filmmaker. Since 2006, he has been making short films that explore the changing movement and light in the landscape near his home. There is a comment by the British artist Paul Nash that relates to this work. Writing in 1938, Nash spoke of the ‘unseen landscapes’ of England.
“The landscapes I have in mind,” he wrote, “are not part of the unseen world in the psychic sense, nor are they part of the Unconscious. They belong to the world that lies, visibly, about us. They are unseen merely because they are not perceived; only in that way can they be regarded as invisible.”
The films are non-‐narrative in form, sometimes retaining the abstract qualities of his earlier photographic work. They can consist of single shots that are sometimes altered in the editing process, or a combination of moving images on a single screen using split-‐screen techniques. The films have been screened in film festivals and exhibitions in the UK, Europe and the USA. www.axisweb.org/p/andrewpayne/
Light and Shadows 6, (2014) Still image from film, 1 minute
Katherine Peeke
By seeking alternative ways to portray the human face, I strive to awaken a renewed interest within this genre and by treading an iconoclastic path, override social preconceptions to test whether an image is anything other than a manipulated illusion or a paradox of concealment and revelation. My experience of art and design has been a varied juxtaposition of many disciplines, with positions held in photography, photomicrography, draughtsmanship, graphic-‐ design, illustration and airbrush painting. I am an honours graduate in Graphic Design and Advertising from Parsons School of Design in New York and besides the U.S.A, have resided in France, Germany and Singapore, all which have had an influence upon my practice. I work within a realism vein in painting, linear style in life-‐studies and urban themes in photography. www.kpeeke.com www.Linkedin.com katherine peeke
Betrayal, (2015) Graphite, 53 x 73 cm
Lisa Pettersson
I am Swedish-‐born, went to Art College in London and Wales and have lived and worked as an artist and graphic designer in Edinburgh since 2000.
Much of my painting has since long considered the environment I live in, from domestic spaces to the community surrounding me, observing quirky differences in taste or culture or considering my own place in it, identity and belonging. www.lisapettersson.com
Hold On (Leith Linksview Steps), (2014) Acrylic and oil on canvas, 70 x 70 cm
Klaus Pinter Through interactive engagement leading to the transformation of a drawing into sculpture, the piece shifts into a substantively different level of interpretation. www.klaus-‐pinter.net/
Untitled (2014) Paper, 10 x 29.7 cm
Lucie Rachel Driven by an interest in the representation of family and the domestic in contemporary culture, my practice manipulates a combination of video and photography to explore family relationships and gender issues that are etched deep in the foundations of my practice. My curiosity to understand my Mother and trans* Father’s relationship has led me to the art of archiving my parents’ diaries, photographs and online activities, creating responses to the spoken and unspoken narratives within them. Overwhelmingly aware of the voyeuristic nature of these actions, I strive to hold a thoughtful balance between expression and exposure to protect those involved with a poignant yet informed response.
www.lucierachel.com
Mother Father, (2015) Video (HD), 11 minutes 47 seconds
Callum Russell
Through composition, shadow, and pattern I like to create papercut images that have a rich narrative basis and explore man’s interaction with the urban landscape. Taking influence from traditional Japanese paper craft and aspects of 20th century modernism, photography and cinema I like to create a sense of mystery in my work often utilising silhouettes and the play between darkness and light.
I enjoy the craft aspect of working with the paper, the risks involved with using a surgical blade to create detailed delicate images, and the process of starting from a sheet of blank paper and cutting parts away to reveal the final image. Each image is reproduced by hand 10 times. So while the set of 10 editions are all of the same image they differ very slightly from each other, making them all unique. www.callum-‐russell.co.uk
Tokyo 1, (2015) Hand cut papercut, 29.7 x 42 cm
Tokyo 2, (2015)
Hand cut papercut, 29.7 x 42 cm
Ane Smith Ane Smith is investigating the fear of mental illness portrayed within folklore, and if this fear is still culturally felt within modern society today. We live in an age where western society becomes more understanding and accepting of mental illness, it raises the question of where this fear came from in the first place. Ane has been exploring this fear in her creative practice through her own experiences of being described as a ‘Changeling’ in European folklore. She has investigated the influence of folklore, its connection to mental illness, its relevance to our modern society and the effects that she believes it has had on us. http://ane-‐smith.blogspot.co.uk
Changeling, (2015) Mixed media installation
Snipp, Snapp, Snute, (2015) Mixed media, (lead and hidden materials)
Leo Starrs-‐Cunningham Leo is a Scottish based artist, and graduate of Edinburgh College of Art. He has taken part in shows throughout the UK, including the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in London, as well as abroad, in Canada and the US. Leo works primarily as a printmaker and painter, exploring philosophical themes around the nature of seeing and reality.
He is presently working on an epic series of prints inspired by Yoshitoshi's 100 Aspects of the Moon series, and the underlying construction of propaganda posters from WWI and WWII. His etching Warchild IV is part of a series exploring images of and reactions to those displaced by conflict.
Leo has work held in both private and public collections and is a founding member of the Black Cube Collective. More of his work can be found at Edinburgh Printmakers and Gallery on the Corner in Edinburgh.
Warchild IV, (2015) Etching & emboss on Somerset Velvet Black 250gsm
Elizabeth Stewart
Using my own family photos as source material, I transmute them into something more: acknowledging the ineffable and mysterious glue that holds us together through time and space. I employ mass market digital weaving technology to produce the base material (often a combination of photography, painting and collage), which I then cut, reassemble and hand stitch to go beyond the given.
www.elizabethstewartart.co.uk
Man in the Moon, (2015) Digital weaving, appliqué & badges, 170 x 127 cm
Lana Svirejeva
Upon seeing a painting of St. Sebastian in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy at the age of four, I vowed to become a painter. True to my word, by the time I was 17 my work was shown in a solo exhibition, after which I studied 19th century draftsmanship and painting at The Florence Academy of Art and graduated in 2014. Now I am enrolled at the Edinburgh College of Art, exploring the parts of the art world influenced by modernism and beyond.
My work is an expression of reverent delight in the world. I typically use mediums such as charcoal or paints to draw from a live model. The ultimate goal is that the work lives, showing what it meant to be human at that moment, in that place, creating a contemporary iconography. Nowadays we consume everything and science progresses endlessly, which is great, but paintings offer the opposite, since art is by nature removed and unconsumable because it can only be looked at -‐ not eaten, not worn. A painting will always be apart from us, encapsulating beauty, untouchable, receiving yearning gazes. Even if one owns it, it has it’s own life that the no one can control. http://lanasvi.wix.com/portfolio http://ljuslana.blogspot.se
Encroaching, (2015) Oil on linen, 45 x 30 cm
Eleanor Symms
My work derives from a fascination with materials. My current work in jewelry responds to ‘found’, reclaimed and non-‐precious materials, combining these with precious stones and metals; challenging notions of preciousness and disposability.
I graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2012 and work in Edinburgh. I have exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in the UK and internationally, winning the Textiles and Fashion Award in the Inspired by…exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in 2010. An exhibitor in the Association of Contemporary Jewellers’ exhibition, Icons, 2014, the Craftsmanship and Design Awards Exhibition at Goldsmiths’ Hall, London, 2014 and the Cheongju International Craft Biennale Competition 2013, in South Korea, my work is in a number of national and international collections. www.eleanorsymms.co.uk
Magic Circles, (2015) Brooch, reclaimed, patinated brass, brass, mirror, aquamarines, aluminium, stainless steel pin
Photography by Martin Smith
Struan Teague
Tension and balance between bold gestures and delicate traces. An abstract painter and printmaker interested in visual expression that performs in a separate area to written or spoken language. A visual language of forms is created through a balance of compositional structure and intuitive touch. New works often reference existing prints and paintings by using screen-‐print to distinguish, repeat and distort certain elements, resulting in a constantly evolving visual dialogue. The screen-‐printing process allows for a playful investigation of scale, rhythm and repetition. Within many different scales, the smallest can have equal importance to the largest. Likewise, the margins of the picture can be just as significant as the centre.
Spray-‐painted lines force quicker and more irrevocable decisions to be made, resulting in intuition taking a crucial role in the image making process. Also with printed works, the final image is rarely fully planned out before being made, instead each new layer is informed by the previous. This approach involves an element of risk and uncertainty but the unplanned is also frequently the most exciting. These intuitive and inexplicable decisions within the process of creating work are again the most interesting. www.struanteague.com/
Untitled, (2014) Acrylic, screen-‐print, oil, enamel & paper on canvas, 210 x 150 cm
Olivia Turner
I am interested in spatial awareness, how the viewer interacts with space, whether this is visual or physical. The principle foundations for my research lie within intriguing architectural buildings and their spaces, both internally and externally.
A city centre is an area where we are continually directed through spaces by intuitive instructions, whether they are physical or subconscious. This is something I am hoping to change within my practice. The unconventional spaces I create, give the viewer the freedom to navigate their own way through and around them, but maintain a small insight into my original experience, within my chosen locations. www.olivia-‐turner.com
EH1 CT1, (2015) Emulsion on board 101 x 133 cm
Ira Upin
The two constants in my work have been the narrative and the intensity of the visual. I want the viewer to be intoxicated and perplexed by how I make my paintings and intrigued by the stories I’m trying to tell. I’m interested in human dynamics whether they be social, political or emotional.
www.iraupin.com/
Fat Cat, (2015) Oil on panel, 91.4 x 91.4 cm
Sean Wheelan
Establishing a visual language for mass communication on the brink of absurdity has been a theme, which drives my practice forward as an artist. Exploring the actions of the individual and the goals they seek allow me to form a social commentary on our behaviours brought on by ambition, manipulation and desperation.
Using my assumed voice as an artist, I take the opportunity to establish a dialogue between the realities of day-‐to-‐day life into a range of media including sculpture, moving image and performance whether with my own voice or the assumed voice of the semi-‐fictional Johnny Echline. Incorporating humour into these pieces is fundamental, as a means of distorting our interpretation of everyday life and as a gateway for the audience to explore the works further gaining a revised understanding.
The works produced are brought on from hours of experimentation with materials and techniques to make the work distinctly my own. To aid the visual language of my work, I bring my own personal reflection of past experiences and concerns to build the work into a piece more human to counteract the tragedy of reality.
www.seanwheelanart.com/
Johnny Echline's Toasty Oven Baked Bean (Dutch Style), (2015) Sculpture, 380 x 1100 x 3380 cm
Sharon Whyte
My work focuses on taking the live elements of a performance and rendering them as documentation in way that allows them to be read in a different way and questions what performance is. I take the relationship between the performer and the viewer and use this as a mechanism through which to examine various impulses ranging from desire to punishment. I am interested in the performer/audience dynamic as an unspoken contract entered into, within which there is permission to scrutinise the other and make judgements that we then use outside of the performance space. Since performance is viewed through the lens of the socio-‐political paradigm within which it is staged, such paradigms cast their own agenda through the repetition of certain tropes and the constant replaying and reproduction of dominant normative or proto-‐normative images. Using photography, printmaking, video, writing, performance and installation, I make work that explores the spectacle/viewer dynamic and the still image as a lingering performative ‘body’. I am also interested in performance in relation to documentation and the archive. Print, video and sound are both material and documentation forms for me, as I reference the archive and the tradition of print being bound closely with performance in the form of posters and publicity.
Her Kind, (2015) Installation, screen-‐prints & video
Patricia Willder
My recent work has focused on my local environment and the constant changes within it, and its shifting boundaries and edges and the metaphorical connection to our human vulnerabilities.
Within the mediums of both paint and print I explore the layering process, changing surface tensions, and try to retain an aspect of representation of the original idea. I have recently completed the Certificate of Higher Education at Edinburgh College of Art and exhibited in several shows.
Limitless, (2015) Oil & varnish on board, 30 cm x 38 cm
Chi Hang Wong
‘Umbrella Movement’ and ‘Black is White and White is Black’ is a series of paintings that are dedicated to the people who fought for their freedom, future and democracy during the umbrella revolution in Hong Kong.
However it ends, the process of the Umbrella Revolution will write down a new chapter in the history of Hong Kong, which we all witnessed though our own eyes in the different places of this world. http://chi-‐fineart.blogspot.co.uk/
Black is White and White is Black 1, (2015) Acrylic paint on canvas and cotton threads, 35 x 25 cm
Black is White and White is Black 3, (2015)
Acrylic paint on canvas and cotton threads, 35 x 25 cm
Katariina Yli-‐Malmi
The images I have submitted seek to explore the phenomena of immigration and challenge common societal perceptions of it. The landscape photographs portray the native vegetation and scenery found in my Finnish hometown of Lahti. The chance discovery of a floral dictionary dated 1944 led me to research the botanical study of non-‐native plant species. The book details both the effects of invasive species, which radically change the environment they are introduced to, and the effect supportive species, that complement existing ecologies by supporting their sustainable growth. I recognized in this botanical phenomenon an opportunity to discuss attitudes towards immigration. In hoping to draw parallels between the scientific study of plant movement and the current cultural climate surrounding immigration, I substituted the subject of the floral descriptions as to generate a new text describing national and physical characteristics of a hypothetical person. These reconfigured texts, which serve to present notions of class, race and age, are juxtaposed with evocative images of barren winter scenery. These silent landscapes conjure a feeling of separation and displacement, leading the viewer to contemplate on notions of social integration and what exactly it might mean to truly ‘belong’.
http://katariinaylimalmiphoto.blogspot.fi/
Untitled, (2015) Photography, 53 cm x 53 cm,
Family Portrait, (2000) Oil on canvas, 61 cm x 81 cm
Robert Zurer
There is a delectable "unknown" hidden everywhere, behind everything. If I listen, it calls, and if I call, it listens. I want to stick my mind and heart and fingers into it and play hard. I start my work using random lines. I then pay close attention and wait. It turns out that whenever I shut up, listen, and pay attention to anything at all, something happens. It feels like an idea or an impulse is coming into me from outside, as if I am receiving a Message from the Mystery. I must act on it. I cannot think or hesitate because then it is lost. It is a volley, a call and response, a dialog. I make a move, wait, then another, and so forth. At each step everything changes. The problem is how to make it "work". I don't know quite what it is that makes something work or not work. But I do know that things that work are whole, powerful and true. They have an immediate and lasting effect. That is what I am trying to learn to do by doing.
www.robertzurer.com/
Exhibition Statement
The ‘Open Show’ is something of a curate’s (or perhaps that should be curator’s) egg. It remains a mainstay for many institutional shows such as those in the big Academies and they remain perennially popular with the public audience. Amongst the culture of today’s contemporary art however they are less popular, replaced by the thematic, strictly curated exhibition, perhaps now regarded as conservative and anachronistic. When we started Black Cube Collective, we were acutely aware that emerging and early stage career artists, including arts graduates desperately needed and wanted more open, democratic opportunities so we determined that one of our regular exhibitions would be just that – open to all. Unlike many opportunities there is no age restriction for applications (imagine such exclusion on the basis gender, race or sexuality), as we firmly believe that new and stimulating contemporary art is not solely the province of one exclusive group. The range, depth and breadth of artists and work on show demonstrates that contemporary art can be an inclusive practice not exclusive, so thanks to all the artists who have sent their work from all over the globe to be shown here in Edinburgh.
Ronald Binnie Black Cube Collective
All images and text © 2015 the Artists and should not be used without permission
