Castling Billboard for ESP at GI2012

'Golden Laughter' Castling Billboard for ESP, Eastside Projects, Birmingham 29/04/12.
Check out their blog at http://espatgi2012.tumblr.com/

RECORD STORE

An Obstacle Soup Installation for Record Store Day 

@ Monorail Records, Glasgow G1 5RB 

20th April – 7th May 2012

For World Record Store Day 2012 (21st April) and to coincide with GI (Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts), Monorail Records are hosting an exhibition curated by visual artists Chris Biddlecombe and Janie Nicoll. 

This installation is the result of a collaborative project involving the creation of twenty record cover artworks created by a wide range of Scottish artists, each of whom have a strong interest in or connection to music making; artists who have been in bands, who DJ, or who use music as a theme in their art making practice. 

Featured artists: 

Alexander Violette; Amy Marletta; Baldvin Ringsted; Brian Hartley; Chris Biddlecombe; Douglas Morland; Fiona Danskin; Hrafnhildur Halldórsdóttir (Rafla); Ian Smith; Jim Colquhoun; Janie Nicoll; Jason Nelson; Jim Lambie; Jonnie Wilkes; Karen Vaughan; Kevin Hutcheson; Kevin Reid; Nicola Atkinson (Nadfly); Ronnie Heeps; Ross Sinclair. 

Each artist has created their own fictional ‘artiste’s album’ in the form of a 12” double sided artwork displayed in a plastic sleeve. All will be released on the collaborative project 'label' - Obstacle Soup. 

Chris Biddlecombe and Janie Nicoll are both artists based in Glasgow who each have a history of making work in the form of site specific installations using a variety of techniques that create ambiguous dialogues with the viewer using cultural, historical or social references. 

For further information please contact: 

Chris Biddlecombe (07879 665106) chris.biddlecombe@virgin.net

Monorail Records, 12 Kings Court, Glasgow, G1 5RB

Tel. 0141 552 9458

Record Store Exhibition at Monorail Records, Kings Court, Glasgow

An Obstacle Soup installation for Record Store Day

@ Monorail Records, Glasgow

20^th April – 7^th May 2012

Artists and Band Biogs

1.   Jim Colquhoun 

Jaconelli were formed in Glasgow in 1972, in what was already the fag end of 'flower power'. The great political and cultural ferment of the sixties had run aground on a combination of bad drugs, sexism, excessive guitar solos and general stupidity, Jaconelli epitomised this trend by cleaving always to the lowest common denominator, the crass, the aesthetically bankrupt and the worst excesses of fascistic band dynamics. As musicians and as people they heralded and embraced the beginnings of a narcissistic stoner culture that engulfed a generation.

2.   Baldvin Ringsted 

Dauð Meinhof  is the fourth release by the German black metal artist Gerhard Richter. It was recorded in September 1990, but not released until May 1992.

Gerhard Richter (real name, Gerhard Richter born February 9, 1932) is a  Black Metal solo project that spans nearly 5 decades of simultaneously producing both abstract and photorealistic Black Metal.

During 1992 and 1993, Gerhard Richter recorded four albums; however, in 1994 he was convicted and imprisoned for the murder of violinist Bruce “tuned to D.E.A.D.” Nauman and the arson of several galleries.

Some of the buildings were hundreds of years old and seen as important historical landmarks. One of the first and most notable was Norway's Gagosian stave-gallery.

3.   Kevin Reid 

LONG BALL HOLDER are blistering hard acid rock doomage from singer/drummer Hamish 'Ferret' Beret and multi instrumentalist Senior Fud!  Straight out of Lumphinans, this two-piece originally signed to 'Earache Records' in the early 80's returning after nearly 30 years of retreat, alcoholism and psych wards!  “8 tracks written during this hiatus recorded here for you.  Plug in, skin up and stroke your ferret!"

4.   Fiona Danskin

Artist - cnut Album name - uden mønster (without pattern)

With 'uden mønster' (without pattern), cnut continues to develop new means of expression on an instrument not generally associated with innovation and experimentation - the accordion.

Here he moves into dubstep territory, much of the album played and sampled from just one accordion, combining deep, rumbling long-held bass chords with samples and re-samples of old 78rpm recordings of traditional accordion tunes. The crackles are cranked up high in the mix adding it's own percussion, the melody left as a ghostly nod to the accordion's roots.  Never before has 'time-stretched' had such resonance.

5.   Janie Nicoll 

HALF FOOL are a four piece girl band, who have risen sphinx-like from the ashes of Edinburgh cult post punk band, The Sparrows. Claiming to have left behind their previous psycho-delic garage sound, this revised incarnation now based in Glasgow, have produced a fresh new sound that attempts to bridge the gap between upbeat indie dance, synonymous with the early 90’s, experimental electro and progressive house claiming to straddle “an eclectic and more sophisticated” set of influences. Founding member and lead singer Janis Short has confidently stated “We are the missing link”, releasing the four track 12’ entitled “New Wave” with collaborative remixes by Kevin Shields, Andrew Weatherall and Keith McIvor (Optimo) as named compadres.

6.  Brian Hartley 

Beyond the haze of mystery, ‘polyphase’ is a moving, romantic, almost melancholy listening experience, combined with a searching sonic futurism, seeking out utterly alien and tinglingly lush harmonic colours the surreal grasp of possessed, private synth music and deliberately economical production is delivered with innate confidence and the blackest humour.

By eschewing glossy production the band cut straight to the essence, or the truth of the matter, and this is a mighty, mighty beautiful thing.

7.   Douglas Morland

Three Day Week’s eponymous debut LP is one of the lost treasures of 1973. Darling of the London Glam scene, singer Beaujolais St John formed the group in a haze of Quaaludes and champagne, writing a brace of glitter-encrusted, boot-stomp clap-a-longs that wipe the floor with The Sweet or T Rex. The big difference, however, was St John's use of Tarot Cards in lyric-writing - accurately predicting the political, economic, moral and sartorial decline that would grip the UK for the remainder of the decade. Releasing one more album (1978's pioneering electropop gem Cold Meat Platter) the band then went into terminal decline due to St John's increasingly erratic behaviour. Their last engagement before his disappearance from public life was hampered by St John's insistence on wearing a medieval physician's costume, his plague mask rendering vocals completely inaudible. Claims of sightings of St John continue to this day, both with and without the accompanying physician's protective garb.

8.   Jonnie Wilkes  

“ENOUGH LEAD TO MAKE IT HEAVY” (Various Artists)

Previously unreleased early electronic music, radiophonic material & synth jams from Eastern Europe.

9.   Ross Sinclair 

Ross & the Realifers make music out in the country. It’s sort of a fiction but not really. The Realifers don’t really exist, but Ross does. He makes music and sometimes gets other people to sing on it, especially in a different language, to make it more of a dialogue, a conversation. Sometimes the music feels like an alter ego, intuitive, emotional, going with the flow, as it comes, un-thought-out as opposed to art, which sometimes feels like a fucking job. But maybe that’s why the two go so well together. It comes from Glasgow, though it’s not made there anymore. It comes from bands, but made solo now. It doesn’t really make sense but he can’t stop doing it. Sometimes it feels like the most honest thing he does. Well, at least his children like it, that’s got to count for something, I think they are his No.1 fans, though possibly because they are currently his main audience.

But that could all change, look out for new records out soon like “I Tried to Give Up Drinking With Guitars Instead of God”

Thank you very much.

Goodnight Glasgow,

See you again next time.

10.   Kevin Hutcheson

‘New Town Blues’ alludes to being an anthology of mythic art punk groups from South Lanarkshire.

11.   Ronnie Heeps 

'Bubblehead' are an English rock band haling from the West Midlands. A four piece combo, they were one of the earliest military rock groups. Their lyrics favor national protection issues and futuristic planetary defense strategies. They are also a noted precursor to punk rock

and now are considered a link between military and civilian cultures. The critic Ralph Deeson describes their trademark sound as characterised by "that gargantuan and impenetrable pre-metal/hardcore drone, with magnificent riffs that provide an inexorable drive to destinations unknown".

12.   Hrafnhildur Halldórsdóttir (Rafla)

Juan X Jaula (1912-1992). Very little is known about this respected but largely neglected Spanish composer. All that remains is a handful of recordings of his later compositions, this 1973 recording of ‘Siléncios Encontrados’ (Found Silences) released on Obstacle Soup as a limited edition vinyl of only 150 copies, being the most well-known.

13.   Nicola Atkinson (Nadfly)

'Pet Tongues' has existed since people decided that animals were not just for guarding, farming, hunting and /or running free. It was the human desire for a bit of animal company that started this pet movement. Collected together here is the celebration of that movement. 'Pet Tongues' is now being experienced in one’s home, lap, the park or with other pet lovers. Just close your eyes and enjoy 'Pet Tongues' here without boundaries!

14.   Ian Smith 

 ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ by Monty Cantsin features much loved classics played entirely ‘on the spoons’ and recorded live at the closing gig of  The Glasgow Apollo 16^th June 1985 (supported by Paul Weller’s Style Council). Monty’s set was received with tumultuous applause, and the enthusiasm of the crowd is a key component of this historical recording. The track listing includes just one of Monty’s own cockney compositions - ‘Fanck the Police’, later revised by ‘Niggers With Attitude’ for their influential  1988 recording ‘Straight Outta Compton’, with slightly revised lyrics.

15.   Amy Marletta 

Self titled debut album (and only album?) from the Underground Pickles, re-issued after the original master tapes were discovered in someone’s garage.

Sound engineer Lonnie Dupree remembers the original recording sessions with the band:

“they were a misfit bunch, four of them as I recall, think a couple were sisters and the other were cousins or some relation. They’d have to be related to play together, don’t think no one else could have put up with that caterwauling. I didn’t know what to make of it but it seems some people like it.”

16.   Chris Biddlecombe 

It’s the many wrongs that make this record by Belgian producers Blancwash and Clare V, so right. This is a truly strange recording that for the first time in 75 years allows us to hear again the unnatural utterances of the Weeping Spinster. 

Josephine Tremlett was a semi-reclusive, backstreet ‘modern soothsayer’, who first came to public attention through the broadcasts of Ernest Bridgeman’s Night Speaker Neighbourhood in Stoke in the late 1920s.  

What Blancwash and Clare V have cleverly orchestrated here is a subversion of their usual Lowland club style by placing Josephine’s rhythmic whispers deep within a liquid score of sinuous acid lines, generous smudges of reverb and a handful of ghostly beats.

17.   Karen Vaughan 

In 1984 a bunch of disparate and somewhat unlikely souls, based in and around the county of Angus, stumbled into each other at the tech college and formed The High Common.  This was their first release, they went on to release a further six albums with the help of independent record label Round ’O’ Records.  They enjoyed cult icon status and success within in the Indie-folk scene but split up in 1991.  

18.   Alexander Violette

Untitled California are a group of sound artists and musicians who work under the direction of Steve De Silva and Mary Zodiac who met at SFAI in 1989. Their first album 10 was released on miniDV in a limited edition of 200. Their second , Static Empire, Wow, was produced by Japanese disco legend Fukushima/Fujiwara. This 12" mixed by DJ Autriche is for Mike Kelley, who committed suicide in 2011; while the B-side is an homage to the now defunct NY gay bathhouse Lapsed Alaska.

19.   Jason Nelson 

Forming in Fife in 1974, ‘Jet-black and Ginger’ oozed onto Scottish music scene with their own brand of genetically modified Mediaeval Folk Rock.  The album ‘Mince for Fingers’ took twenty two years to write and is widely regarded to be the second best of their three albums.  This esoteric concept album explored and reflected on the human condition through the deconstruction of traditional song writing paradigms.  Implementing a series of overly complicated and often pointless rules on the writing process the band effectively removed all creativity from their creative process.   Communicating exclusively with Morse code and Braille messages delivered by carrier pigeon each song on the album took an average of two years to write. 

Half way through the album the band effectively split as a result of the stress caused by the writing process.  All consequent Morse and Braille song writing communications went through the individual band member’s lawyers.   Although initially exacerbating the situation ‘The Legal Half’ as it has now become known proved a crucial turning point in the albums production and ultimate completion.  Predominantly the looming legal bill steadied the bands resolve and focused their efforts to complete the album.

20.   Jim Lambie 

Boyzilian – My Boyzilian

Boyzilian dedicate this album to the kid with the replaceable head. Boyzilian are based just around the bend.

Back To Glasgow....

Back in Glasgow after a long Friday evening train journey, stuck sitting next to some rowdie drunken nurses from Aberdeen. I met John Binnie at the train station, the writer who I have worked with on a couple of projects, but unfortunately couldn't get a seat with him. Managed to have half a conversation where we discussed our shared interest in working with 'the community'. We recently worked on a project together for the 'Aye Write' festival with recovering alcoholics from AIS, GEAPP, and Milestone in the East of Glasgow, and we both found it very rewarding. The project culminated in performances at the Mitchell library, and at Platform Theatre Space, Easterhouse. John has a knack for getting people to write about things they might not normally talk about, so the works the group produced were gritty, universal and deeply moving.
Yesterday I met up with Liz Rowe, Ellie Harrison and the http://extraspecialpeople.org group from Eastside Projects, Birmingham www.eastsideprojects.org who had been having a whistle-stop two day tour of the Glasgow Artscene. They came to my studio at the Briggait, and there were about 18 of them so they filled the studio! I also talked to them about the Scottish Artists Union www.sau.org.uk, as I am on the executive.
I met them later on in the evening at the Intermedia Gallery opening of Sarah Forrester, and they were all starting to look a bit exhausted... apparently they had walked everywhere, and not used any public transport!
It was good to hook up with Liz Rowe again as I have known her for a few years. We met at the Shining Cliff Residency, in Ambergate, near Nottingham, hosted by My House Projects. We have kept in touch and i showed Liz's works in both of my Hallelujah exhibitions, (http://smallthingsthatmakeupabigthing.blogspot.com...)
I had some interesting conversations with artists Ruth Claxton, and Nathaniel Pitt an artist who I previously met at the "Winner Takes It All" conference, Liverpool Biennial 08. Inevitably we ended up talking about artists survival strategies and ways of operating, "How to survive in this business" seems to be a recurring topic.

First few days...

So it's Day 2 of the project and I've had a hectic couple of days in Mortlach Primary School. Ken Cockburn (the poet) and I launched the project by giving presentations to the Infant School and then the Upper School, and then we worked with different classes over the two days. I managed to squeeze in a visit to the Tourist Office where we will be sighting one of the works, with the P5's; and then a visit to the Hospital/Doctor's surgery with the P1's who are a very lively bunch to say the least. There are 19 boys and only 4 girls which seems to create chaos no matter what they are doing. All in all its a nice school with friendly, helpful staff and its all going well.
This evening I went with Mary Bourne to Deveron Art's Empty Shop (www.deveron-arts.com) where a talk was given by Georg Deutsch, at lecturer from Oxford University on West African History in conjunction with the artist residency by photographer Baudouin Mouanda from Congo- Brazzaville. Apparently Baudouin had to leave a few days ago prematurely, due to problems renewing his visa. Glasgow based Artist Anthony Shrag will be in residence there next month.
We drove back to Dufftown through snow covered hills and fields, illuminated by a huge silver moon, and with Orion shining brightly. Its very, very quiet in Dufftown at night-time, remarkably quiet.

Mortlach Story Walks Project

I am getting organised to head North tomorrow, to start the project on Wednesday morning at Mortlach Primary School in Dufftown. Dufftown is in a very rural location and pretty high up so the weather can be quite severe. It's a four hour train journey via Aberdeen and Huntly so the tricky part seems to be getting there. The materials have been ordered and hopefully will be delivered before Wednesday, along with a '3 in one' printer. Then its time to launch the project and meet the children and staff. We had a meeting a month ago to plan the project, so this will be the third time I have been there. The poet Ken Cockburn had his first sessions with the kids last week, and I am wondering how he got on. The plan had been to take the children out on some of the 'Walks' but i think the weather was pretty bad, there was snow and various roads closed so I'm not sure if they would have stuck to the plan. I suppose the point here is to remain flexible.
My role is to work with the school children to create artworks for the library, the tourist information office and the doctors surgery and a map/poster, and to work collaboratively with Ken to produce Story Walk leaflets. I'll be working with all the children in the school, so that's 150!
Last time I was there we did some of the walks with artist/sculptor Mary Bourne, who is coordinating the project. I took a lot of photographs as it was a fine day, and there's lots of beautiful scenery, ancient woodlands and interesting stories about the area. I'm looking forward to going over things with the children and getting things from their perspective.

Banners, works on paper 2010

Banner works and new works on paper, all photographs Alan Dimmick

New works 2010

"Keep The Faith", "The Torch", "Trojan", "Fragile Dollar Sign" all parcel tape on perspex
"We are monkeys..." Digital prints & sale banners.

All photographs Alan Dimmick.

Creative Scotland Dialogue Event, The Briggait, Glasgow 25.05.10

An article commissioned for publication in a-n Magazine July/August 2010 issue and on www.a-n.co.uk/publications

Creative Scotland Dialogue Event, The Briggait, Glasgow 25.05.10

The forth and final Creative Scotland Dialogue Event was held at the impressively refurbished Briggait building, originally a nineteenth century fishmarket, on the banks of the River Clyde, in Glasgow. This was a high profile showcase event to introduce Creative Scotland to the arts communities of Scotland, giving a platform for Culture Minister, Fiona Hyslop and Chief Executive Designate of CS, Andrew Dixon, to outline the progress made towards establishing the new organization that will replace the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen, with Creative Scotland set to be in charge of 30% of the Scottish cultural budget.

Fiona Hyslop began the proceedings by highlighted the strengths and achievements of what has gone before, commending the high levels of innovation, creative genius and contemporary nature of the art scene in Scotland, calling Creative Scotland “a great opportunity for a fresh agenda for culture and the arts, and for creativity and innovation to become a key focus for the economy and society across Scotland”. She was keen to emphasize Scotland’s role as a modern, ambitious, progressive nation, and how she sees creativity and innovation as a key to its continuing success, with the ability to benefit health, education and the economy.

Amongst a list of credits she thanked the SAC and SS for their “patience and perseverance” over the past year, “in being asked to do the impossible”, I presume by this she meant merging together as one organization, with a smaller overall budget but with a far wider remit.

Next up was Andrew Dixon, describing the new organization as a “rallying call” to Scotland’s creative community rather than an institution, assuring us we would start to “notice a change in pace, language and culture”.

He also outlined the achievements of Scotland, the need to champion everything that is good in the sector; to build on the strengths of both organizations, considering the SAC and SS as the most innovative organizations of their kind in Europe, seeing Scotland as a creative nation that punches well above its weight, whose position is currently ranked 18th out of 60 countries, in a cultural branding list.

The quantitative approach is obviously important to AD, seemingly picked up during his six years with a marketing company, as he was proud to recount that in his previous position at the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative, he apparently visited 100 artists in 100 days. Similarly he was eager to list the places, arts organizations, and numbers of artists he had encountered in his three weeks in post, brandishing a couple of artist’s postcards as if to prove the genuine nature of his involvement.

He emphasized the need to focus on a few priorities, to set targets, and objectives. Those priorities have already been identified as “Internationalism and Traditional Arts ”, obviously extending the idea of cultural branding and cultural tourism. “Creative Scotland will be testing a new language, not of funding and subsidy but of investment.”

A chance for the assembled audience to ‘participate’ came in the form of round table discussions of three prescribed questions on the subject of new models of support for investing in the arts; of how to encourage the Scottish people to champion their culture and how to promote these successes internationally. These collective responses were read out from six selected tables with further responses from Dixon and Hyslop.

During these discussions Hyslop and Dixon mingled briefly with the audience in order to show that they were genuinely getting involved in discussion. Andrew Dixon sat at our table and we took the chance to remind him that different areas of the arts need different types of funding, that one size does not necessarily fit all and that organizations need a degree of stability and security in order to create innovative high quality projects. We remonstrated that private sector intervention and philanthropic investments are not always going to have the best interests of the cultural sector at heart, with contributors inevitably expecting a return on their investment. We voiced concerns that there has so far been no Visual Arts Reference group, with what seems like no demarcation of departments within the new organization.

While promising to focus not on organizations but on artists, recognizing creative practice, valuing artists, his outpourings seemed strangely contradictory and misguided. The notion of partnership funding and philanthropy was repeatedly mentioned as a good thing, with Dixon citing examples of his own donations, and how good he felt being able to watch his investment grow etc. This proved to be incredibly bad timing with press coverage the same day of Dixon’s support for Sir John Wood’s proposal to create a shopping centre and car-park in place of Aberdeen’s much loved Union Terrace Gardens. This puts the kai bosch on agreed SAC funding for the development of a new Art Centre for Peacock Visual Arts, with Aberdeen Council cow-towing to Wood’s £50 million investment in his own proposal, despite a public consultation to the contrary.

Obviously aiming to give a positive spin to the whole proceedings, Richard Holloway, Chair of the joint Board of SAC and SS, managed to give a spectacularly misjudged performance in the form of a speech that encouraged us “to play more”, to “have more fun” and “to do more skipping”. This seemed a shockingly inappropriate approach to take in the light of the package of sweeping cuts to the arts sector, announced the day before by Jeremy Hunt, at Westminster.

Initial comments by Dixon about inheriting the current incarnation of Creative Scotland from a banker and a bishop so “it couldn’t have been in safer hands” and a throwaway comment as he left our table “Its always the Visual Artists.....”, later referring to us as the visual arts table, as if we were the trouble makers, left us in varying levels of disbelief. Having witnessed the spin, and what seemed like fairly predictable political maneuverings, I was left feeling short changed and wondering where was the real chance for dialogue, who is the captain of this ship, and how rough is the voyage ahead.

HaLLelujah 2 Documentation

Image of text work by Alex Hetherington.
Phil Kay with Sparky, making a video for the Central Station team during the opening.

More HALLelujah 2 Documentation

More HALLelujah 2 Documentation

More HALLelujah 2 Documentation

HALLelujah 2 Documentation

Photographs by Alan Dimmick.

HALLelujah 2 Install

Alex and Oliver have been round to install their artworks.

Collage installation by Oliver Braid work in progress.

Images of text work by Alex Hetherington.

HALLelujah 2 Information

HALLelujah 2
A group exhibition curated by Janie Nicoll, featuring artworks by:
Alex Hetherington
Amy Marletta
Anna Francis
Hanneline Visnes
Hrafnhildur Halldórsdóttir
Janie Nicoll
Jim Colquhoun
Karen Vaughan
Kenny Hunter
Kevin Hutcheson
Krisdy Shindler
Elizabeth Rowe
Neil Coombs
Oliver Braid
Rachel Mimiec

Opening event Saturday 17th April 2-4 pm

Venue: 212 West Princes Street, Woodlands, Glasgow G4 9DL
Contact no. 00 44 141 575 9773 mob. 07971 602270
Opening times 17th - 24th April 11-5pm (not Sunday 18th)
25th - 2nd May by appointment.

HALLelujah 2 brings together the work of fifteen artists from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent and North Wales. All the artists are loosely linked by an interest in drawing, print and collage in all their various forms. The work will be displayed within a domestic setting, in the hallway of a Westend tenement flat.

HALLelujah 2 came about as a follow up to ‘HALLelujah !’ a group show in 2009, and other curatorial projects, The Consequence Video Screenings, (screened at Lowsalt, Glasgow, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and the Deviant Art Festival, Trolhattan, Sweden); and The TWINS Calendar Project, where artists were invited to make artworks for specific flats in Callendar Park High Flats, Falkirk during a residency undertaken by Janie Nicoll and Alex Hetherington at Callendar House, Falkirk.

The work in this exhibition illustrates a diversity of approach ranging from vinyl lettering text-work by Alex Hetherington; poster-works by Kenny Hunter and Kridsy Shindler; drawings by Amy Marletta, Hrafinhildur Halldórsdóttir, Hanneline Visnes and Jim Colquhoun; embroidered text work by Karen Vaughan; Anna Francis decoupage homage to the 1986 Stoke-on-Trent Garden Festival, surreal photomontage works by Neil Coombs, paintings by Rachel Mimiec, to the collage works in different forms by Oliver Braid, Janie Nicoll, Kevin Hutcheson and Elizabeth Rowe.

Info on featured artists

Alex Hetherington is a performance-based visual artist, curator and writer. Recent work includes: the Alt-W funded A Million Lies; Once and Only Revealed After Death (Triangle of Need) developed during a Creative Lab residency at CCA, presented at Reveal/Reset, Inspace August 2009, Edinburgh Art Festival and at Signal and Noise, Vancouver, May 2010; and Heavy Influence presented at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, August 2009, Edinburgh Art Festival. Other recent shows include Warehouse of Horrors, The Embassy Gallery at Swg3, Glasgow, Embassy Screen, The Embassy, Edinburgh; I Am Kurious Orange, at David Cunningham Projects, San Francisco, USA; The Colony Room, New Langton Arts, San Francisco, USA and House/Lights at OPA 0.2 On Performance Art Festival at Bios, Athens, Greece.

www.alexhetherington.net

Amy Marletta graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone Art College, Dundee in 2002, before undertaking the MFA at Glasgow School of Art in 2008. Recent exhibitions include ‘Self-Made Cavalcade’, Arts Complex, Edinburgh/ Akademie Galerie, Munich; ‘Don’t Cry It’s Only a Rhythm’, Generator Projects, Dundee. Amy is also part of artist collective GANGHUT, recent exhibitions/projects include, ‘Hands Across the Fire’, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee and ‘Ganghut Gala Day’, Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Lumsden, Aberdeenshire.
For more info www.ganghut.co.uk

Marletta’s work for this exhibition is part of a larger series of drawings that relate to video and performance work stemming from ‘Dance Troupe’, an ongoing project, which is a hangover from the artist’s disco dancing youth. Always roping in friends and other artists she is the only constant, making up music, routines, t-shirts, props etc. Having repressed this need for group dance activity for many years, she feels that she doesn’t yet have it out of her system, as she continues to feel more and more ridiculous. The drawings form a set of ambiguous instructions for movement alongside advice for everyday life.

Anna Francis is an artist, based in Stoke-on-Trent. Her work examines private histories, public space and civic languages; using forms of intervention, mapping and photography to investigates the impact of art and culture on the regeneration of cities. The decoupage kit is part of her investigations into the 1986 Garden Festival for the first time. Francis is interested in excavating the site as it is today, uncovering the physical remnants of the Festival, as well as probing the impact and legacy in other ways. How does this piece, specific and relevant to one city instigate conversations in another?

www.annafrancis.blogspot.com


Elizabeth Rowe, has recently completed residencies at Het Wilde Weten, Rotterdam, NL, 2009, and Dudley Library, UK 2009. Solo exhibitons include If Distance was an Object Between Us, HWW, Rotterdam, 2009; Tiny Details, Grotesque Proportions, New Art Gallery Walsall, UK, 2008; My Sponsor is the Leader of the Country, MAC, Birmingham, 2006. She lives and works in Birmingham, UK.

Rowe makes work from material she accumulates. Things that are given to her, objects she finds in the streets or buys from 2nd hand shops, newspapers, magazines and free advertising. Through a range of processes such as cutting up, reassembling or drawing over, she attempts to control the mass of stuff she gathers and to edit her self into the work
With an interest in questioning the nature of different ‘realities’ while realising that the only one she will ever know is her own, she mashes up and reinterprets different sources, histories and ideas. The results are overlaps, ruptures and spillages of meaning that open spaces between public and private experience and make connections between the global and the local.

www.elrowe.com

Hanneline Visnes, orginally from Norway, is a painter who lives and works in Glasgow. She completed a BA at Glasgow School of Art in 1997 and the MFA at GSA in 2002. In 2005 she undertook the SAC Amsterdam Residency and has exhibited nationally and internationally. She currently exhibits with doggerfisher Gallery, Edinburgh.

http://www.doggerfisher.com/

Hrafnhildur Halldórsdóttir was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, spent parts of her childhood in Denmark and has since 1998 lived and worked in Glasgow. She graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2001 (BA Hons) and 2007 (MFA). In her sculptures and installations the psychological nature of the negotiation of circumstance and contradictory forces of chaos and control are combined with the formal concerns of negotiating form and space. She has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally including recent solo shows in Overgaden-Institute for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen and Galleri Box, Gothenburg and group shows in Artnews Projects, Berlin, Glasgow International, Intermedia/Glasgow and Galerie LHK, Paris.
www.artnews.org/hrafnhildurhalldorsdottir

Janie Nicoll is a visual artist based in Glasgow, who originally trained in Painting at Edinburgh College of Art and graduated from the Master of Fine Art course at Glasgow School of Art in 1997. She has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, most recently in the "Getting Up -Windows In the City", Inverness Old Town Art Project; Scottish National Portrait Gallery in ‘Rough Cut Nation’; ‘Heavy Influence’, Magazine 09 at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop: Jamie Radcliffe Exhibition at SWG3; ‘Meddle With the Devil’ and ‘Garlands’ at The Park Gallery, Falkirk; Magazine 07, ESW; ‘Associates’ at the Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh; ‘The Consequence’ at Intermedia Gallery, CCA, Glasgow; the Deviant Arts Festival, Trollhättan, Sweden; Red Wire Gallery, Liverpool; Generator Projects, Dundee; Chapter Gallery, Cardiff; Lowsalt Gallery and EmergeD VSF Gallery, Glasgow; The Waygood Gallery, Newcastle; The Changing Room, Stirling; the Crawford Gallery, Cork and the Künstlerhaus, Dortmund, Germany amongst others. Her video works have been shown internationally including the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Nicoll's work generally takes the form of site-specific installation often involving multiple digital images, collage techniques, drawing, painting, and assemblage that allow a process of translation.

http://www.axisweb.org/artist/janienicoll

Jim Colquhoun is an artist and writer based in Glasgow. His work seeks to negotiate the boundaries between art and life, waking and dreaming, fiction and fact. To this end he produces drawings, installations, performances and texts. Colquhoun is a recent graduate from the Environmental Art Department and Master of Fine Art Course at Glasgow School of Art. He has shown recently in Edinburgh, Copenhagen, New York, Stockholm and Glasgow.

Karen Vaughan graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1991, and from the Master of Fine Art at the University of Ulster, Belfast 1992. She was a founding member of Catalyst Arts, Belfast.
Much of her work deals in minutiae: from cracks in the pavement to graffiti on the wall and often combines technology - the camera, with labour-intensive processes that include stitching, embroidery and knitting.

Kenny Hunter studied sculpture at GSA, graduating in 1987, lives and works in the Glasgow.
The winner of the Benno and Millie Schotz Award in 1991, he has exhibited widely in the UK, France and Scandinavia, including the major shows Hyperboreans, Glasgow (1992) and Work 1995-98, Bristol (1998), and has won several prestigious commissions for public sculpture in Scotland.
His work in Glasgow includes the Cherub and Skull, Tron Theatre (1999), The Calf, Graham Square (1999), The Castlemilk Dome, Castlemilk (1999) and Citizen Firefighter, Gordon Street (2001). Outwith Glasgow, he has executed public work at Hamilton, Four Youths (1998), and Sunderland, Interalia Stevenson Trail (1995). One of his most recent commissions, Man Walks Amongst Us (2000), a statue of Christ, was awarded by Glasgow City Council to mark the Christian Millennium.
His work is represented in the Scottish Arts Council, the British School in Athens, SNPG and GOMA.

Kevin Hutcheson was born in 1971 and currently lives and works in Glasgow. Hutcheson graduated from Chelsea College of Art & Design in 2002 and has since exhibited in a number of group shows including a solo exhibitions at Jack Strenz Gallery, Frankfurt, Alexandre Pollazzon, London, and The Collective Gallery, Edinburgh and group exhibitions at LEARN TO READ Tate Modern, London, Transmission, Glasgow; Maribel Lopez Gallery, Berlin; EAST International, Norwich Gallery, Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco; f a projects, London; Country Grammer at the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow and The Birthday Party at the Collective Gallery in Edinburgh.

Krisdy Shindler is a visual artist from Vancouver (Canada). Krisdy completed her ‘Masters of Fine Arts’ degree at The Glasgow School of Art in 2006. Her work in painting and animation has been exhibited in Canada, Israel, Denmark, Sweden, Wales, Puerto Rico, Columbia, and across Spain, the UK and Scotland. Recent exhibitions: When a Painting Moves… Something Must be Rotten, curated by Paco Barragan, exhibited at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, Centro Colombo Americano, Bogota (Colombia), and Fundacion Godia (Barcelona); Listening to Silent Propaganda at Candyland Gallery in Stockholm a solo show featuring new works made on a residency at the Malongen Guest studio in 2008; International video art: Two-sidedness curated by Sandra Weil at the Kulturhuset in Stockholm 2008; Video Killed the Painting Star curated by Paco Barragan and Javier Panera at DA2 Salamanca Spain.

Krisdy is also co-founder and Co-Director of Lowsalt, an artist-run initiative and gallery that has delivered over 30 gallery exhibitions and site-specific art shows in Glasgow Scotland since inception in 2006. Positioned at the crossing of ‘DIY’ gallery culture and institutional networks, Lowsalt provides a platform for creative and cross-disciplinary practitioners to collaboratively produce and exhibit their work, www.lowsalt.org.uk. Her practices are now based both in Vancouver and Glasgow.
http://www.krisdyshindler.com/

Neil Coombs is an artist and writer based in North Wales. He is a lecturer in Art and Media at Coleg Llandrillo, Colwyn Bay and is currently researching Humphrey Jennings and British Surrealism for a PhD with Liverpool JMU.

The work in this exhibition is taken from the ongoing photomontage series The Phantoms of the Places that I Haunt. Each work in the series consists of photographs taken during micro-dérives in places that Neil visits regularly. The photographs are then placed in a repeated formal arrangement creating a sequence of faces, each one a phantom figure from the location visited. The Phantoms of the Places that I Haunt series takes its inspiration from the paintings of Giuseppe Arcimboldo and the work of the Czech and Slovak surrealist group, particularly the photographs of Emilia Medkova and the animations of Jan Svankmajer.

www.ncoo.co.uk

Oliver Braid graduated from Falmouth College of Arts in 2006 and is currently working towards his Master of Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art.
Selected exhibitions include You're A Voigin Who Can't Droive (Film Screening), CCA Glasgow 2009, Jamie Radcliffe: The Exhibition, SWG3 Glasgow 2009, Frieze Art Fair, London 2009, Climate for Change, FACT Liverpool 2009, Next Up, the Bluecoat Liverpool 2008.

Rachel Mimiec studied at The Glasgow School of Art, graduating from the Master of Fine Art department in 2000. She lives and works in Glasgow.
Rachel’s work is as varied as the contexts she responds to but can be linked as explorations of public/ private dialogue and exchange. She recently spent eighteen months as artist in residence in The Hidden Gardens at Tramway culminating in the exhibition Looking Out, Lookin In, as part of GI 2008.
www.rachelmimiec.com

HALLelujah 2 works arriving..

Artworks have begun to arrive for the exhibition in the shape of Decoupage packs from Anna Francis (Stoke-on-Trent) , and surreal Photo-montages from Neil Coombs (North Wales).


In addition to this I have selected intricately constructed collage works by Oliver Braid, and Alex Hetherington will be creating a white on white text work using vinyl lettering. Kenny Hunter will be dropping off a posterwork, and we'll be receiving a black on black drawing by Rafla, Kevin Hutcheson is making a new collage work, Krisdy is creating a new animation. Looking forward to seeing the other works as they arrive next week.