Art Monthly (1999-2009)

This section is currently in development. In the meantime check out Art Monthly’s Index…

Selected Published Writings in Art Journals & Exhibition Catalogues

2007 ‘Christine Borland’ Art Monthly Feb Issue,
Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh

2006 ‘Graham Fagen’ Art Monthly Dec-Jan No. 302
Doggerfisher, Edinburgh

2005 ‘Barbara Kruger’ Art Monthly Sept No.289
Tramway, Glasgow

‘Ellen Gallagher’ Art Monthly Jan No.282
Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh

2004 ‘Terminal Frontiers’ Art Monthly Sept No.279 Streetlevel,
Glasgow Group show of international artists including Virtual Migrants and Keith Piper

‘Strangers to Ourselves’ Art Monthly Feb No.273 Venues in East Sussex & Kent; international artists including Pavel Büchler, Ken Lum, Adam Chodzko

2003 ‘Anneè Olofsson’ Catalogue Essay, Site Gallery, Sheffield
‘Christopher Wool’ Art Monthly May No 266, Dundee Contemporary Arts

‘The Lost Collection of the Invisible Man’ Art Monthly April No 265; group show of international artists including Keith Tyson: Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle

2002 ‘Con Art’ Art Monthly April No.255; group show of international artists included Mark Wallinger, Keith Tyson: Site Gallery, Sheffield

2001 ‘Words and Things’ Art Monthly Dec/Jan 02 No.252; group show of international artists included Mark Dion, Simon Starling: CCA, Glasgow

‘Trauma’ Art Monthly Sept No.249; group show of international artists included Tracey Moffat, John Grimonprez: Dundee Contemporary Arts

‘Wendy Ewald’ Art Monthly Mar No.244; Stills Gallery, Edinburgh

‘Roderick Buchanan’ Art Monthly Feb No.243; Dundee Contemporary Arts

2000 ‘Become Like Me’ Art Monthly Mar No.234; group show of international artists included William Wegman, Vito Acconci: Stills Gallery, Edinburgh

1999 ‘Atelier Van Lieshout’ Art Monthly Oct No.230
‘ESP’ Art Monthly June No.227; group show of international artists included Susan Hillier, Wendy McMurdo: Ikon Gallery, Birmingham

Before/After (1998)

“It’s in the spare room.” – among the clutter – drying washing, packaging and other paraphernalia that you chuck in the spare room – are two photographs. One is a double portrait of two women, the kind that should be on a mantelpiece. In the other portrait the women are separated and in disarray. A man’s voice can heard through a door. Each of his questions is greeted with silence. As the questions are repeated in different tones of voice, new questions are slipped in – but still no one answers him. After all, no one lives in the spare room. It’s a room where you put your mess and shut the door on it. Until you have time to sort it out. Until you have a visitor come and stay.

The portraits in Before/After are based on original portraits of the Papin Sisters, two sisters who had brutally murdered their female employer and her daughter after many years of service. The sisters would not, or could not explain their actions. Their silence was in sharp contrast to a plethora of intellectual and institutional voices, offering their own questions and interpretations. In the end whether the questioner was sympathetic or judgmental, a psychoanalyst or a journalist, the questions remained the same, and went unanswered. The photographs of the sisters became a major source of interest – as if the evidence of how two ‘ordinary’ sisters became sensational murderesses had somehow been captured by the photographs themselves.

Before/After began with the sisters’ story, by combining the two double portraits with a soundtrack of a man asking some questions. However, as the work has developed, and particularly with its installation into a domestic space, the voice alludes to other acts of transgression or experiences of trauma – but these belong to the viewer, their memories, and their experiences.

Listen to sound clip

Imprinted Matter (2004)

“everybody leaves their trace…”

In 1894, four years after the death of Patrick Allan Fraser, an edition of 14 copies of The Book of Hospitalfield was privately printed. As a book of memorial, it speaks of a life, a death and a legacy. His estate was left for the ‘education in the Arts’ specifically to “those young men with not sufficient means of their own” to pursue careers as artists. Imprinted Matter is linked to The Book of Hospitalfield as a contemporary companion piece, by looking at how others left their mark on the house over the past century. Fourteen copies are believed to have been printed, so in the spirit of the original, Imprinted Matter is also an edition of fourteen.

IMPRINTED MATTER
Cream Buckram Book in Solander Box, Edition of 14
30 190gsm Bockingford pages
21 illustrations, full colour
Book: 21.5 cm wide x 28 cm height x 1.5 cm depth
Box: 23.5 cm wide x 31 cm height x 3 cm depth

Wild Pansy Press, Leeds 2004

Go to Projects to see how the search for the original is linked to donation & distribution
See Residencies for this bookwork’s starting point

Question for Seller (2006)

Made from family photographs acquired through eBay, Question for Seller features photographs that no one else has bid for. The seller is asked the question: How did you come across the photos and what, if anything, do you know about them? Their replies are as important as the photographs they sell. They allude to disappearing histories, where personal photographs reveal fragments of past lives, through photographic processes that are themselves becoming obsolete.

Question for Seller (2005-06): The Virtual Predecessor

QUESTION FOR SELLER
64 270gsm pages, 14 ‘Glassine’ (tissue) sheets, Edition of 1
87 photographs mounted with Archival Photo Black Corners
Various sizes (largest: 21 x 16cm, smallest 3 x 2cm)
Brown Carlton Collection Cover
W: 33cm x H: 42cm D: 3cm

Wild Pansy Press, Leeds 2006

Go to Projects for more about the book’s exhibition & eBay auction
For more double page spreads Seesaw: Online Photography Magazine Issue 8 Summer 2007

Gay Interest Beefcake (2008)

This unique artist’s book was produced especially for ALT-W: New Directions in Scottish Digital Culture a 2008 exhibition at CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow. Gay Interest Beefcake was on display alongside another eBay inspired work, Question for Seller (2006). It was auctioned off on eBay on 19.30pm, Saturday 13 September 2008, as part of Alt-w’s closing show party. Gay Interest Beefcake features three lots of photographs bought on eBay in 2007. They were purchased over a three-day period from the same seller. At the point of sale the keywords ‘gay interest beefcake’ accompanied the seller’s description of each lot. The album is now in the collection of the International Center of Photography New York.

GAY INTEREST BEEFCAKE
12 270gsm pages, 3 ‘Glassine’ (tissue) sheets, Edition of 1
10 photographs mounted with Archival Photo Black Corners
Various sizes (largest: 13.5 x 9cm, smallest 6 x 4cm)
Dark Brown Leather Cover
W: 33cm x H: 42cm D: 1.5cm (Spine Edge 2cm)

Wild Pansy Press, Leeds 2008

Thanks to Chris Taylor and Alt-w