- Wunderkammer is an international peer lead curatorial project which features six exhibitions of work by 2020 GSA graduates
- The overall programme is curated by Aeji Seo,
- The Glasgow exhibition, Open Cut, co-curated by Robert McCormack, will run at Transmission from 24 – 28 November 2021
- The London show, On the Other side, co-curated by Antonio Parker Rees, will be staged in Hoxton 253 also between 24 and 28 November 2021
- Wunderkammer began with an exhibition in Stockholm in October 2021. Next month shows will open in Phuket and Seoul
Wunderkammer, an international peer lead curatorial project featuring work by 2020 Glasgow School of Art graduates, continues this month with shows in Glasgow and London. 14 Fine Art graduates will show work in Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, and simultaneously 10 Fine Art graduates will be exhibiting at Hoxton 253, London.
Wunderkammer is curated by Aeji Seo, who graduated from the Glasgow School of Art in 2020 during the pandemic. Working from her bedroom in Korea, she has developed six international exhibitions showcasing work from across her graduate year group. The first exhibition Vertical Stance was held in Stockholm, Sweden in October 2021, and following the Glasgow and London shows this month Still Water will be staged in Phuket, Thailand and Re, Bounding will be shown in Seoul, South Korea in December 2021. The final exhibition in the programme is Walking Through The Place, which will be staged at the CCA, Glasgow in January 2022..
Open Cut
Images:
Alish Macdonald , In The Arms of Another (Lover)
Acrylic, soft pastel and coloured pencil on board, 29,7cmx42cm, 2021
Chao-Ying Rao, My friend Tasha,
installtion,2021
From Korea, Aeji Seo sent hundreds of emails asking for opportunities and spaces to show work, explaining that when Covid-19 hit most of the artists were abandoned by the system and all the exhibitions, exchanges and collaborations were suddenly just gone. She wanted to bring solidarity back to her art school community. The Transmission gallery was the first gallery to sign up and to fully support her project by offering their space.
“Transmission was started by art graduates who created a space to keep the artistic ecology alive and to support the making, sharing, and exhibiting of art,” says Robert McCormack who is co-curating Open Cut with Aeji Seo. “It is an integral part of Glasgow’s art ecology, particularly for students who visit the space throughout their time at the art school.
One of Transmission’s founding goals was to support emerging artists and care for those with smaller voices. By supporting the Open Cut exhibition the gallery has fulfilled this goal and paved the way for other initiatives to support this hopeful project.”
Open Cut will address the body as a site of cultural, aesthetic, and ethical significance. Architecturally the gallery space will act as a kind of host, mimicking the body. The title Open Cut points to the often painful threshold between the internal and external body. Through confrontation with the fabric of the body, one can transcend belief and rationality.
Participating Artists:
Chao-Ying Rao (Betty), Sean Robertson, Antonina Kulmasova, Gaia Tretmanis, Ash MacDonald Emma Clark Greta Martyniuk, Hannah Kate Absalom, Isla West, Louise Reynolds, Ramona Lindsay Rowan Ormiston , Sophie Booth, Tabitha Hall
On the Other Side
Images
Jackie Hoefnagels ,Light seeding
digital animation, 2021.
Nell Mitchell, It is ok if you pick your nose because everyone does,
20cm x 27cm x 0.5cm,Ceramic, 2021
Rose Day, Crux
A3 print, 2021
On the Other Side is co-curated by Aeji Seo with Antonio Parker-Rees. The artists have been brought together for their similar attitude towards making, with approaches that evade conventional classification in favour of a more diverse and sensitive use of material.
Like an announcement through a dodgy train station speaker or a flirt’s phone number marked onto a soggy scrap of paper, much of our everyday communications do not pan out or endure as intended. But these lapses shouldn’t be brushed off as void or inconsequential. Today we experience impermanence on a level which supersedes our general interactions. From shifting political scapes to the influx in freak natural disasters and global pandemics, it feels as though a mass state of flux is upon us.
Many of the exhibiting artists’ work at the crosspoint of different mediums, from ceramics informed by poetry to stop-frame animation made from a series of paintings. Here complex narratives and sentiments unfold in the very fabric of the creations. The artists utilise systematic errors of a medium to their advantage. Here ghost images, stand-in protagonists and empty landscapes take the stage as the artists’ own preoccupations begin to unfold.
Participating artists
Angus Macdonal, Benjamin Hall, Flora Robson, Gabriella Day, Jackie Hoefnagels, Lisa Fabin, Luca Guarino, Nell Mitchell, Rosa Day, Viktoria Szaboova.
The project is supported by The Glasgow School of Art
“The GSA is delighted to support Wunderkammer and our graduates showing their work as professional artists now that Covid restrictions allow it,” says Professor Penny Macbeth, Director of The Glasgow School of Art
“This ambitious project illustrates the energy and drive of GSA graduates and their creative approach to the presentation of their work.”
“This a wonderful opportunity for audiences in Sweden, Thailand, South Korea and here in the UK to enjoy the physicality of new works exhibited by this generation of artists, and for an international audience to engage with important issues facing the world today through the prism of artistic practice.”
Ends
Listings
24-28 November 2021
Open Cut
Transmission Gallery 28, King Street Glasgow, G15QP
10am – 5pm
14 2020 GSA Fine Art graduates will show work in a group show as part of Wunderkammer, an international, peer lead curatorial project being staged in Sweden, the UK, Thailand and South Korea.
Entry free
Project website https://wunderkammer-exhibition.com/
24-28 November 2021
On the other side
Hoxton 253, 253, Hoxton Street, London, N1 5LG
10am – 6pm daily
10 2020 GSA Fine Art graduates will show work in a group show as part of Wunderkammer, a international peer lead curatorial project being staged in Sweden, the UK, Thailand and South Korea.
Entry free
Project website https://wunderkammer-exhibition.com/
Notes for Editors
About the Curators:
Aeji Seo is an artist and curator based in Seoul, Korea. She is currency curating and coordinating the Wunderkalmer project. Aeji holds a BA (Hons) in Painting and Printmaking from the Glasgow School of Art.
Robert McCormack is a Scottish artist who engages in education, develops studio-based outputs, and coordinates grassroots arts projects. Robert holds a BA (Hons) in Painting and Printmaking from The Glasgow School of Art and is currently undertaking an alt/MA in Contemporary art practice with the New Art School, Glasgow. Robert is the co-curator for the Open Cut exhibition.
Antonio Parker-Rees is an artist living and working in London. He studied in Glasgow and graduated with a BA (Hons) in Painting and Printmaking in 2020. He is involved in a number of curatorial projects in London and Glasgow whilst continuing his own artist practice.
About the artists
Open Cut
Chao-Ying Rao (BETTY) is an East Asian multi-disciplinary artist based in Glasgow. Her research interests tend to circulate around fringe and contentious topics as she seeks to analyse our habitual discomforts. She’s fascinated by their undertones, and finds them to speak volumes about our cultural anxieties and shared values.
Antonina Kulmasova’s work revolves around the study of the body using oil paint as a tool to portray its expression. By slowly stripping away colour and any excessive detail she finds unnecessary in a photograph, she is able to explore her subject in terms of placement and presence within its space, the relationship between the layered painting technique and body language, and the confrontational significance of the subject to her personally.
Gaia Tretmanis is a multimedia installation artist that has recently graduated from the Painting & Printmaking BA (Hons) course at Glasgow School of Art. Her practice is based in Glasgow, Scotland. Gaia’s practice revolves around physical manifestations of sentimentality and disgust. Exploring the ways in which imaginary narratives derived from conversations or treasured possessions can be digested through the body. Playing with edibility through attempts to preserve sculptures that will ultimately deteriorate regardless of the memory that is stored within them. Taking inspiration from household smells, culturally significant materials, and small ocean creatures to weave a personal narrative that encompasses the miniscule ways in which our surroundings impact us. The next phase of this installation will be featured in RSA New Contemporaries 2022.
Ash MacDonald is a Glasgow based, Isle of Man born multimedia artist. MacDonald’s work usually takes the form of painting, printmaking and photography with colour, composition and form being the main visual tools. Her interests lie within sardonicism and personhood with the intent of exploring and addressing the prevalence of anxieties of the modern-day world, commonly using figurative, veristic and often bold imagery. She is also interested in the banal undercurrent and seedy underbelly of humanity and the archetypal characters we often become, or present ourselves as, through mundane actions and personal ‘quirks’ with an emphasis on exploring the good, the bad and the ugly. MacDonald doesn’t aim to provide answers to the question of what it means to be human but rather create an open dialogue to allow the viewer to come to their own conclusions.
Emma Clark is a Scottish based painter. The relationship to the digital and to the screen is an important theme in her work. Social media and especially Instagram is something she is exposed to on a daily basis. She is critical yet also a consumer. She is interested in Orlan and Cindy Sherman’s notions of identity and, especially performance of identity online and issues of authenticity. Artists like Racheal MacLean are also an influence on her work. She has begun working on work for Open Cut mainly figurative and exploring this through the materiality of paint itself with an exploration of the burden of the ‘image’ itself with reference to Marlene Dumas. Body image, social media and self-identity are what drive her to make work.
Greta Martyniuk is a contemporary painter whose works are characterised by their unsettling and surreal imagery depicting the dehumanising aspect of the recovery process. Her interest in Old Master landscape paintings and their influence continues to come through in her works. Working in watercolour, ink and oil; she produces works which show figures in distressing situations, surrounded by strange settings to awaken the curiosity of the viewer. She creates the paintings as she goes, producing spontaneous compositions which explore the relationship between the medical, the body and the mind. More recent works explore the effect of trauma on one’s mental and physical well-being. On one hand she has a deeply personal approach to the works she produces, on the other hand, she continues to distance herself from the narrative. Her works challenge the viewers perception of the recovery process and the world we live in.
Hannah Kate Absalom’s work primarily focuses on concepts surrounding religion and mysticism through a contemporary interpretation of ancient iconography, ritual and folklore.
In addition to exploring the effect of religion upon traditional art forms, this investigation expands into a reflection of Judeo-Christianity on the aesthetics of the grotesque and horror, specifically in 20th century cinema. Absalom aims to present a classical yet surreal interpretation of dystopias and apocalypses within the framework of contemporary concerns; political, societal and environmental.
The uncanny is an underlying aspect of Absalom’s practice, primarily her video work. The imagery used can often be unsettling, disturbing and hypnotic in its blending of dream and dogma.
Isla West is another Fine Art graduate based in Glasgow working primarily in digital painting and animation. Inspired by the connection between death and eroticism, she is working towards a digital language that speaks to the prevalence of technology in our contemporary lives.
Louise Reynolds is a figurative artist from Hamilton, Scotland. Habitually reading the news informs the work she composes, by recontextualising prevailing and fad narratives into dystopic visions of the present and future. By riffing from current events whilst refusing photographic reference from the issues themselves, she rejects an ease of understanding which aligns with the confusion of the internet age. These fleeting stories and dogmas are alluded to in her titles. She sees her own work as a revised edition of history painting, poignantly in the era of fake news, but without an actual commissioner this is substituted with the bewildering oversaturation of news items which proliferate everyone’s online existence.
Born in Glasgow in June 1970, a descendant of migrant Italians, Ramona Lindsay’s research looks at diaspora of the global majority throughout history to the present day. Her interests lie in the ill-treatment of the “other” and the manifestation of its forms. Through the mediums of printing, drawing and painting, she uses these mediums to understand and interpret her own thoughts and research of the physical and psychological upheaval of this global majority. She endeavours to work with the materiality and properties of the mediums to explore ways of communicating in an intuitive and empathetic manner.
Rowan Ormiston is a Scottish artist and a recent painting and printmaking graduate of the Glasgow School of Art. Her work is an ongoing exploration into the visualisation of Scottish mythology and folklore and investigates what she believes to be a loss of narrative and representation for Scotland’s ancestral beliefs and stories. Interested in how Scottish society may have developed differently had monotheist belief not taken over, and rather local belief encouraged rather than persecuted, her work aims to question our connection to the landscape, the portrayal and position of women throughout Scottish society and our respect for the land and its history. Through a multitude of mediums and approaches she attempts to consider the vast visual archive that never became and to begin to scratch the surface of what could be, if Scottish mythology and folklore became part of the norm again and a respected facet of belief within Scotland.
Sophie Booth is a Northern-English artist whose work revolves around FOMO-induced nostalgia, internet memes and virality. Her most recent video work NICHE NOSTALGIA has been screened with Interlude Films and as part of an online showcase with Tramway TV. Currently based in Glasgow, she circulates most of her work online in a panicked Gen-Z approach to better inform her ideas surrounding identity politics and the accessibility of the digital world.
Tabitha Hall’s practice is based in three elements of drawing line, figuration and monochrome and exploring the extent of these to create a surrealist space. Developing narrative singular images by utilising line, figuration and monochrome, technique leading the content. By setting perimeters relinquishing control in such a permanent medium as pen and ink, capturing movement and moments in a stationary medium. This method of working captures the movement and the fluidity of the moment thus the figures within them seem more jovial. Figures who inhabit their space must also make up their space, there is a reason for their presence. Hall includes a wide range of figures in their drawings, wanting to represent a balance, and represent the spectrum of emotion in this environment. Hall’s work is filled with references from her own life and draws heavily from literature to conjure up the imagery in her drawings. She is interested to know what a viewer is bringing into this world, is whoever is looking into the scene included and seeing a representation of themselves or are they a passive observer, watching from just outside the frame.
On The Other Side
Angus Macdonald is a multi-disciplinary artist and musician based in London. He works with animation, interactive media, kinetic sculpture, performance and painting and drawing. In 2020, he graduated from the Glasgow School of Art, BA(Hons) in Painting and Printmaking.
In 2019-2020, he was involved with organising Sonomama Sessions at the CCA: Glasgow, monthly sessions of improvised performance + sound and discussions focusing on ecology, led by Lars Schmidt. Angus also performs in the UK and internationally with Glasgow-based quartet, Ari-Tsugi.
Angus uses archaic, embodied and messy processes (e.g. charcoal drawing) alongside interactive media and virtual reality. He wants to frustrate the logic embedded in these technologies and modulate our experience of both media. In 2021, Angus completed his first solo show, Everything Put Together Falls Apart, Bristol. This included an interactive charcoal animation, kinetic sound-sculptures, found objects and collaborative performances in response to the show by invited guests, montenegrofisher.
Benjamin Hall is an artist, gamemaker, animator, filmmaker and writer based in Glasgow. Benjamin graduated from Fine Art at the Glasgow School of Art in 2020, and with the cancellation of his degree show led the development of ‘DS2020 Simulator.’ The project recreated the cancelled show as a game, featured work by 136 graduates and was shown on BBC One. Benjamin has continued this practice of digital arts and accessible virtual programming as a core.member of Chaos Magic’s first SPUR programme, cofounder of online arts community CherriHarari, DAAD Futurism’s world builder and a selected artist for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2021. His recent collaborative virtual world ‘Wretched Light Industry’ showcased 33 immersive environments, and featured on It’s Nice That, Hypebeast, a-n and more.
Born in Preston, Flora Robson studied Fine Art Painting and Printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art. Her painting and printmaking are motivated by the landscape. Often working with oils, she creates large monoprints made up of abstract forms revealing various brushstrokes and textures.
Currently living and practicing in London Flora has exhibited in a variety of venues such as Art Lacuna (‘A Rudimentary Education’ 2020) and Sprout Gallery (‘Unfold’ 2021). Since graduating she has also exhibited in many online spaces such as ‘DS2020 Simulator’ (2020) and the ‘GSA graduate showcase’ (2020) and ‘Abstraction 111’(Envision Arts 2020).
Gabriella Day is a mixed-media artist living and working in Glasgow after graduating from Glasgow School of Art with a BA(Hons) in Painting and Printmaking. Her work draws upon the experience of the everyday and her drawings, paintings and installations hope to portray many of these ‘everyday’ moments happening at once. Recently her work incorporated figurative elements which she believes switches the previously abstracted work to reflect a personal perspective. Gabriella uses words in her work that help her to play with the poetic side of mundanity, but she also uses ready-mades to do this, especially to do this humorously. Her work asks questions about her perception of the world whilst simultaneously doubting the answers, reflecting a seemingly relatable feeling with the viewer.
Born in London, Jackie Hoefnagels moved between Accra, Ghana, and Brighton before completing a BA Hons in Fine Art at the Glasgow School of Art in 2020. Her practice has developed through these settings using new media painting, creative coding, and animation to explore themes of locality and cyclical temporality in spaces.
Currently living and practicing in Glasgow, Jackie has exhibited in a multitude of Glasgow based venues such as The Old Hairdressers (‘Scran’, 2019), The Glue Factory (‘Soup’, 19) and Woodlands Community Centre (‘Two Tides: Turning the
Seamill’, 2020). She has also exhibited in many online spaces after the pandemic hit including ‘Displaced Degree Show’ (The Student Gallery, 2020), ‘a-n Degree Shows’ (a-n, 2020) and in the ‘DS2020 Simulator’ (2020); a project for which she also took up the role of web designer after completing a course with Code First Girls.
Lisa Fabian is a Glasgow based artist whose practice is centered around sound, music, text, and performance. These different elements are combined to carefully orchestrate an experience, often surrounding themes of the everyday. In her work she attempts to speculate on possible futures through the searching and undoing of the personal- spaces are created that speak to a shared, common experience.
Fabian is a recent BA Painting and Printmaking graduate from Glasgow school of Art. She recently presented work at: Grabowsee Berlin (2021), Radiophrenia Glasgow (2020), Platform Glasgow- Sing it on a Friday (2020) in collaboration with Emma Brown and the Platform community choir, HOHM Studios Glasgow Hildegunst (2019).
Luca Guarino is a British multimedia artist based in London. He works primarily with drawing and digital media, making works on paper, animations, and installations. He graduated from the Glasgow School of Art in 2020 with a BA(Hons) in painting and printmaking. He is currently studying at the Royal Drawing School and has been selected for the RSA New Contemporaries 2022
Guarino’s work imagines unreal spaces where the interfaces of digital media pour into the physical world in ways that are at once seductive and uncanny. His practice is concerned with deconstructing images and ideas and collaging them in ways that are at once intimate, bleak, and playful.
Nell Mitchell (b. 1998) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Surrey, whose practice encompasses diary-like and confessional qualities. A recent graduate from The Glasgow School of Art, Nell works primarily with painting, printmaking, and ceramic work. Nell aims to create work that is both relatable and deeply personal by viewing each individual piece of work as a window to the soul, often with no holds barred. Usually inspired by everyday themes and fleeting thoughts, Mitchell creates work in a quick and immediate manner to capture an emotion entirely, often using the written word to convey this literally. Humor and lightheartedness have always played a key part in Mitchell’s work, as she continues to build and grow alongside her practice, as something that above all else aims to brings the artist and its audience joy.
Rose Day is a Glasgow School of Art Graduate and Analogue Photographer born in Bristol, now based in Glasgow. Her practice consists of analogue photography and printmaking. Revolving around themes of primordial place; her recent work seeks to explore the uncanny, disjunctive agency and the eerie. Depicting ancient and isolated forms in natural land, she often considers the permanence of memory and liminal space. Alongside analogue photography, Rose uses Lithography and Screen printing to find a kind of solace and relief in the mythical.
Viktoria Szaboova (b.1997, Slovakia) is a Glasgow based artist and photographer. She graduated from the Glasgow School of Art in 2020 with a First-Class BA (Hons) in Painting & Printmaking.
Her practice is autobiographical and self-motivated, orbiting around identity politics – an umbrella term for personal experiences concerning authenticity, cultural heritage, childhood, and womanhood. Through her work, predominantly photographic and installation based, she oscillates between the many polarities that inhabit the self and the other – with this oscillation functioning as the main catalyst for self-understanding and healing. Viktoria’s work titled ‘Domovina’ is set to feature at the Contemporary Art Festival Tehláreň in Liptovsky Mikulas, Slovakia, and her recent work ‘TIME as Space’ will be exhibited in a group exhibition “Graduate Drive-Thru” at a NCP rooftop car-park in Glasgow, as a part of the Glasgow Open House Arts Festival 2021.