Katarzyna Perlak is this month’s featured artist on a-n’s Instagram. Her practice uses archival research and her own experience to apply queer and feminist readings to Eastern European history and tradition. Richard Taylor speaks to Perlak about her video and collage works.
Christine Borland’s current show ‘to The Power of Twelve’ looks at the history of Mount Stuart, a neo-gothic country mansion on the island of Bute, during the first world war when it was used as a naval hospital. She talks to Jessica Ramm about the project which sees her return to Mount Stuart fifteen years on from her first exhibition at the Grade A listed house.
Taking place in venues across west Cornwall including an abandoned church, a telecommunications station and a snooker club, the five-month Groundwork programme of international contemporary art is organised by the Cornubian Arts & Science Trust (CAST). David Trigg discusses art and place with the organisation’s influential curator.
For his exhibition, ‘CAPSID’, John Walter draws on his time as resident artist of infection at UCL where he collaborated with structural virologist Professor Greg Towers. Lydia Ashman finds out how his focus on a protein shell that enables the rapid transmission of viruses has resulted in a riotous, playful mix of film, painting, collage and installation.
Imran Perretta’s film 15 days focuses on the refugee situation in Calais and Dunkirk and is the result of his Jerwood/FVU Awards commission. He explains to Fisun Güner how the film came about and how his move into art making was shaped by the 2008 financial crisis and an aborted career in architecture.
Nominated for the 2018 Turner Prize and a recent recipient of the European Culture Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award for Culture, the London-based independent research agency Forensic Architecture is making political and cultural waves with its evidence-based work. Chris Sharratt talks to artist and filmmaker Simone Rowat, one of the group’s 15 team members.
Jean McEwan is this month’s featured artist member on a-n’s Instagram. Richard Taylor talks to the Bradford-based artist about collaboration, the richness of sustained community work, walking, and much more.
As he prepares for his Glasgow International solo show at Kelvin Hall, Jessica Ramm – who is also exhibiting during GI – talks to the Glasgow-based artist about authority, control and power, and how his work offsets some of the grandeur of the city’s colonial past.
Richard Parry was appointed director of the biennial Glasgow International festival in May last year, following a move from Blackpool where he was director/curator at the Grundy Gallery. Chris Sharratt talks to him about the artistic rhythm of Glasgow’s rich and vibrant art scene, and his approach to curating the festival, which is now in its eighth edition.
For ‘Deep Spoils’, the Glasgow-based Scottish artist’s first exhibition in Wales, Claire Barclay has responded to the history and architecture of Swansea’s Mission Gallery by reconfiguring existing works alongside new elements. Anneka French discovers more about her distinctive practice that draws on industrial motifs to explore materiality and memory.
Rachel Howard’s paintings reference an unstable and violent world, drawing on political events and the devastation of war. With two current London exhibitions at Blain Southern and Newport Street Gallery, Fisun Güner talks to the artist about what inspires her work and how her early experience painting spots for Damien Hirst influenced her approach.
The former director of Southend-on-Sea’s Focal Point Gallery takes up his new role in Eastbourne at a difficult time for the gallery, as local council cuts mean a 50% reduction in funding over the next four years. Judith Alder finds him relishing the challenges ahead, and with a focus on opportunities for the gallery to play a more central role in the life of the East Sussex town.
Serena Korda has for the last two years been based in Newcastle as the Norma Lipman/Baltic Fellow in Ceramic Sculpture at Newcastle University, culminating in a show at Baltic, Gateshead. Laura Robertson talks to her about this and her current exhibition at The Hepworth Wakefield, exploring how she draws on local myths and rites for her ceramic and sound pieces.
This week’s featured artist blogger on a-n’s Instagram is Michael Borkowsky. Over recent years the Sheffield-based artist has adopted the craft of perfumery in his visual art practice leading him to, amongst other things, work directly with other artists in portraiture. Richard Taylor finds out more.
Bournemouth-based artist Stuart Semple is aiming to raise awareness of ‘hostile designs’ after he succeeded in getting his local council to remove retrofitted bars from town-centre benches that prevented homeless people from sleeping on them.
Currently featured on the a-n Instagram, the work of a-n member Dr Catherine Baker involves collaborations with clinical science practitioners and patients, and contributes to different fields of study. Richard Taylor finds out more.
The Herefordshire-based painter Clare Woods has developed a series of eight large-scale oil on aluminium works for her new show at Warwick Arts Centre’s Mead Gallery, reflecting an ongoing move away from abstraction towards more figurative paintings. Anneka French talks to the artist about scale, process and her photographic source material.
Rose Wylie has found critical and commercial success late in life, winning the 2014 John Moores Painting Prize at 80 and her first major exhibition taking place when she was 77. As her show, ‘Quack Quack’, continues at London’s Serpentine Sackler Gallery, the Kent-based artist talks to Fisun Güner about show titles, inspiration and more.
With support from a-n, the London-based artist has launched an online store offering high quality, affordable, limited edition works and publications by artists dedicated to exploring place. Jack Hutchinson talks to her about online sales and research beyond the art world.
This month’s featured blogger on the a-n Instagram is Jack Welsh. Richard Taylor talks to the Liverpool-based artist, writer, producer and educator about juggling multiple projects, writing about other people’s work, and his interest in archival research and book making.
a-n blogger Fiona Masterton is this month’s featured member on the a-n Instagram. The London-based artist talks to Richard Taylor about responding to place, and how this stretches her gaze both compositionally and geographically.
The Berlin and Beirut-based artist, who until recently was partly based in London, is one of six artists shortlisted for this year’s Film London Jarman Award. Fisun Güner talks to him about the importance of sound, politics, and why he doesn’t consider himself an activist.
The artist Helen Cammock’s exhibition ‘Shouting in Whispers’ at Cubitt Gallery, includes an hour-long film of the same title that features historical footage of protest and explores the idea of multiple histories. Fisun Güner talks to her about photography, the importance of words in her work, and discovering the writing of James Baldwin.
Following a project this year working with Yezidi women who escaped ISIS captivity, Hannah Rose Thomas continues her MA studies in London. Richard Taylor finds out how her interest in the diversity of people and cultures, as well as her commitment to relief work, drives a unique approach to portraiture.
For the inaugural visual arts commission at Storyhouse in Chester, Bedwyr Williams has transposed stories collected from a local newspaper archive onto a digitally animated recreation of the town’s former Roman Fortress Bathhouse. Speaking to Fisun Güner, he laments the loss of British awkwardness, and describes how this new work will take the viewer on a journey to “a space that’s out of time”.
