Reflection: Contemporary Visual Arts and Crafts in Edinburgh

Reflection: Contemporary Visual Arts and Crafts in Edinburgh, was an contemporary visual art and craft, group exhibition at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh, featuring the work of 22 artists and makers who have been supported by the Visual Arts Awards and Craft Maker Awards, run by the City of Edinburgh Council in partnership with Creative Scotland since 2000. The exhibition ran from 19 Nov 2011- 12 Feb 2012.

“Selected through an open call for entries, the exhibition includes a varied and dynamic group of artists and makers, ranging from emerging artists to more established professionals. Displayed over the third and fourth floors of the City Art Centre, the resulting exhibition brings together a diverse range of artforms, including ceramics, printmaking, textiles, photography, jewellery, painting, glassmaking and new media.”
(http://www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/reflection)

I exhibited two projects supported by this fund:

'Doppelganger' (2003/ 2004) is a digital artwork attempting to reflect upon the tradition of portraiture using 21st century technology. A series of seven digitally printed portraits, 10% larger-than-life, the work depicting an internationally diverse group of artists, who were artists-in-residence at the same time as myself in Basel, Switzerland, in 2002. The portraits are contradictory, presenting unusually ‘normal’ shapes and sizes for digital characters, yet due to the nature of the medium they remain ultimately synthetic, being strongly suggestive of a set of characters from a computer game.

'On the surface' (2009/ 2011) is a digitally animated work based on the psychological and personal experience of an ‘out of control’ body. Inspired by a research project I developed with dermatologists at the University of Edinburgh (2007 - 2008), 'On the surface' allowed me to take a distinct route away from the very specific research work, into a more exploratory process, involving a wide variety of imagery and techniques. The video takes the viewer on a fragmented, emotional, surreal journey around a digital body in a conflicted state of being.

Both these projects continue my creative exploration and interrogation of the impact of technology on the body, relationships and human experience.

Exhibiting artists:
Gemma Coyle, Michael Craik, Caroline Douglas, Rachel Elliott, Paul Furneaux, Catriona Grant Paul Gray, Jane Hyslop, Clare Hillerby, Beverley Hood, Fiona R Hutchison, Alan Kilpatrick, Keiko Mukaide, Ben Murdock, Nicola Murray, Jenny Pope, Frances Priest, Anna Ray, Jenny Smith, Kate Temple, Aeneas Wilder and Rebecca Wilson.