ABOUT
BIOGRAPHY
ARTIST
Siobhan McLaughlin (b.1994) is an artist and curator based in Glasgow. She graduated with First Class MA (Hons) in Fine Art at Edinburgh University in 2019 and has since been awarded the SSA Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Award at the Royal Scottish Academy and a film commission from the Tate’s British Art Network. More recently, Siobhan was awarded a VACMA Award, an RSA Residencies for Scotland at Cromarty Arts Trust, the Black Isle, a Visual Art Scotland Cornwall Exchange Residency and a Stephen Palmer Travel Award.
CURATOR
As well as exhibiting regularly, she has curated a major private collections exhibition at Dovecot Studios for the centenary of Scottish artist Alan Davie. Alan Davie: Beginning of a far-off World was held at Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh 24th June - 24th September 2022. In July 2023, her project Scottish Landscapes: A New Generation opened at Dovecot Studios. Alongside exhibition tours and talks, she produced an engagement programme for the duration of the exhibition including workshops with WHALE Arts, The Ripple Project and SCORE Scotland.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Working with remnant textiles and gathered earth pigments, my practice connects experiences of the landscape layered with memories and connections to people, the body, and time. Exploring themes of place, care and sustainability through painting, printmaking and installation, I consider how past and current activities leave impressions on our ecologies.
I have a long-standing interest in gathering remnant materials, from the landscapes I walk and the communities I meet, sewing the histories of these textiles into the landscape of the painting. Paint is also gathered while walking, from ancient ochres in river beds to earth stained red by the mining industry, speaking to the land’s ability to hold knowledge and memory, of labour and scars. This idea of holding and embodiment is intrinsic to my work, as the hidden struggle of chronic pain is woven into my paintings, thoughts on care and resistance are embedded in paint made from ground earth. By using a material palette so rooted in body and place, I’m asking “what can we learn when we slow down and how can this help us care for our land and each other?”.
SELECTED PROFILES
2025
Belongings, an essay by Martin Holeman, published by Caught by the River
Alan Davie Art Class, Tate Britain Digital Team
2024
2023
Engage Scotland Interview, Stephen Palmer Award
2022
2020
Sotheybs Institute Magazine Interview
2019
The List, Review of SSA | VAS Open 2019 .
Barns-Graham Trust, The SSA Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Award.
Degree Show, Edinburgh College of Art.
The Huntley MacDonald Sinclair Prize.
2018
2017
Scotland + Venice Professional Development Programme.
MEMBERSHIP