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About my work: Walking and thinking
siobhanmclaughlinstudio • Mar 16, 2020
‘We should not walk up a mountain but into them, thus exploring ourselves as well as them’
Nan Shepherd (1893-1981), The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland.
1977
The munro walk that my recent body of work focuses on, up and around Lochnagar in the Cairngorms, was written about by poet Nan Shepherd in her book The Living Mountain. Shepherd’s focus on accumulative experience rather than the peak goal as a way of exploring both our physical and mental capacities is something that I have been contemplating through my research. Walking as experiencing has also meant walking to create space for thought, a discursive space, a conscious space, a space that is mediated by personal circumstances and physical limitations. The repetitive nature of walking allows these thoughts to turn into rhythms and processes, understanding how we manoeuvre through the landscape and what that means in terms of a place in the world. You cannot go into the landscape neutrally, you bring experience with you and subsequently discover new ways of navigating space.
This primary, experiential research has led me to look into the history of walking, giving me an understanding of different notions of place, and how throughout history, walking has been used in defining personal identity.
The methodology of walking into the landscape has therefore been an intimate one. One that shares a past with female experience, in opposition to the climactic goal of male walking writers prevalent in Shepherd’s time, and one that has allowed me to confront my own, physical limitations. Slowing down physically, has allowed me to encounter the nuances of landscape and engage in a more complex, sustained experience.
I link this to Henri Bergson’s idea of experiential duration, which, in opposition to objective linear time, is a continuously evolving ‘inner duration’. In the experience of walking as research, a single moment in linear time is not captured but instead this accumulated research feeds into my paintings to create an unfolding image of experience.
Further reading:
Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland, 1977.
Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking,
2002.
Henri Bergson and the Perception of Time.
This blog post will act as a record of my favourite workshops that I've led or co-led in the arts.
During my residency in Cornwall, awarded by Visual Arts Scotland , Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust and Porthmeor Studios, I met artist Peter Ward . After seeing an interesting painting of his at the Tremenheere Gallery, Penzance, I contacted Ward to ask about the medium of 'earth pigments'. To my delight he offered to show me the best pigment collecting sites along the South West Coastal Path.
Letting go of the imposter syndrome and accepting/celebrating the fact that I'm actually a curator. Nearly 3.5k people visited the Alan Davie exhibition at Dovecot Studios . That's mad to me. Thanks so much to everyone who visited, I hope you enjoyed it! A huge thank you to Dovecot for supporting my idea and giving me the opportunity to curate when I had no previous 'professional' experience. From approaching Dovecot with an exhibition plan in September 2019 to speaking at the exhibition opening in June 2022, I've learned a lot. Thanks also to Edinburgh Art Festival , the William Grant Foundation and the John Ellerman Foundation for the support.
Thank you to Edinburgh Art Festival for inviting me to speak at Art Late 2, streamed live from Jupiter Artland this week! It was a fantastic day of discussion, hearing from a range of artists, curators and creatives about their contributions to this years art festival. Watch the video below to hear my 8 reasons why everyone should visit the Alan Davie: Beginning of a Far-Off World exhibition at Dovecot Studios !
Alan Davie: Beginning of a far-off World opened at Dovecot Studios on 24th June 2022. I'm delighted that the reception to the exhibition, which I've been working on since September 2019 has been very positive so far.
BBC Radio Scotland's Nicola Meighan and I had a chat about Alan Davie last week on the opening day of my exhibition Alan Davie: Beginning of a far-off World at Dovecot Studios.
Meeting a lot of artists recently, who have such varied practices, has made me reflect on an essay I wrote back in 2018 on the role of artists in artist-run spaces. Particularly, meeting an artist who is currently studying Horticulture, got me thinking about the idea of 'artist-as-gardener'. I've just included a wee section of the essay here, which used EMBASSY Gallery in Edinburgh as a case-study, looking at the role of the artist in an artist-run space. In this section I was processing ideas of authorship and importance given to the 'Curator' title in contemporary discourse. Curatorial/artistic practice has developed significantly since I wrote this in 2018, but I think that the 'artist-as-gardener' idea is still a nice one.
In 2021 I was shortlisted for the Gilchrist Fisher Award and this month the exhibition opening finally took place. It was an honour to exhibit with 5 other shortlisted artists from nearly 200 applicants!
During my Hospitalfield Residency in 2021, I start writing in my practice for the first time. I've written a lot for history of art, about other artist's work, about my practice but never as part of my practice. Something about the location of Hospitalfield, the time and space to breath, the summer light, and the conversations had with other artists sparked something. I wrote three short texts that just came out without too much thinking. Well, not too much thinking in that moment. Really they were the outpouring of thoughts accumulated over the past few years. Thoughts that I had not given time to or felt able to express. The result is a kind of reflective, poetic text that combines personal narrative with reflections on Nan Shepherd's writings in the Living Mountain. Following a great crit with mentor artist Sekai Machache , I developed these written pieces into audio for a previous film work, Glen Muick (A Pulling) for the Landscape in Lockdown Commission from the Tate's British Art Network. I'm just at the start of integrating reflective writing into my painting practice. Perhaps it will remain separate, or thoughts might be combined with sewn materials. It's definitely something to explore further...
Clovermill Artist Residency has asked me this week to 'takeover' their instagram feed!
Glasgow,
Scotland, United Kingdom
siobhanmclaughlinstudio@gmail.com
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