G31 ART COLLECTIVE
G31 Art Collective
Ronnie Heeps, Gardner Muirhead, Stewart Swan
Preview: Saturday November 26th 2017, 6-9pm
Continues: November 27th to December 16th 2017
GENERATORprojects
Ronnie Heeps, Gardner Muirhead and Stewart Swan live minutes from each other in Dennistoun, Glasgow, in an area known locally as ‘The Drives’. This is their first show after forming the collective. We are delighted to be with them at the start.
Ronnie Heeps, Gardner Muirhead and Stewart Swan
The show runs til 16th December.
If you would like to view the show but can't make our opening times (Thurs-Sun 12-5pm) email Hari at mail@generatorprojects.co.uk
Ronnie Heeps
'Kaleidoscope 5', Oil Painting, Ronnie Heeps
After leaving school Ronnie Heeps worked in the foundry industry for five years before he began his 2 year studies at Falkirk College of Technology in ceramics and silver-smithing. Ronnie worked as a lighting designer in the 80’s and 90’s creating shows for bands as diverse as The Shaman, Test Department, Moby, The Orb and Nico as well as numerous clubs and raves.
Ronnie started painting in 1996 and was inspired to create his large-scale oil paintings based on kaleidoscopic geometry, from his work as a lighting designer, where he used oil pigments sandwiched between glass slides in an Aldis projector to create moving patterns.
Gardner Muirhead paints beautiful, sometimes unsettling studies from vintage photographs he finds in Berlin’s flea markets. He transforms these every day subjects into enigmatic possible movie stars, from earnest Dresden ladies posing for a local hair salon and shy workers being photographed for their office magazine, to self-conscious teenagers posing in their Sunday best. In the process of rescuing these characters from obscurity, he became fascinated by the different elements in each fleeting moment, especially the staged studio lighting, the choices of outfits and the subtle, at times self-conscious, expressions hinting at other emotions which may be lurking under the surface.
'The Great Love' Japanese woodblock print, acrylic painting, found imagery and mixed media, Gardner Muirhead, (2015)
Gardner feeds this fascination with tiny detail with his ‘Infrastructure’ series of mixed media box collages. Many of the sections are created by Gardner himself with acrylic painting Japanese woodblock and lino print, cleverly constructed and contained within a perspex frame. Even the sides of the canvases are decorated. This 3D construction alongside found imagery, produce multi-faceted portraits of people, things and dreamy narratives inspired (mostly) by his trips to Berlin.
Stewart Swan
'Starman' Acrylic paint, pencil, oil pastel, Stewart Swan.
Stewart Swan is a visual artist and designer who graduated with a BA Honours in fine art from the Edinburgh College of Art in 2005.
Stewart's work documents a spectrum of people, capturing their experiences, passions and characters in the vividness of their expressions. He illustrates the impact of their harsh and unforgiving surroundings through their dark and sometimes grotesquely menacing demeanours.
Stewart uses drawing and mixed media painting to portray the underlying spirit in everyday faces. He employs the power of body language and human expression to suggest narrative in his deeply emotive paintings.
