They Had Four Years 2019
They Had Four Years 2019
Corah Ambrose, FK McLoone, Rachel Woodside, Catriona Beckett, Hayley Jane Dawson, Annie Eliasson
Opening Night: 24/05/2019, 6pm—9pm.
Exhibition Continues: 25/05/2019—09/06/2019, 12pm—5pm.
GENERATORprojects
GENERATORprojects proudly presents the annual group exhibition They Had Four Years (TH4Y) which features newly commissioned work by recent graduates from art schools across Scotland.
This year’s TH4Y features six emerging artists from The Glasgow School of Art, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, and Edinburgh College of Art and aims to provide a supportive platform in which the artists can continue to develop their craft whilst gaining an invaluable insight into exhibiting outside of an educational environment.
The pairing of the selected artists intends to create an exciting discourse about the complex relationships between the human and the domestic space and the interactions with the objects found within.
Exhibiting Artists:
Corah Ambrose | The Glasgow School of Art
Intrigued by the relationships between sculpture and performance, Corah Ambrose explores movement and language through sensory play and action. A research led practice, Ambrose’s work primarily concerns ideas of generated hierarchical systems of power that manifest as brightly coloured, manually activated kinetic sculptures and participatory performance pieces.
Catriona Beckett | Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design
Catriona Beckett fuses the mediums of sound, video, animation, sculpture, and painting to create installations that suggest visions of new landscapes and hint at unseen architectural forms. Impulsively drawn to the aesthetic of outdoor spaces—particularly outdoor pools, spas, and the contrast of flowing water against geometric tiling—Beckett aims to explore such landscapes and their juxtaposition against the fluidity of the human body.
The outcome is not a fixed presentation, but is a space which can be co-authored by the viewer; therefore the pieces exist by re-generating imaginatively within the space. The participatory element of Beckett’s work is carried over to other aspects of her practice and independent works as she often collaborates with fellow artists on sound projects and performance pieces whenever possible.
Hayley Jane Dawson | The Glasgow School of Art
Hayley Jane Dawson’s art navigates the complexities of being queer, lesbian, and more or less female in both her personal and professional life. Using her body as a channel through which to explore her relationship with those around her, Dawson’s autobiographical work manifests into performance pieces, film installations, or shows that predominantly feature the use of ceramics, fabric, and found objects.
Dawson has created and decorated glazed, ceramic mouthpieces from white earthenware in the shape of bird heads and uses them performatively to project, contain, and suppress her voice in a bid to explore the raw connections between the relegated voices of the female, the other, and the queer under a fearful, patriarchal society.
Annie Eliasson | Edinburgh College of Art
Annie Eliasson explores narratives that unite the other-worldly with the earthly and seeks to form an artistic language that embraces and celebrates the sensual relationship to the non-human world whilst examining how the fantastical can be woven into the everyday.
Concerned with the spiritual connection to landscape, Elliason’s practice is inspired by illusions of the theatrical and the fleeting mimicry of reality that it can achieve. By drawing inspiration from the marks people have historically made on the world through their tales, myths, and beliefs, Elliason seeks to establish a connection between physical objects and the intangibility of film by projecting still images into being, thus making flat landscapes take shape.
FK McLoone | Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design
FK McLoone’s practice evaluates how the design of spaces influences its functions and the psychology of those who inhabit it whilst often contemplating the unseen architects and authorities that hold the power to shape them. For TH4Y 2019, McLoone aims to explore domestic spaces where the individual feels most empowered to make change, where there is a sense of personal ownership, and where there is most control.
Looking through the lens of home improvement media (in particular, home makeover TV shows—which frequently sell promises of creative fulfilment, upward mobility, and inner peace through consumption, destruction, and continual renewal) McLoone intends to create a publication in response to the current capitalistic climate of helplessness, where owning a home seems as distant an ambition as affecting change on the outside world.
Rachel Woodside | The Glasgow School of Art
Rachel Woodside often examines themes of disability, performativity, and catharsis in relation to the ‘disabled gaze’. Spaces that incorporate a disability aid—such as a handrail, a seat in the shower, or certain types of flooring—can unintentionally act as a spectacle of the disability, becoming a trope for the disability and signifying the ‘othered body’s’ presence in and around the home.
Woodside’s work for TH4Y 2019 will feature an interactive kinetic installation that explores these aesthetics and dynamics in relation to the human body, as well as in relation to one’s own performativity of ability/disability.