:’-) ? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ;) :| :’D -_- ;))
EXHIBITION:
TUESDAY 22 - SATURDAY 26 FEBRUARY 2022
CIRCUS ARTSPACE @
INVERNESS CREATIVE ACADEMY
Gym Hall, Stephen's Street, Inverness IV2 3JP
FREE ENTRY | OPEN DAILY: 11AM - 6PM
CLOSING EVENT:
SATURDAY 26 FEBRUARY, 6 - 9PM
Meet some of the artists and join us for a celebratory drink!
The onset of the global pandemic has accelerated concerns around the individual with a new intensity around themes of character, behaviour, identity, the body and attention. This exhibition showcases artistic responses around the contested site of the individual. The title of the exhibition is an emotional semiotic play on identity, recognising the digital impact of the past year, particularly on young people.
This exhibition is by eight recent graduates from Scottish art schools with connections to the Highlands and is part of the Circus Graduate Associates programme.
BECKI KIRKWOOD :’-)
Stemming from an interest in the individual and collective experience, Becki Kirkwood focuses on the psychological and social influences that affect our everyday life. These influences guide her to create work surrounding topics such as mental health and identity, which she explores from a personal viewpoint through the form of self-portraiture. It is through this practice that she works with photography, collage and drawing techniques, which she often combines to create mixed media artworks using both analogue and digital
techniques.
www.beckikirkwood.com | Instagram @beckikirkwoodart
ERIN SEMPLE ?
A lens based artist living in the Scottish Highlands, Erin Semple looks to her personal life and experiences to inform her work, utilising the lens to better understand herself and those around her. Erin’s work, although often introspective in nature, explores ideas such as the gaze and notions of home by investigating the self in landscapes and domestic spaces.
www.erinsemple.co.uk | Instagram @erin.semple
EVIJA LAIVINA ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Evija Laivina’s work explores identity, body and beauty. Through photography using portraiture and lately self-portraiture approach she aims to understand and communicate issues that are important in this current time. She often uses her own experience and memories and ties them with other people, opinions and stories. Evija enjoys collaborating with scientists in the medical and anthropology fields and it feeds her work with new ideas and creates new connections. She is interested in trends on social media, medical news and updates, related to cosmetic surgeries and excessive beauty treatments.
www.evijalaivina.com | Instagram @evija_laivina_
HESTER GRANT ;)
Hester Grant’s work shines a light on the different patriarchal structures within society by looking at topics such as online pornography, the current job market and computer programming. Hester often appropriates text and uses collage and works across a variety of different mediums such as sound, textiles, writing, film, code and prints. She is inspired by artists and writers such as Kathy Acker, William Burroughs and Cosey Fanni Tutti. Hester believes that it is important to show how issues such as sexism, ableism etc affect everyday situations and systems we take for granted.
Instagram @lidl.kim
HOLLY OSBORNE :|
Holly Osborne reflects on stereotypes, ideals, and mundanity, using drawing and painting as a vehicle. She is a collector of images, gathering material from a range of different sources - stock photos, screenshots, vintage knitting patterns, adverts, social media, etc. Holly’s artistic practice draws from contemporary sources, finding images mostly from online. She engages with our relationship to image in the Post Internet condition, working from photos taken from television, her phone or even directly from the moving image onscreen as life drawing. Staged, awkward figures come into play, questioning our aspirations. Engaging with a disquieting humour, she aims to unsettle and seduce with these darkly comical characters. Crude yet witty depictions that grasp the fallacy of image and our perception of others.
www.holly-osborne.com | Instagram @hollyceosborne
JACQUELINE BRIGGS :’D
Growing up in the Scottish Highlands with a Papua New Guinean mother and Scottish father, Jacqueline Briggs have always looked to environment, culture and people as sources of inspiration. She enjoys using art as a means to explore and learn about the world and different elements of her contrasting heritage. Jacqueline uses bold colours and line and enjoy the crossover of disciplines within fine art and design. Making public works that can be seen not just within the context of a gallery space is something that has become increasingly important to her; allowing art to be brought to a wider audience where important cultural issues can be shared and talked about.
www.jacquelinebriggsillustration.com | Instagram @jacquelinebriggsart
ROBERT MCCORMACK -_-
Robert McCormack’s practice focuses on behaviour and in particular thinks through education and notions of childhood. Robert has a fine art degree from the Glasgow School of
Art and graduated in 2020. He is currently undertaking an alternative masters at the New Art School with Karla Black. Robert works with young people with profound needs at Isobel Mair School in Glasgow. During 2021 he co-ordinated ‘Graduate Drive Thru’, a graduate exhibition on the top story of a car park and co-curated a graduate show at Transmission Gallery, Glasgow.
www.robertmccormack.co.uk | Instagram @robertmccormack_
SADIE STODDART ;))
This new body of work by Sadie Stoddart acts as a love letter and a letter of complaint to her homeland in the Highlands. Sadie explores and challenges the stereotypes and lack of representation that is faced by those living in the North of Scotland by using imagery and icons that are heavily used when describing the Highlands. Using disjointed phrases, humour and Papier-mâché taxidermy Sadie hopes to create characters that can ‘speak’ on behalf of the Highlands and those that inhabit there until they are able to do so themselves.
Instagram @sadiestoddart_art
Covid-19: we ask that you observe social distancing. There will be a track and trace system at the entrance and please wear a face mask whilst inside the building.
