'Spheres of Influence 2', Alasdair Gray Season (2015)

• Main Author: Brownrigg, Jenny
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: Moffat; The Gallery; Iceland
• Online Access: http://radar.gsa.ac.uk/5180/; http://radar.gsa.ac.uk/5180/1/DSC_1001.JPG; http://radar.gsa.ac.uk/5180/2/DSC_1187.JPG; http://radar.gsa.ac.uk/5180/3/DSC_0992.JPG; http://radar.gsa.ac.uk/5180/4/DSC_0958.JPG; http://radar.gsa.ac.uk/5180/5/DSC_1208.JPG; http://radar.gsa.ac.uk/5180/6/DSC_0877.JPG

Research Question: - How can a curatorial practice be site-specific and respond to a visual arts practice (in this case Alasdair Gray), by expanding on his themes through a series of contemporary commissions and works of other artists' from collections? Methodology: This exhibition provides alternative readings of Alasdair Gray’s visual practice, through the prism of others’. Spheres of Influence II included both historical and contemporary pieces from the realms of visual art, design and illustration. Gray’s work formed the central point around which the other works orbit. The broad themes drawn from Gray’s oeuvre included graphic style; symbolism; text and image; lettering and the alphabet; portraiture and identity; labour; religion; war; love and sexuality. Works selected from other practitioners' included those that influenced Gray - Eric Gill, Aubrey Beardsley - through to artists' work that expanded the reading of Gray's themes - Denis Tegetmeier, Peter Howson, David Kindersley and Dorothy Iannone. Gray's practice has never been viewed alongside international peers, which was why showing his work alongside Iannone was new knowledge. Works on loan were from Sorcha Dallas, Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, Glasgow Museums, The Living Art Museum (Iceland), Flowers Gallery, the collection of Sandy Moffat and the artists. The exhibition includes four new commissions by Oliver Braid, Stuart Murray, My Bookcase and Hanna Tuulikki. The exhibition design I worked on had Gray's work physically located on a central point, on a cross structure developed from a symbol on the front of an Eric Gill book. This allowed Gray's work to be the anchor, but also in positioning allowed the visitor to make readings across the gallery to the other artist works that were on the gallery wall. This exhibition was concurrently running with 'Spheres of Influence 1' at Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow and was part of the 'Alasdair Gray Season', organised and devised by Sorcha Dallas. In 2017 I have been invited to contribute a 1000 word essay to 'The Essential Alasdair Gray' publication, co-edited by Rodge Glass and Sorcha Dallas, to be published by Freight Books in Oct 2017.