Monday 6 July 2009

Pentagon Galleries Graduate Exhibition

I have been asked to curate an exhibition of work by recent graduates of Glasgow School of Art. The exhibition will take place at the Pentagon Gallery, Washington Street (just off Argyle Street near Anderston Station). It will be open to the public from 17 August – 24 September 2009, and there will be a preview night (date to be confirmed), which you are more than welcome to attend.

This opportunity came about because last year I was selected to exhibit some work in the annual graduate exhibition. Having installed my own work, I later assisted in the hanging of other exhibitions. I also participated in another exhibition initiated by Mark, the curator. Mark was aware that I have experience of organising art related events, and am keen to establish myself as a professional artist and art organiser, and so invited me to curate the forthcoming graduate exhibition.

This is the first exhibition that I have single-handedly curated, and I have enjoyed the process so far and am looking forward to seeing the end result. In order to make an informed decision about which artists to select, I visited the Degree Show four times (and came across Lorraine and Elaine also!). In the past, the chosen artists have all been from a Fine Art background, but I have changed this by including illustrators and practitioners from a Design background.

My intention is that the exhibition will blur the boundaries of Art and Design and forge links between the two fields. There is an emphasis on the process of drawing, a fundamental activity for both artists and designers.

Some artists are going to be showing new work and others showing work exhibited at degree show. Given the large number of artists involved and the uncertainty of what they will exhibit, there will be a lot of juggling works around in the space during the day of installation. This is daunting, but very exciting.