Profoundly Moving (2026) is a multi-channel auto-fiction set among a sculptural assemblage of Donald Judd furniture, Kim Kardashian shapewear, and slabs of natural acoustic insulation. It includes six new musical compositions by Francesca Fargion that heighten and question emotional response.

Set in the artist's live/work loft, the work was filmed by a binaural head, a drone, a robotic vacuum, Maestro the cat and a real-estate videographer, each exploring their own domestic ambivalences. The resulting entanglement gestures towards the ethical complicity of symbolic capitalism, while the exhibition's satirical core lies in allegories of authenticity, guilty pleasure, and artist-led gentrification.

Jenny Hogarth (b. 1979, Glasgow) is an artist based in Edinburgh. Profoundly Moving is the fifth instalment of Happy Friday Everybody, a series of moving-image works grounded in feminist auto-theory and emerging from a search for flow between the personal and professional aspects of life. Other works in the series include Wild Thing (2020), shown at Threshold Arts, Perth; When You Talk About The Volcano Will You Talk About Yourself (2022), exhibited at Freelands Foundation, London, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, and Peste, Manchester; and Flow Co Motion (with Bo Mulholland) (2022), installed at Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh. The various strands of these works coalesce in intimate self-portraiture that takes an auto-fictive approach to exploring domestic ambivalence and the interwoven realities of diverse subjectivities.

Funded by Creative Scotland and The Elephant Trust and supported by Sisalwool.

Watch a Profoundly Moving teaser trailer here - https://vimeo.com/1137650403

Watch clips of other works in the Happy Friday Everybody series at https://6x6project.com/jenny-hogarth/

The exhibition centers around a found parable documenting the misadventure of two Tibetans during the mid-Twentieth Century. Six new drawings, based upon appropriated and edited archival objects, present a series of false images that reflect documented inaccuracies and unguided, speculative narratives.

The show will be accompanied by a new text by Mitch Speed.

@liam_allan

There are nine commonly used ‘tinctures’ in European heraldry, divided into colours, metals and furs.

While the colours and metals straightforwardly describe areas of flat colour, the furs depict patterns made from simple marks and tessellating angular shapes. The most common of these are ‘ermine’ and ‘vair’, visually derived from the fur patterns of stoats and red squirrels respectively.

Through centuries of abstraction and graphic simplification, the deaths represented by each infinitely repeating motif are anonymised and the design’s origin as a patchwork of flayed animals is further obfuscated under layers of projected significance.

Holding Patterns reflects upon the mundanity of violence and its ubiquity not just in heraldic convention, but our visual environment as a whole.

When we imbue the traumatically ‘real’ world around us with virtue and meaning, who is venerated and who is villainised? Which bodies become symbols of national integrity and who remains vermin? Why are we driven to express our ideas through the beasts of the field and graft our identities to the fruit of the land beneath our feet?

Sgàire Wood’s work prompts us to ask whether these processes celebrate nature’s complexity or appropriate her image with aims to oppress and exclude - either way it displays in equal parts our ability to revere the natural world but also our desire to dominate it.

Katie Orton’s solo exhibition ‘Botox Thoughts’ dismantles and rebuilds worlds to speculate on resistance, desire, and the power of narrative. The works confront the cognitive dissonance that exists between mimetic desire that supposes all of our desires are a mere imitation of another’s desire, and a belief in self-determination and agency.

Botox thoughts is a selection of large scale colouring-ins on paper and domestic objects. The exhibition examines autobiographical and ready-made myth. Snow White, white columns, white cube. Enlargements and copies fragment and interrogate narratives. Botox Thoughts. Should we freeze the face or the brain, why and says who. Orton speculates on free will and the need for community and the stories that sustain us.

Accompanying text by Dr Deborah Jackson, Head of Fine Art Critical Studies (FACS) at The Glasgow School of Art.

@soft.play

FRUIT, opens this Friday, 7—10pm at the @govanprojectspace. Trackie is looking forward to showing you what he’s been working on!

‘FRUIT is the second solo exhibition by Glaswegian artist Trackie McLeod. Shining a light on growing up in the West of Scotland in the early noughties, the show explores Trackie's lived experience from both inside and outside 'the closet'. Examining the unspoken queer rites of passage that shape your identity and the rituals and uniforms that queer teens adopted to fit into the status quo.’

“Queer people don't grow up as ourselves, we grow up playing a version of ourselves that sacrifices authenticity to minimise humiliation and prejudice. The massive task of our adult lives is to unpick which parts of ourselves are truly us and which parts we've created to protect us.”

Exhibition continues:
9/10th/16/17th November, 12—4pm
and Mon—Fri via appointment
govanprojectspace@gmail.com

Drinks provided by @tennentslager@damm_247
Music from @lionadhband @apieceofcabbage
Supported by @creativescot

249 Govan Rd
Glasgow
G51 1HJ

Neil Clements presents Tactical Scene.

September 21st to September 29th 2024

Preview Friday 20th September 5-8pm

Open Saturday and Sunday 12-5pm

Monday - Friday 10-3pm

We are very excited to invite you all to Josie KO’s first solo exhibition, Rainbows Are Portals Into Utopian Belongings at Govan Project Space

For this exhibition she will be showcasing new work, some of which will be in process, and will explore themes of world building, magical realism and rainbows 🌈 

The show opens 5-8pm on Friday  August 16th and will be a relaxed evening of art, music and Nigerian food. Please come and join us to celebrate and bring your friends and family.

The rainbow theme of the show will continue for the stage design that she is doing at this year’s @jupiterrising_fest on August 17th at Jupiter Art Land - be sure to check that out too.

On Tuesday the 19th Josie will be hosting a workshop for @exhale.group at Govan Project Space where they will be collectively investigating themes of creating our own imagined worlds.

We are really grateful to have Josie come and work with us - she is a force of nature ! A big thank you to @eeeeeemmamd for making the amazing poster and animation for this exhibition.

The show is not on for long, and August can be a very busy and chaotic time for people so if you can’t make it please don’t worry.

Opening Friday 16th August 5-8pm

Then -

Saturday 17th August 12-4pm

Sunday 18th August 12-4pm

Saturday 24th August 12-4pm

Sunday 25th August 12-4pm

Monday-Friday by appointment

This show is generously supported by;

The Henry Moore Foundation

Creative Scotland

We Are Here Scotland

The Hope Scott Trust

We really really hope you can make it to the opening of We All Love The Same Boy, an exhibition of new work by Emmie McLuskey and Matthew Arthur Williams

Opening - Thursday 18th July 5-8pm

Open  

Wednesday 24th to Friday 26th  9am-3pm

Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th 12pm-4pm

We All Love The Same Boy

a two person exhibition by

Emmie McLuskey & Matthew Arthur Williams

19th - 28th July 2024

Preview 18th July 2024 5-8pm

We All Love The Same Boy debuts new work in progress by Glasgow based artists Emmie McLuskey & Matthew Arthur Williams. The exhibition weaves together their distinct practices that frequently explore close collaboration with others, creating pieces that focus on friendship, community, process, sound and movement.

Taking the practice of image making as its focus, McLuskey and Williams present a series of approaches to recording and editing that centre embodiment and the choreographic as ways of opening up how we speak outside of words. Through sound, still and moving images we are guided by gestures that signal a series of intimate and felt relationships mediated through the lens of the camera. Working across a number of mediums the pair play with the apparatus as a means of carrying us through real time and decision making, prioritising one off, fleeting moments that are often overlooked. 

For the exhibition, Matthew has created eight black and white photographs that include three landscapes, three self-portraits and two portraits taken over the past year. Accompanying these images is a fragmented sound piece composed alongside classical musician Blaize Henry. The score, extracted from Matthew’s upcoming film Hello/Goodbye, draws influence from the work of composers Julius Eastman and Ryuichi Sakamoto, in order to reimagine a space of fragmented memory and lost desire. Matthew’s work often revisits sites of fractured archives that centre queer desire as a means of opening up memory as a muscle and roots that have been severed. 

Over the past year Emmie has worked with choreographer Janice Parker to lead and record movement sessions based on the alphabet with friends and colleagues in Glasgow. Focussing on discovery and each individual’s movement vocabularies as a means of exploring the meaning of each word, we are taken through a series of one off moments. As part of the project, Emmie worked with actor Petre Dobre to reinterpret the movements of the group into British Sign Language. The dual screen installation plays a selection of these movements in alphabetical order alongside Petre’s signs. The work will eventually become a children’s book titled The A - Z of Movement due to be published at the end of this year. The screens sit amongst a seating structure designed by Emmie and artist Malcolm MacKenzie in order to offer a space for viewers to sit, talk and view the works from multiple perspectives, with numerous possible configurations. Emmie and Malcolm often work together to explore alternative forms of education and community organising, working in wood being a large part of this work. 

The artists would like to thank Alex Allan, Matt Barnes, Robbie Batchelor, Liam Richardson,

Théophane Catelli from Govan Project Space. Carmen Berbel, Andrew Black, Siri Black, Alasdair Campbell, Kenny Christie, Martin Clark, Anne-Marie Copestake, Maria Di Lima, Safiya Dhanani, Petre Dobre, Bishop Mae Down, Catriona Duffy, Emma Hargreaves, Annie Hazelwood, Blaize Henry, Daniel Hughes, 

Hannan Jones, Rob Kennedy, Mason Leaver-Yap, Eoin MacKenzie, Malcolm MacKenzie, Colm McGuire, Robert McCourt, Lucy McEachen, Martin O’Connor, Kimberley O’Neill, Denis, Rachel and Ray O’Neill, 

Janice Parker, Jesse and Rudi Paul, Charlie Prodger, Mark Readhead, Maeve Redmond, Scott Rogers, 

Akash Sharma, Lea Shaw, Sebastian Taylor, Rachael and Lauren, the Thursday night drama group at Platform Easterhouse, CCA, Glasgow, Glasgow Print Studio, Street Level Photoworks,  Cove Park, Photoworks and Ampersand. 

This exhibition is supported by Creative Scotland.

Would you be worried if one of these Scottish people ceased to exist?

Charity Group Show at Govan Project Space 

Reception Saturday 8th June from 5 - 8PM

08.06.2024

Clockwise from Entrance:

Gallery Malmo and Matthew Barnes Edinburgh Airport Sign, 2024

Ella Wragg
Three Friends, Ho Chi Min City, 2024 Untitled (Ella from Hot Cam), 2024

Joel Kaplan
5 Billion Years, 2024

Joe Raffles Triton, 2024

Rhianna Turnbull Selfridges 7, 2024

Shoeman
The Undisputed King of Trainers, 2005 - 2024

Gregor Horne Untitled, 2024

Rhianna Turnbull Selfridges 8, 2024 Selfridges 9, 2024

Charlie Davenport
A sculpture that gets donated to a foodbank, 2024

Isabella Widger
Emily Crocodile, 2024

Keith Farquhar
Still House Plants, 2024

Matthew Barnes Large White, 2024

Moyna Flannigan
Untitled (Space Shuffle), 2024

Oscar Laughridge Door, 2024

Joanne Robertson Coast, 2018

Victoria Smith Injuring Eternity, 2024 Killing Time, 2024

Nick Jusi Untitled, 2024

Roisin Rowe
Making Your Own Life, 2024

Keith MacIsaac Untitled, 2024

Theo Christy
Free the Innovator, 2024

Scott Rogers
Fixed Assets 01 (Rat Trough), 2022 - 2024

Joel Kaplan
Somewhat Overgrown, 2024

Ben Maxwell
Secondary Revision, 2024

Matthew Pang
Terminal Transfer, 2023

A Scallop Shell of Quiet

From his Lancaster Bomber, crashing into the English Channel, Squadron Leader Peter D. Carter speaks warmly to June, the radio operator, knowing that she might be the last person to hear him alive.

“Oh give me my scallop shell of quiet,

 My staff of faith to walk upon,

My scrip of joy, immortal diet,

My bottle of salvation,

My gown of glory, hopes true gage

And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.” (1)

Peter, like Raleigh in 1618 ponders his fate and the comfort a scallop shell will offer. Dating back to the Miocene and made famous by Botticelli’s Venus in 1485, before that the Celts used them to symbolise the setting sun and 5000 years ago the Egyptians adorned themselves and their funerary in amulets and ornaments of these shells, warding off evil and protecting from harm.

Pat O’Connor’s exhibition at Govan Project Space is a reflection on pilgrimage, on life and on death. It is a post-modern vessel containing the relics of lost lives - a holding room to heaven. 

Pat O’Connor has previously exhibited at Shopwork Uncertain Objects 2024, The Scottish Poetry Library, The Page You’re Looking For Doesn’t Exist 2023, 79 Wardour Street, Painting with Light 2023, Sid Motion Gallery Internal Weather 2022, Walker Art Centre John Moore’s Painting Prize 2021, Govan Project Space Next Top Model 2019, Sid Motion Gallery Imagined Characters 2018, Govan Project Space Lived on the Bone 2018, Arcade Paw 2015, The Dentist Night of the Big Tops 2014, Aldeburgh Beach South Lookout Project, Lookalikes and Meteorites 2012, Herbert Read Gallery Picture/Tableau/Screen 2012, Studio Voltaire SV12 Members Show 2012, and Walker Art Gallery John Moore’s Painting Prize 2012.

4th – 12th May 2024

Opening times:

Saturday 4th May 12-4pm
Sunday 5th May 12-4pm
Monday 6th - Friday 10th by appointment
Saturday 11th May 12-4pm

Sunday 12th May 12-4pm

Govan Project Space, 249 Govan Road, Glasgow G51 1HJ 

(1) Words attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh; the scene, reproduced in the Powell/Pressburger film, ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ 1946.

Hot Sausage and Mustard.

Food, glorious food, HOT SAUSAGE AND MUSTARD, is a line from Oliver! - Lionel Bart’s 1968 adaptation of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. When sung it should conjure up the joyous release from a grim world of workhouse slop. Analogous to now, we ask, is it such a time that we live in where we must question the food brought to the table of our children, the sick and the elderly by the institutions, and their corporate backers, that supposedly represent us? It is Dickensian, to say the least, when you see what gets served to those in need of nutrition.

So, in response to that, here we have an exhibition by four artists and one artist duo. There was little input from our side except the title and the subject matter - food. Most have created new work and or further developed things already in the pipeline, but together it is a group of works that investigates our current relationship with the stuff that we consume on a daily basis. Food (and drink) is everywhere, it is omnipresent, it is good for us, it is bad for us - when made with love it can nourish us BUT it can also seemingly kill us. A perfect subject for art making.

The work on the menu for the evening is as unsurprisingly diverse as the subject itself. For example Liquid Death (2023) by Durty Beanz shows their continuous examining of the ever-shifting set of relationships between identity and consumption, both digital and nutritional. Liquid Death (2023) consists in the provision of the exhibition's drinking water, which they arranged for American drinks company Liquid Death to provide gratis. The choice of a corporate sponsor that markets itself as ‘the energy drink of the water world’, and is known for carefully manicured 'anti-marketing, anti-capitalist' marketing strategies corroborates with Durty Beans broader interest in the slimy terrain of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), influencer marketing and culture washing. In complete contrast, Farm Shop (2023) operates as a conspicuously non-digital artistic gesture. The painting dismisses still-life in favour of depicting a grotesquely enlarged advertising flyer from the frozen food supermarket 'Farmfoods'. The painting's wobbly act of enlargement operates as a humanising process of capture, slowing down this most familiar and frenetic of objects to a virtual standstill, allowing us to see it (and all its chattering words, shapes and smells) afresh. And now here it stands, ridiculous and naked. Revealing ideas around generational isolation, budget-conscious marketing and (in this context) cultural snobbery. Durty Beanz have recently completed a six month residency at The Maltings in North Berwick with Newcastle University.

Joel T Davidson approaches the subject with a little more phantasmagoria. Umbrellas (2023) is an eruption of figuration from within the mundane ready-made. Body parts bound by sustenance emerge as if by surprise from slender steel necks of the windswept brollies. A big toe riddled with gout and encapsulated by a cabbage leaf lurches skyward whilst its neighboring umbrella sprouts a sausage roll with a pink sweaty arse-brained protuberance - the stuff halloween couldn’t dream of. If your head isn’t spinning yet, it should be now. Joel most recently showed at SETT studios in Edinburgh with Chris Coatham.

Amy Kim Grogan’s slinky wet look silicone links cascade from up in the rafters, clinging to each other as they perform a slow and ill fated olympic high dive from their silvery steel captor toward a frothy looking precast bun. Some hot sausages indeed. Grogan’s work exudes absurdity by juxtaposing often oversized objects with multiples, and these dangling dinner plate natives are no stranger to that. Some say it’s best not to know how the sausage is made, in this case we tend to agree, as we feel a degree of magic is necessary to lift the dish. Her subject matter often comes from a fundamental interest or discomfort in the original object itself, something we all know from picking out our own favourites at the bakery. Amy has most recently worked with Inverclyde Collective in Greenock and has an upcoming solo show at The Birley in Preston.

Ieva Grigelonyte offers a work of tasting magic, here the humble mustard seed is elevated to pole position. During the show Ieva will be offering pretzel ice-cream with a variety of mustard condiments for guests to try, as well as some other small mustard bites. It is often seen as a small offering considering the power of the mustard seed. Mustard benefits from its ability to span various flavor profiles and complement different cuisines. Somehow, it feels like its place is always on the back seat and it rarely gets to run the show. However it will always let you know it's there, sometimes subtly, sometimes not so. Ieva is intrigued by the meal as a complete social phenomenon linking nature, culture and the human body. She has sourced flavour ideas from as unlikely places as the mouth of the Clyde River and the library at Hospitalfield. Ieva recently presented a tasting performance at Galoshans festival in Inverclyde.

Isobel Neviazskys painting lifts the spirits. Youris (Deanston Bakery) loaf is recast into the elegant beast it truly is, the acrylic paint is applied in transformative fashion, fast and with intent. The result of the painting Bread (2020) is delicious. In 3 Eggs (2023), the eggs are iridescent, yellowy, pale and ominous - rowed up on a plush purple surface as rich in depth as the glistening yolk of an unopened egg itself. Neviazskys work speaks of the everyday, of the repetition and of the relationship built with the humblest of ingredients, the egg. As described in intimate detail in the handout, it is the shire horse of almost every meal - an invaluable foot soldier on the front line of seemingly never ending familial hunger. If it isn't being eyed by a watchful child, in Dippy Egg (2023), during its dippification, it is flanking its closest neighbour, Bread (2020), surrounding it both broken and whole, waiting quietly for its time to ooze out of its shell and shine. There is a joy to this work, and work to the joy that is food. Both are self-evident in abundance here, two things which when in balance create the conditions for the tastiest of meals. Isobel has exhibited at Lunchtime Gallery (solo) and most recently as part of The Prestwick Collective.

On that note, we hope that you have enjoyed this presentation from all the artists and their array of culinary expertise. See you in spring 2024 !! Thanks for taking the time to visit us in the cold.

GPS

XX

Govan Project Space is pleased to present Cinnamon Shops, a solo exhibition of new works by Magda Blasinska.

Constructed around the theme of wheat, the exhibition focuses on sensory world building where sight, touch, smell and taste are triggered through the cross-pollinating languages of wheat sculpture and intimately-scaled paintings.

The exhibition title references Bruno Schultz's interlaced collection of short stories, which share the sensory world building focus and magical realism aspects with Blasinska’s work.

The work presented in the exhibition draws from the fragmented memories of the artist’s post - Soviet upbringing in rural Poland and her day to day experience of living in the UK. In response to this, the artist continues to employ a level of a practical and conceptual rigour, which relates to limited approaches and humble use of materials. Here, the insubstantial wheat reed sits in a dialogue with deceptively textured and notoriously thin paintings.

Cinnamon Shops exhibition aims to find meaning and wonder in basic, mundane experiences. It proposes to reframe limitations and look at them as an invisible tool, and alternative to overwhelming choices in consumer driven culture.

The exhibition is an outcome of the artist's experiences of working with Master Thatchers in Devon and learning the secrets of corn dolly weaving from third generation straw weavers in Poland, followed by a two week residency at Govan Project Space.

This activity has been funded by Arts Council England Awards Scheme.

Magda Blasinska is a Polish - British artist who lives and works in London. Blasinska holds an MA Degree in Painting from Royal College of Art (2018) and BA(Hons) Degree in Drawing and Painting from Edinburgh College or Art (2009).

Selected shows include: Summer Exhibition RA, London (2023); Generator Bobinska Brownlee New River Gallery, London (2023); Close Corners Hilbertraum, Berlin (2023); Stand with Ukraine Hales Gallery, London (2022); Postcards from the Edge of the World Visual Aids, New York (2021); Young Talent Contemporary: Ingram Prize, London (2019), Traverse Smith Award, London (2019); A Century of Polish Artists in Britain Ben Uri Museum, London, 2017; Here/Now. Polish Contemporary Art in Scotland, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (2012)

She is a recent recipient of DYCP Arts Council England Award, and a winner of 2010 Lynda Clarke Nolan RSA:New Contemporaries Landscape Painting Prize at the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh

Sculpture and Environmental Art 4th Year students from Glasgow School of Art came together to curate, install, critique and exhibit two shows ‘Mish-Mash’ at Govan Project Space. Across the shows there was sculpture, installation, video work, performance, durational sound work and interactive pieces.

List of artists exhibiting:

Ciaran Cannon

Katie Curry

Rosa Gally

Lily Garget

Qianrun Ge

Matilda Glancy

Kitty Glover

Ellie Hamilton

Katie Hogg

Otis Jordan

Taeeun Kim

Rhona Martin

Iona McGeachie

Sophie Minervini

Abbi Plancey

Angus Rushin

Jemma Shearer

Coire Simpson

Kate Wilson Hilferty

Lily Krempel

Chiara Mancini

Hyunsun Yeom

Ruby Allen

Joseph Weisberg

Zane Drees

Maeve Corrigan

Auriele Chan Hon Sen

Amber Jones

Florence Peters

Joseph Strang

Amy Strzoda

Duncan Colquhoun

Maia Leung

Cydney Lovett Downey

Billie Turnbull

Chiara Van Den Hoven

Qingyang Cui

Rachel Watson

Alfie Keenan

Laurie Carter

Amy Brandon

Lorna Kerr

Cliimate Emergency Services

Mike Stubbs worked with customised vehicles before he went to art school. His understanding of the emotional levers available to the motor industry is well developed. In respect to Climate Emergency Services, his emotional understanding underpins his response to the motor industry, in light of Extinction Rebellion and other manifestations of social concern. How can we improve behaviour whilst stimulating debate and action ?

Climate Emergency Services is a mobile public art work commissioned for Folkestone Trienalle, by Creative Folkestone and presented in Glasgow by Govan Project Space.

Climate Emergency Services is a ‘conflicted’ vehicle and artwork, aiming to evoke and challenge our love / hate relationship with motor vehicles in a period becoming characterised by our increasing fear of climate change. The conflicted quality of the artwork’s message is condensed into the contract between the exterior and interior of the vehicle.

Outside, the bodywork references the high temperature culture of car modification for ‘high performance’ and the linkage between the conspicuous consumption of oil and ‘the apocalyptic’. Inside, the cabin is designed to evoke a science laboratory that might be plotting the environmental indicators triggered by climate change, and a place of cool optimism in which the thinking needed to survive that climate change can be pursued.

Climate Emergency Services transcends its status as mobile artwork to become a 'mobile place’ that can act as the focus for outdoor workshops, and assist in visits to schools and events or festivals.

O V E R L A Y

The exhibition STEP was created as a response to the often challenging access for buildings and venues that we love, by using inventive research based on the simple structure of a step and how it both limits and provides access, exercising an overlay of the temporary solutions we often see when adapting old buildings for public use. It considers how we might get to them, both physically and conceptually.

Three new works are shown; STEP itself is a modular work cast from pigmented concrete covering 20 square metres, sited at Govan Graving Docks. The location situates you at the edge of Glasgow city centre, which is visible to the east looking across the vast and vacant contested space that itself is weighed down by the demands of heritage, the restrictions of civic funds and the need for restoration and development. The piece is based on imaginary and unfeasible overlay ramps for two of the buildings originally surveyed - Civic House (built 1920’s) and The Royal Faculty of Procurators building (built 1850’s). The concrete access ramps combined act as a visualisation of something awkward and cumbersome that is the standard response where steps make an entrance inaccessible; broken up, they create a place to commune and begin a much needed discussion about new ways for everyone to access their city.

The works in the gallery are made in response to the borderline absurd idea, due to the number of steps, of producing a ramp for the low level Queens Park railway station, a place which is also home to the cherished arts space Queens Park Railway Club. Like many older railway stations in Scotland including most of the Glasgow subway system, Queens Park was built with many stairs and no lifts. Our ambitious Victorian infrastructure, designed by ambitious Victorian men, yet again catching out every pram, limp, stick or wheel that approaches it.

This ambitious new work not only challenges our built environment and its effect on those marginalised by it’s incoherent nature but it also questions the role that temporary large scale public art has in addressing civic issues, without the work itself becoming a burden after the event.

A B O U T

The project was conceived, fabricated and exhibited in Govan by an artist whose practice displays great care and respect for their community and its inherent strengths. The work also prototypes a new model for commissioning public art work with Sculpture Placement Group bringing on board SWG3 as a supporter and receiver of the piece long term, helping to ensure it continues to function as a place for dialogue long after GI2021. STEP enters the canon of successful Clydeside artworks including The Four Cities Project by Stuart Brisley in 1990 and the soon to be conserved Floating Head by Richard Groom exhibited at the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival.

____________________________________________________________

S T E P - T O Symposium

17/ 06/ 2021

2pm - 4pm via Zoom

5:30pm - 7:30pm on location at Govan Graving Docks.

Online

With speakers Becca Thomas, Creative Director and Architect of New Practice, Nicola Walls, Head of Arts and Culture at Page \ Park Architects, and Fran Thorpe, a founder member of Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative, one of the first architectural organisations to bring a feminist perspective to architecture and the design of the built environment. Chaired by Moira Jeffrey.

On Location

Following the online discussion there is an optional tour of the artworks with the artist, we will then walk over to the gallery at GPS to view the exhibition.

The walk between venues is 15 minutes on level pavement; we are happy to provide transport between venues if required.

Events are free, bookable individually or in combination.

Booking and further information via eventbrite:

Online: https://stepto-online.eventbrite.co.uk

On Location: https://stepto-onlocation.eventbrite.co.uk

If you have specific access requirements please contact GPS or email: jdonachie.projects@gmail.com

Thanks to Glasgow City Heritage Trust in particular for support with this.

Exhibition - Govan Project Space, 249 Govan Road, G51 1HJ

Public work - Govan Graving Docks, entrance on Stag Street, G51 2PA

Opening Times

Thursday 10th June 12-8pm

11th June - 27th 12-6pm

Booking is not necessary but queueing may be if we are busy.

COVID compliance

Please sign in on arrival for track and trace and wear a mask at all times when inside the exhibition. Hand sanitiser will be available.

Navigation

Govan Project Space is a 5 minute walk from the science centre, 20 minutes from Finnieston, 35 minutes from the city centre and 10 minutes from Ibrox subway. The Graving docks are a further 10 minutes walk from GPS. Both venues are step free with accessible toilets at the exhibition and free parking available at both sites.

Thanks to all our supporters - Creative Scotland, Glasgow City Heritage Trust, Glasgow the Caring City, Sculpture Placement Group, SWG3, Glasgow International and Glasgow Beer Works

The gallery encompasses a mystical environment in which Tamara will perform a durational meditation on intimacy throughout the period of the pandemic. A deep sensory experience is guaranteed!!

Opening Friday 30th April 6-8pm and then Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd of May 12-4pm 2021

In 1938, in a pamphlet entitled ‘Earliest Glasgow’, amateur archaeologist Ludovic McLellan Mann stated that Glasgow did not mean ‘green place’ as is commonly thought, but that the city was named after an ancient moon deity. Ludovic believed that among the first tenants of this land were the priests —and perhaps, as this exhibition suggests, also the priestesses— of the lunar temple, from which the present city originated.

The Moon City, curated by Gwen Dupré, shows the work of artist and writer Kiah Endelman Music, sculptor Jack Handscombe, artist and illustrator Lewanna Mountain, sculptor Jordan Munro and writer Olivia Scott Berry.

A mixture of text, painting, and sculpture, the work considers the relationship between the natural world and cultural rituals, prehistoric art, paganism, and the occult. With a focus on personal mystical experiences and the various iterations of esoterica that follow therein, the exhibition engages with alternative conceptions of the urban landscape of Glasgow. The idea of the lunar temple touches also upon the supernatural portions of life which exist outwith the city, while the show as a whole echoes Ludovic Mann‘s unorthodox approach to the unearthing of these realities.

Bios -

Gwen Dupré is an artist, writer and researcher based in Glasgow. She completed a masters in the philosophy of religion at the University of Cambridge in 2019. Her recent work focuses on eco-theology and the occult, and the concept of the void, particularly in the work of Simone Weil.

Kiah Endelman Music is an artist and writer based in Glasgow, who works within a performative practice of writing which attempts to find an elusive history of sensation in the spaces between art and writing, matter and thought, between bodies and the spaces they inhabit.

Jack Handscombe studied sculpture at Edinburgh College of Art before moving to South Tyrol, Italy, where he is currently studying marble carving. Jack’s work draws parallels between natural and cultural processes of construction and adornment, placing humans in architectural lineage that started in nature with the mollusc. Jack's current studies in stone carving are an endeavour to better understand material sympathies between shells and stones, alongside the processes that shape these materials.

Lewanna Mountain is a freelance artist/illustrator. Particularly fond of working with black ink in a bold graphic style with a strong emphasis on symbol she designs tattoos for Francoise Tattoo and has illustrated characters for Stone/Spark games studio.

The works in this exhibition are a result of her time spent mining the trenches of mythopoetic symbolism. Not adverse to a bit of art theft in pursuit of mythical thought, Lewanna explores the archetypal mind down through the ages.

Jordan Munro is a sculptor based in Glasgow. Jordan works across various forms including object fabrication, installation and video. His work focuses on materiality; questioning notions of cultural value, relevance and currency within contemporary culture. Jordan graduated from the Sculpture department at Edinburgh College of Art in 2015 and was artist in residence at Studio Pavilion, House for an Art Lover from 2017 to 2018.

Olivia Scott Berry is a writer from South East London. She studied English Literature at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she began experimenting with collagic approaches to themes of gender and ecology in various formats, including poetry and essays. Her work has appeared in Pilot Press’s A Queer Anthology of Rage and online at MAP Magazine. She is currently working on her first long piece of prose.

September 18th 2020

Johnson’s intricate and expansive oeuvre covers delicate pen drawings, detailed etchings and goes on through to more expressive mixed media and painting on board. He leaves no stone un-turned in search of the perfect form for his expression. Through an intuitive exploration of form, colour and texture his work reflects upon on a library of field recordings, notes and drawings gathered over the past 12 months from in and around Glasgow. These have been collated into sound montages and sketchbooks, providing a framework from which to base a series of mixed media collages, paintings, steel plate etchings and aquatints as part of this show.

Paper dyeing, paint-pouring and collage techniques are experimented with to incorporate a sense of chance into each piece. The suggestion of a narrative is presented through abstract interpretations of everyday observations - themes around community, storytelling and memory are present throughout the work and often metamorphose into new and exhilarating landscapes populated by allegorical scenes of symbols, shapes and mystical forms which we can choose to decipher or simply immerse ourselves in. It is both playful and carefully considered work, underpinned by an expressive visual language and a willingness to push the boundaries of the mediums in which the artist works.

Jamie Johnson is a Glasgow based artist who works across painting, mixed media, printmaking and video. His work investigates and communicates observations made from the real intertwined with the imaginary by creating an autonomous and highly unique visual language incorporating rapidly developing motifs and intuitive mark making techniques across a wide variety narratives, forms and processes.

Recent exhibitions include Crocodile Tears (2019) Morgan Fine Arts Centre (New York City) and solo exhibitions at Chopping Block (London) and SWG3 Gallery (Glasgow). He has exhibited in the Royal Scottish Academy and the Edinburgh City Art Centre, where he was awarded the Purcell Paper Prize and the Nancy Graham Artist Book Prize by the Society of Scottish Artists. His work is held in the permanent collections of the University of Dundee & Creative Scotland.

Under an Uneven Moon is the continuation of an ongoing dialogue between the two artists which
began in 2015 when they met on exchange at the Hungarian University of Fine Art in Budapest. The
exhibition shows a shared love for experimental process-led making, materiality and form. With a
dedication rooted in their craft this installation is a celebration of the pleasure and creativity found
whilst making.
Freya Edwards graduated from BA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art in 2017. Her practice primarily
comprises of work in ceramics and glass, with recent works exploring the sculptural qualities of glaze.
The work examines the tension between structure and surface decoration, which has been pushed to
its limits in the form of gelatinous, erupting glaze. Edwards currently lives and works in London (UK).
Lizzie Urquhart graduated from BA Hons Painting and Printmaking at Glasgow School of Art in 2017.
Working primarily in print, Urquhart manipulates personal photographic images through the medium
of collage in order to cryptically document her environment and experiences. Through a continuous
cycle of making, reflecting and remaking, she creates playful, dynamic print-based installations.
Urquhart currently lives and works in Glasgow (UK).
Both recent graduates, Edwards & Urquhart have exhibited extensively, with shows in Bangor (2018),
Northern Ireland (2018), London (2018) and Budapest (2016).

Thursday 12th March: 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Friday 13th March: 12pm - 4pm
Saturday 14th March: 12pm - 4pm
Sunday 15th March: 12pm - 4pm

Govan Project Space
249 Govan Road, G51 1HJ

Govan Project Space are pleased to present Circular Holding Pattern an exhibition of new videos, sculptures and banners by Beagles & Ramsay.

Office furniture, grommets, wool blend fabric, silkscreen, heat transfer, vinyl, lanyards, digital animations, resin teeth, brooms, mops, steel, jesmonite, cast concrete, acrylic, cable covers. Beagles & Ramsay have, worked steadily to reactively manage consumer expectations since 1996.

www.beaglesramsay.co.uk @beaglesramsay

OPENING FRIDAY 11 OCTOBER 6 - 9PM

EXHIBITION 12th - 30th OCTOBER

Thurs - Sunday 12 - 4pm (or by appointment)

Govan Project Space

249 Govan Road

GLASGOW G51 1HU

Opening 1st August 6pm - 8pm

Continues 2nd-3rd Aug, 8th-10th Aug 12 - 4pm or by appointment

Govan Project Space are excited to present Mixed Nuts, the latest work by Edinburgh-based artist John Brown. Brown uses a wide range of sources, methods and formats to make large and complex installations that place small multiple incidences and objects against a backdrop of the epic to create new narratives. At the core of all of his work is an obsession with drawing and painting. These intensive processes are born from an intimate and compulsive attention to detail that allows him to deal with his major concern, the heart-breaking amount of imagery that the world contains at this point in time and how it may fit together. 

In Mixed Nuts Brown utilises the space at GPS to create one of his largest installations to date, incorporating drawings and images painted on shaped cardboard box pieces. The works, numbering in the thousands, flood the floor.  Painted reactions and representations of the current and historic, serious and comic, real and unreal all unified by a monochrome palette and consistent scale.

Albeit created individually and seemingly endless in their context, the 2D and 3D pieces come together in a physical heap, removing the common gallery gaze and polite curation. They appear to be strewn on the floor with no top or bottom or singular point of focus, the viewer is forced to engage with the whole seething mound. They must then physically navigate the work which leaves them predisposed to decipher the physical layers and individual visual elements within.

John Brown is a lecturer at Edinburgh College of Art. He has taught in art colleges around the world, including Kansas State University (USA), Kyoto Seika (Japan) and SMFA Boston (USA). He has exhibited internationally with shows in Boston and Nashville (USA) and MOK Gallery in Poland.

“I see a directness ‘dance’ across every surface. I do not only see the drawings, I experience them bodily too, at times fluid and running in a kind of loop, where the first and last actions feed one another in spatially fragmented choreographies.”

Lauren Printy Currie

Govan Project Space (GPS) are delighted to present the first collaborative exhibition 'Two-Step' by Beth Shapeero and Fraser Taylor. The site-responsive installation consists of a 32ft x 16ft grid of recent mono-screen-prints composed on a purpose built leaning wall. The structure and grid echo their process and approach: dynamic, bold and dependent on the unanticipated. It challenges the scale of the gallery and building as well as painting and printmaking which is often domestically scaled. The collaboratively produced prints are collectively visually impactful and an assault on the senses.

Shapeero and Taylor began their collaboration while in residence at the Studio Pavilion at House for an Art Lover in 2017. Immediately noticing their shared use of abstract form and line, they have since developed an improvised and playful approach to screen printing, a method of creation that explores (through practice) their interests in distinctions between visual art and design. 

Together they make an unlikely pair. Shapeero is from Nottingham and has lived and working in Glasgow since 2011. Taylor, originally from Glasgow has spent a significant part of his career working in Chicago where he was a faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. They are an energetic team with a rigorous and divers work ethic. Beth graduated her BA in Fine Art (Hons) at Nottingham Trent University in 2008 before relocating to Glasgow for the 

M. Litt in Fine Art Practice in 2011. Fraser graduated from GSA in 1981 with a BA in Printed Textiles and an MA in 1983 from the RCA in London. He returned to live and work in Glasgow in 2017. 

“The things Shapeero and Taylor produce seems to present a final condition that is somewhat accidental, yet is also precisely determined, by the velocity of their relationship with both each other and the printing press.” 

Simon Buckley

25th April - 18th May 2019

'Terminal' is the latest exhibition from Kate V Robertson. Building on previous large scale  installations, Robertson uses the gallery to mark out a space where materiality acts as imagination; where the persuasive power of perception dances with the representational systems of contemporary culture.

‘Drawing is just taking a line for a walk’ - Paul Klee

Seeing a return to visual art after a longstanding period of working in music and audio cut short due to hearing loss, Christopher Bryant’s first solo presentation returns to the basics of what it means to make a mark. Mimicking processes and production methods akin to that in his music production practice, the artist expands on the simple act of making the first note, or in this instance, drawing a line. A starting point. Guided by nothing more than an instinct to build on the initial mark and by incorporating both analogue and digital processes, the artist, acting simply as producer and mixer, allows these procedures to drive and direct the work to their final composition.

The exhibition will present the first showing of large scale works on engineered board alongside a series of sculptural works produced exclusively for the show. The artist has most recently shown with Generator Projects in Dundee (2011) and Yale School of Art in Connecticut, USA (2008).

OPENING - Thursday 14th March 6-9pm

Then 16th & 17th, 23rd & 24th of March 12-4pm or by appointment until April 3rd.

Running in tandem with our programmed exhibitions, GPS will also include a number of additional

shows by opening the space up to students and academic programmes. The intention with these

shows is to provide a space and platform to allow younger artists to engage with and build shows

externally from the academic environment and studio confines.

Third Year Sculpture and Environmental Art form Glasgow School of Art will be installing a range of

exciting new work at Govan Project Space in March. This group exhibition constitutes one of three

projects underway this year enabling students to develop ideas in a variety of new contexts.

Alongside work installed at Govan Project Space, additional artwork will be exhibited at the Studio

Pavilion and Shed Spaces in Bellahouston Park, and situated outdoors at Lang Craigs in

partnership with The Woodland Trust. These opportunities play a valuable role in challenging

emerging artists to develop ideas in relation to new audiences. For some it will be the first time

they have exhibited work publicly. In doing so, fundamental questions get asked concerning what

art is, who it’s for and whether it has any meaning or agency beyond the artist.

'Next Top Model.'

The concept  began as an idea for a 3D group show, perhaps a salon hang of sculptures.  The plinth top dimensions become a unifying device, the rest has been left up to the artists  proclivity for making objects. It could be seen as a brief survey of a few practicing contemporary artists with a connection to Glasgow or the greater Scotland.  A common thread running between them being that they are people whom we have met along the way so far. People who have encouraged us,  supported us, shown up from time to time or simply shown a similar mindset in their own approach to making things.

Next Top Model presents a chance to test something new, or dust off a favoured relic for re-examination and we hope in turn this will provide a forum for discussion and dissection, peer to peer and public to artist.

GPS

By appointment until February 10th 2019

For BALK Lars Karl Becker and Simon Buckley have developed a combination of individual contributions exploring the boundaries between sculpture, writing and obliteration. The works on show turn to a shared practice that renders their respective means uncomfortably visible. In an uncompromising approach you are invited to feel the skeletal presence of abandoned visual languages; the spooky echoes of an opaque conceptual framework that encompasses the history of Western art and our notion of culture itself.

Buckley presents three inkjet prints on archival paper. ’STOOGE’ (2018) depicts a series of cross-section drawings from a children’s book of castles. Onto the prints are placed business cards from personal trainers. The crude combinations invite reflection into notions of self-definition and authorial authority.

Becker’s sculptural video work ’How Do You Spell Capitalism?’ (2018) hovers through the exhibition space. The work juxtaposes footage of cultural management against televisual documentary narration. The installation poses questions towards history being a human construct, problematising our authoritarian sense of being here now.

Opening Friday 7th December 7-9pm - all welcome!

Then 8th/9th & 15/16th December 11am-4pm or by appointment until January 27th 2019.

govanprojectspace@gmail.com

The exhibition is being produced with the kind support of Goethe Institut Glasgow.

During September 2019 GPS co-founder Alex Allan completed four shows in four weeks at GPS. Each exhibition was comprised of new work, broken down into four disciplines from his studio, drawing, painting, sculpture and performance.

In August 2018 we presented a research-based project 'The Land + The People' by Gwen Dupre and Jamie Maule.

This event was an inclusive day of discussions and workshops focused around the Pollok Free State and the subsequent incarnation into Galgael Trust. The day concluded with a screening of the film 'Given to the People' by Simon Yuill followed by an informal Q & A with the artist.

Associated links:

Simons Yuill’s film is available in full below;

http://www.giventothepeople.org

An essay by Olivia Scott-Berry in response to The Land + The People;

https://mapmagazine.co.uk/survival-kit

Galgael’s website;

https://www.galgael.org

For Glasgow International 2018 Jonny Lyons and Matthew Barnes presented We Disappear. An immersive photographic odyssey, allowing the viewer to question the still image and its relationship to our physical presence in the landscape of Glasgow.

The show confronts the idea that people are disappearing from the landscape in favour of cars, public transport and home entertainment. We still, however, have a place – in public space, in both rural and built environments. An atmospheric, visual and physical feast inspired by the people and the vistas of the city.

OWEN NORMAND

Expansive vistas and close studies painted by Owen Normand in London and Italy are filled with colour and light, born from looking and seeing. His subject is the familiar and the intimate, shown with a distance that allows clarity. Particular faces, bodies and places reveal themselves directly, allowing us time to inspect the subtleties of the painted surface.

PAT O’CONNOR

The Metaphysical Solipsist, Lady Godiva and the Peep Show

I saw a robin in Sainsbury’s yesterday

I thought it was a bat at first

Look at yourselves!

A robin!

Look harder 

Can’t you see it?

It started in 1435 with Leon Battista Alberti.

He was responsible for the first mechanism

Then later in Syria in 1742, the Sanduk al-ajayib.

And Lady Godiva and the tailor?

In 1046. 

Still can’t see it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrWT_3s_Cp0

Owen Normand trained at Edinburgh College of Art. He was winner of the BP Portrait Young Artist Award in 2013. He has had solo exhibitions in Lisbon (2014), Kulmbach (2015) and Berlin (2017), and has exhibited in group shows in London, New York, Berlin and Edinburgh. His work is held in private collections worldwide.

Owen lives and works in Edinburgh.

Pat O’Connor graduated from Royal College of Art London in 1996. Recent projects include Zennor Project Space Residency, Cornwall 2017, Paw, Arcade, London 2015 and Night of the Big Tops, The Dentist, London 2014. She won the Studio Voltaire, Aldeburgh Beach Lookout Residency Prize and was selected for the John Moore’s Painting Prize 2012. She has previously collaborated with the design team HIT on ‘Fast Women and Slow Horses’ for Publish & be Damned 2009.

Pat O’Connor lives and works in London.

Babylon’s Burning, December 2017

A show by Stephen Murray and the pattern makers.

The title of the show and the nature of the collaboration and exchange within the project are at odds. The west in a time of plenty appears to be going through a period of anxious upheaval. Strange characters take charge. The truth is fed through a slippery arena of spin, algorithms and reaction.

A less slippery system takes place in this show, hopefully a more positive and democratic exchange.

Babylon’s Burning is the title of The Rut’s single from 1979.

When the opportunity to have a show at GPS came about I hadn’t ‘made’ any of my own work for a number of years but this didn’t mean I hadn’t been making. I make things every week in one form or another; fabrication; instruction; collaboration or direct employment. The labour exchange often involves other forms of exchange; conversations about the work; life; humor and reflection. I see the two as intertwined.

This leads to the question of ownership, which leads to the objects or ‘patterns’ in the show. They come from people I work with. A pattern in casting is the original positive from which a mould is built around. From this the object is cast in new material. By giving me a pattern, from which I made a new object for the show, and then my returning of the pattern to the pattern maker there is a simple reciprocal exchange.

Stephen Murray and the pattern makers looks to explore the relationship between the makers and the makers. The nature of production and how this affects the decision making process and the physical manifestation of the made object as a piece of sculpture.

Thomas Aitchison - Folded canvas

Alex Allan - Bananas

Matthew Barnes - Coke

Rucky Chen - Bent femur

Uist Corrigan - Witch face

Cornelius Dupré - Carved gourd

Graham Fagen - Prototype venice mask

Szabolcs Fricska - Cows tongue / meat hook

Sara Gallie - Prosecco cork

Guilia Gentili - Driftwood

Kenny Hunter - Copulating crab & potato

Virginia Hutchison - Mothers strap

Eden Jolly - Burden of woman

Sarah Laing - Paper conservation weight

Colin Lindsey - Rosefield Street, Dundee

Dwayne Little - Corned beef key

Ross Fraser McLean - Santa muerte / mask

Jane Murray - Porcelain dog

Stephen Murray

Jason Nelson - Come and see (4 horsemen)

Alan Ramsay - Burns carved beard

Colin Ross - Spatial carving

Euan Taylor - Sierra

Sarah Tripp - Antique rattle

Crane & Gable, Govan Project Spaces’ inaugural show in October 2017 saw Matthew Barnes’ first solo show since graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2008. A physical and photographic journey through the landscapes and conurbations of two comparing and contrasting cities, Glasgow and London. Large scale wall prints and smaller more delicate sculptural and printed works balance within in the space to provide a duality that photographs on their own often don’t.

This body of work was the response to a recent period of time spent by the artist in China. A return to the hand of the maker and an examination of work ethic and process within ones own parameters. Plasticine, colouring pens and melted wax crayons, seemingly cheap and readily available materials are used to kaleidoscopic effect. Dupre offers us slices of marbled plasticine flesh and skin dribbled with coloured wax causing us to reflect on the function and relationship of surface and image in today’s media lead society. The open studios of Cornelius Dupre planted the seed for the possibility of a future project space.