Award-winning visual artist Audrey Grant has been appointed as the University of Stirling’s latest Artist-in-Residence.
A native of Grangemouth now living in Edinburgh, Audrey’s drawing, photography and site-specific installation work is underpinned by intellectual ideas derived from, and inspired by, poetry, literature and philosophy.
Joining the University of Stirling for the academic year 2023/24, Audrey will be working closely with the University’s Art Collection and colleagues from across the institution to explore the ancient Airthrey Estate near Bridge of Allan, where the University is located. Continue reading here
I’m delighted to have been appointed Artist-in-Residence for 2023-2024 at the University of Stirling based within the Art Collection Department. I will be researching the rich landscape of the ancient Airthrey Estate, where the University is located and working towards an exhibition including site specific works in 2024.
For more information about the Residency visit the University of Stirling website here
Pleased to have been awarded the &gallery prize at the Society of Scottish Artists 130th Annual Exhibition in the Upper Galleries of the Royal Scottish Academy. Looking forward to exhibiting with the gallery in the near future.
Artist Blog from Arcadia Sculpture Centre October Residency 20
17/10/22 – MONDAY
I arrived, accompanied by my partner to Arcadia Sculpture Centre, near Drymen, the old Drumbeg Farm. Unloaded, unpacked and settled into our cabin in the woods.
I have come here with some ideas – the poems about autumn by Rainer Maria Rilke and inspired by lines from the poem Autumn Day – to build a woodland shelter. Something I have never done before but I want to leave something here in this golden landscape from nature, and that would return to nature.
RSA Lower Galleries | Free entry
25 June – 24 July 2022
Daniel Cook | Rachel Duckhouse | Audrey Grant | Hannah Imlach | Frank McElhinney | Tim Sandys | Bruce Shaw | Fenris Wolf and Ragnar Thorfinn
This summer we are pleased to present new bodies of work from eight artists supported by the RSA Residencies for Scotland programme. The various artists presented here have each, independently, investigated the breadth of Scottish landscape – from history to physical topography. Viewed together, they portray a rich picture of our country and the numerous locations at which they have been hosted by our partners.
The National Galleries of Scotland have acquired Audrey Grant’s two long durational portraits in charcoal on paper, of the crime writer, radio dramatist and broadcaster Val McDermid. Portrait of Val McDermid I (2017) and Portrait of Val McDermid II (2017-2019) were first exhibited in The Long Look | The Making of a Portrait at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2019.
For full details please follow the link to the National Galleries of Scotland recent acquisitions announcements page here
Inscriptions in Arcadia is a series of 12 site-specific artworks situated in the beautiful and protected landscape around the Bothkennar Pools, near Skinflats. Visitors are invited to walk on easily accessible paths through this real landscape with its pine trees and lagoons, its reedbeds and fields, and imagine another – the semi-mythical land of Arcadia. You will encounter artworks created from found and made objects placed within elements of the land’s rich industrial and cultural past. Each artwork highlights the unique historical environment of the area, transformed through inscriptions from classical mythology evoking the Gods, the Underworld and the pastoral.
3rd July – 31st August 2021
Please click on my Instagram to see images of the work
Forth Valley Art Beat is delighted to announce its new ‘ArtCycle’ eco-art project for 2021 with four new outdoor based commissions having been awarded.
The following artists and projects have now been selected: Audrey Grant (Inscriptions in Arcadia), Natalie McIlroy (The Allan Blikvangers), Holger Mohaupt (Tea, Soup & Biscuits) and Milk & Two collective (Canada Wood).
‘ArtCycle’ will encompass the exploring of our outdoor local habitats and environments, bringing together the cultural creativity of the Forth Valley, with a series of temporary outdoor artworks along mapped ‘quieter’ routes, together with a series of cycling and walking events held during July 2021 and Open Studios/Gardens Weekend planned for 10/11thJuly.
The individual works will include areas of RSPB Nature Reserve at Skinflats, Nr Grangemouth; cycle ways between Stirling and Bridge of Allan; Canada Wood, south of Falkirk; and a series of participatory cycling events in and around Stirling & Falkirk. Each will involve site specific responses around place and engagement with local landscape. We very much look forward to working with each of the artists in developing their projects.
‘ArtCycle’ is devised and curated by Rosy Naylor (founder of Art Walk Projects, Edinburgh (Portobello) and FVAB designer) and supported by funding from the National Lottery Awards for All and Paths for All (Smarter Choices, Smarter Places fund).
Morgenthau Plan for Creative Renewal has received a generous Award of Scottish Government Funding from the Creative Scotland Open Fund: Sustaining Creative Development Programme.
Morgenthau Plan for Creative Renewal is a major new multi-disciplinary research project about real and imagined landscapes. It will explore the complex and psychological nature of transformation as a metaphor for collective and personal renewal.
The project is a personal one, concerned with memory, loss and transition. At its core is a physical engagement with the landscape in which I grew up – the grasslands and industrial sites of Grangemouth – alongside a studio based period of experimentation looking at how the physical landscape might combine with the mythic. It represents a major shift in my practice from one based primarily on painting to a more conceptual approach, utilising mediums new to me such as photography, moving image and installation.
The project exists in three phases: Phase 1 (RSA Residency with Cromarty Arts Trust, completed March/April 2020) – an initial exploration of the project’s potential; Phase 2 – a substantive period of research and development (the subject of this Award to take place between December 2020 and November 2021); Phase 3 (to come) – realisation and presentation.
Paradise brings together notions of Arcadia and Desire (Eros the god of love or Eros the Bittersweet). It explores the longing for that which we seek but can never truly find. It is this longing, this desire, that interests me and which motivates our searching in life and in the creative act.
Audrey Grant July 2020
In this latest exhibition Audrey remains in the realms of German literature and the nineteenth century interpretation of classical mythology. Her style has progressed, as far as possible within the medium, to an even purer form of conceptual expressionism. The path from semi-abstract figurative paint- ings to this magnificent series of large scale canvases has been fascinating to watch.
In many places Audrey seems to lose herself in the canvas, abandoning representation to the joy of full expressionism and the physical pleasure of thick paint. The result is a body of work unlike anything we have exhibi- ted here before, a visceral collection both emotionally and visually, but most of all a very human one.
Matthew Hall August 2020
