McManus Art Gallery and Museum, Dundee: Seminar - On Colour

Seminar: Friday 26 November from 14.00 - 16.00.
Chaired by Professor Tracy Mackenna, Artist and Chair of Contemporary Art Practice, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. Artists: Claire Barclay, Alice Channer and Katy Dove

The artists will talk about the way in which they use colour in their work, it will then be opened out to the audience so that a discussion can be developed.

Alice Channer’s use of colour is sparing and deliberate, her works are made with painstaking consideration to the way in which they work in context. The emphasis on the way in which light changes the surface of a particular material is as important as the choice of colour and the selection of the type of surface that the colour might be applied to.

Claire Barclay’s practice explores formal and conceptual concerns through both large and smaller scale installations. Her emphasis on material and the way in which an object is made and crafted has led her to use materials such as turned wood, rawhide, soft leather, machined brass and woven straw. All of these materials have a quality that is intrinsic and a colour that it already is or is made to be – in recent works she had made much use of mirrored surfaces and a flesh like tone. Whilst sculptural form and the relationship to the familiar is central in her concerns we cannot experience Barclay’s work without considering her use of light and colour.

Katy Dove’s works starts with the jewel like watercolours and drawings that are produced in small scale. These delicate abstract works act in some way as a building block for her animations. Digitally manipulated the animations allow our imagined notions of how the shapes and twirls of the ‘stilled’ works might evolve if they were given space and time and accompaniment. Dove’s use of colour is much aligned to her use of music within her compelling animations, the resulting films, sometimes with suggested but never overt narratives, seem intent to move the viewer through an intense visual and audio experience.

To book a place on this event please contact The McManus on themcmanus@dundeecity.gov.uk or call 01382 307200

Biographies
Alice Channer (b. Oxford, 1977) lives and works in London. She graduated in 2008 with an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London following a BA in Fine Art, Studio Practice and Contemporary Critical Studies Critical from Goldsmiths College, London, 2006. Recent solo exhibitions include Inhale, Exhale, Charles Rennie Mackintosh Gallery, Glasgow School of Art, as part of the Glasgow International (2010), Worn-work, The Approach, London (2009), and That Make Up Some Things, Associates Gallery, London (2007). She has shown in numerous group exhibitions including Unto This Last, Raven Row, London (2010); Every Night I Go To Sleep, Modern Art, London (2010); Alice Channer, Dagmar Heppner, Alicja Kwade, Maria Zahle, Bolte Lang, Zurich (2010), Boule to Braid , Lisson gallery, London, curated by Richard Wentworth (2009); Quiet Revolution, Hayward Gallery touring show, curated by Chris Fite-Wassilak, (2009-2010); Strange Solution, Art Now, Tate Britain, London, (2008).

In March 2011 she will have a solo exhibition at The Approach, London, and a solo presentation at Independent, New York (with Helene Appel).

She is represented in London by The Approach.

Claire Barclay (b. 1968 Paisley, Scotland) lives and works in Glasgow. Her Bloomberg Commission ‘Shadow Spans' at the Whitechapel Gallery runs until 2 May 2011. Other recent solo exhibitions include: Flat Peach, Stephen Friedman Gallery (2010) Pale Heights, MUDAM, Luxembourg (2009); Claire Barclay, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2009); Open Wide, Camden Arts Centre, London (2008). Recent group exhibitions include: What Matters, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, (2010); Material Intelligence, Kettles Yard, Cambridge (2009); If it didn't exist you'd have to invent it: a partial Showroom history, The Showroom, London (2006) and British Art Show 6, Baltic, Gateshead (2005). Barclay was the recipient of the Hospital Club Creative Award in 2008 and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Artist's Award in 2007.

Katy Dove graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee in 1999. Over the past 10 years she has worked across many areas including animation, film, sound, music, drawing, painting, photography and printmaking. Recent projects include a commissioned temporary animation installation at BBC Scotland, Pacific Quay (2009) and Now is the Time a collaborative exhibition with Simon Yuill at The Changing Room Gallery, Stirling (2009). Solo exhibitions include Artis, Den Bosch, Netherlands (2008), Hales Gallery, London (2006), Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh (2006) and Sies and Hoeke Gallerie, Dusseldorf (2005). Other projects include Sun by Ear, an exhibition with Victoria Morton at Tramway, Glasgow (2007) and solo presentations at Art Statements, Basel (2005) and Art Now, Lightbox, Tate Britain (2003).

She is a member of the band Muscles of Joy.
She currently lives and works in Glasgow.
Katy Dove is represented by Hales Gallery, London.

Tracy Mackenna is Chair of Contemporary Art Practice at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee. She studied Fine Art (Sculpture) at The Glasgow School of Art, at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. On graduating she moved to Hungary where she made sculpture and film and wrote fiction, travelling between Hungary and Romania. On her return to Scotland she co-founded Glasgow Sculpture Studios and remains committed to the development of the arts through advisory roles to established and emergent arts organisations. She regularly speaks and writes on contemporary art and art in higher education.

Since 1997 Tracy has worked collaboratively with Edwin Janssen. Central to their exhibition projects are environments that integrate art making, presentation, research, exchange, education and reflection. Over the last decade major projects and publications have been commissioned by, amongst others, P3 Art and Environment, Tokyo, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, the Netherlands, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Ikon Gallery Birmingham, Migros Museum, Zürich. Public commissions include The Merchant’s House Garden, Kirkcaldy, I put my name on everything, The Tron Theatre, Glasgow and a major commission for The Scottish Office, Edinburgh.

www.mackenna-and-janssen.net