I am an artist based in Glasgow, Scotland. My work is located in the gap between artistic and curatorial space, and is generated through a process I refer to as Resorption. In medicine, an example of resorption is the process by which the amount of calcium present in blood is regulated, through its release from – and subsequent re-absorption by – bones. In my own practice, artistic and curatorial production take the place of blood and bones, Resorption offering a means to establish where aspects of each become present in the other, where each is dependent on the other, and how – as a maker – I can anticipate, draw from, or fluctuate between spaces of production and mediation. Resorption is an ongoing process, operating in-time and appearing in the sensible realm in the form of glitches, where one plane of experience unexpectedly intrudes on another.
In practical terms, and on an experiential level, the work looks relatively straightforward. Most simply, it could mean that a solo show is eschewed in favour of a group exhibition, a traditionally singular position thereby being exploded out into multiple positions. Conversely, it could involve the compression of multiple positions into single images. However, it is perhaps best represented through the production of auto-constellations, which could be described as a curatorial form of readymade. An example of an auto-constellation might be the use of historical travel journals that describe routes through particular landscapes for purposes other than art, for instance by a nineteenth-century trainee geologist, or an amateur botanist. These routes are re-enacted in the present as a means to generate new encounters and new assemblages of experiences and ideas, which are then described through drawings, found objects and texts.
I work as a lecturer in Fine Art Critical Studies at The Glasgow School of Art, and am a founding member of the curatorial cooperative, Chapter Thirteen. Between 2006 and 2010 I ran the curatorial agency, The Salford Restoration Office, with Lesley Young. This website documents a selection of the works, exhibition projects and publications I’ve produced since the mid-2000s.
