Travelling Gallery today announced its Autumn 2022 exhibition, ReConnect, in partnership with Project Ability which will tour from 2 September to December across Scotland.
Reconnecting has rarely felt more vital. That’s why Travelling Gallery are proud to be partnering with Project Ability to exhibit four diverse artists from their ReConnect programme, an open studio for people with lived experience of mental ill health.
Grant Glennie, Sian Mather, Simon McAuley and Bel Pye’s artistic practices will bring a wide variety of styles, techniques and mediums to Travelling Gallery, all of which have been explored and nurtured in the ReConnect studio, allowing the artists to discover a sense of themselves.
ReConnect is both the title of this inspiring exhibition and the very notion that we are once again re-connecting, individually and as an organisation.
Its Autumn 2022 tour will begin on Calton Hill, Edinburgh on 2 September before visiting venues the length and breadth of Scotland until December, including Ayrshire, Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire.
Grant Glennie
Grant Glennie is a neurodivergent artist based in Glasgow. He has been part of the ReConnect studio since 2010 when he was first referred there by a community psychiatric nurse. He has a BA(Hons) in Interaction Design from Glasgow School of Art and his work is influenced by both subjective and personal things and often involves exploring the connection between the highly ordered and highly disordered.
For the ReConnect exhibition, Grant is exhibiting some of his sketch books alongside some abstract prints and short films exploring patterns and systems. He says: I have a methodical approach to art, using sketchbooks as a tool to think, wonder and create.
“I fill sketchbooks and make art because it can help give me structure, purpose and improve my mental wellbeing. I enjoy researching and learning through art about everything and anything. I work primarily in a number of mediums but retain a computational, rule based and system approach.
Sian Mather
Sian Mather is an artist based in Glasgow and has been a member of Project Ability for about 25 years, which she says has helped her enormously. She paints and works in clay, having a background in ceramics with an HND in Industrial Ceramics from Staffordshire University.
For Travelling Gallery, Sian will be exhibiting beautiful pots made with a stoneware clay body. The distinctive hand-built pots depict various figures; other ReConnect studio members, busy working on their own practice, special to Sian as now good friends.
She says: “I wanted to create these pieces to celebrate the life of the studio and reflect the diversity of work produced within its walls. It is a fantastic organisation to help people from all walks of life deal with mental health issues through art. I love going and being amongst other artists with similar interests.
Alongside these studio pots, Sian will also exhibit a pot inspired by one of her favourite writers, Alexander McCall Smith, and a series of vibrant tiles inspired by famous impressionist Vincent Van Gogh.
Simon McAuley
Simon is a research-based artist in Glasgow who explores both material and theory. He has a B.A. in Fine Art Photography from Glasgow School of Art although he works across mediums including painting, drawing, photography and writing. Each medium informs the other, however they rarely crossover physically. For example, he paints in his studio but photography takes him in and out of the darkroom.
He says: “In that sense my practice is fairly straightforward. It is within Ideas that I seek unusual contours or weather systems.
For the ReConnect exhibition, we will be showing some of Simon’s abstract paintings which have a minimal, yet layered, quality to them. Simon is a focused artist who persists with his material until he’s happy with the results. He describes his creative experience as: ‘At times I work on a narrow and reductive parameter. Reducing something out of nothing, or very little or not much.
‘I sometimes feel at a loss to do more. Yet persevere with, say material or an idea until I can develop a space. Something one step above whatever sits below two or three dimensions.’
Bel Pye
Bel Pye graduated from Contemporary Performance Practice at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2015. Since then, they have worked as a facilitator, performer, writer and visual artist.
Bel is interested in the everyday art we make to survive hostile times. They try to respond to injustice through small acts of accessible protest, often by adding overtly political details to everyday objects, for example embroidering a powerful statement on to a face mask.
For Travelling Gallery Bel will be exhibiting Stick Nitch the result of a six hour durational performance at CCA Derry-Londonderry where they crocheted themselves into a giant cocoon-like pod. Stick Nitch is a reflection of Bel’s practice which they say is: “fatigue informed and grounded in the queer, mad and chronically ill communities they live in.”
Speaking of the exhibition, Claire Craig, Curator at the Travelling Gallery, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to work with Project Ability and show the rest of Scotland the amazing work they and their artists do.
“I can’t wait to see our audience’s response, I know they’ll love it.”
Culture and Communities Convener, Councillor Val Walker said: “I am delighted that the Travelling Gallery will once again be showcasing its art across Scotland.
“The common theme across the featured artists of lived experience of mental ill health is a positive, universal, and thought-provoking way for audiences to connect with the work on display.
“I am proud that the Travelling Gallery is widening access to art, and I am confident that this tour will be a welcome addition to the communities it will visit.”
Tour dates
Full dates and venues can be found on the Travelling Gallery website.
2 – 16 September – Edinburgh and West Lothian
20 – 21 September – North Ayrshire
29 September – 1 October – South Ayrshire
5 – 7 October – East Ayrshire
12 – 13 Oct – South Lanarkshire
27 – 29 October – North Lanarkshire
1 – 4 November – Argyll and Bute
9 – 11 November – Clackmannanshire
wc 21 November – West Dunbartonshire
wc 5 December – Edinburgh