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Art History

Feb 07

2025

Anachronism, Art History, Fairy Tales, Surrealism

‘The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods’: A Surrealist Awakening

Gustave Doré, Illustration for Charles Perrault’s ‘La Belle au Bois Dormant’ in Les Contes de Perrault (one of six engravings), 1867.

I am a painter and writer who has lived in Glasgow for more than twenty-five years. My ongoing interest in fairy tales and Surrealism has been nourished by that context—notably through dialogue with the Scottish writer and art historian, Catriona McAra, whom you heard speak today and who has written extensively on these subjects. As McAra has shown, through her perceptive analysis of the work of Dorothea Tanning and Leonora Carrington, the ‘surrealist fairy tale’ is a hybrid genre that subverts the reader’s (or the viewer’s) expectations, bringing about a contradictory relation of ‘text’ and ‘image’.

In the summer of 2024, I began making a series of 26 illustrations to Charles Perrault’s ‘La Belle au Bois Dormant’ the frequently censored baroque version of the story more commonly known as ‘Sleeping Beauty’ (first published in 1697).

Intended for both an exhibition and an artist book, these works stage a material encounter of surrealist aesthetics and the literary fairy tale. Taking the form of watercolour paintings derived from 1980s-era magazine-pages and film-stills, these images are counterpoised to a well-known story. Read more →

Mar 23

2022

Anachronism, Contemporary Visual Art, Surrealism, Surrealism and Scotland

Anachronistic Pursuits: In Conversation with Catriona McAra

For over a decade, Laurence Figgis and Catriona McAra have shared an interest in the anachronistic union, and narrative possibilities, of Surrealism and the fairy tale. The most recent manifestation was ‘(After) After’ (2017), a solo exhibition by Figgis curated by McAra with an accompanying critical text by Susannah Thompson. ‘(After) After’ suggested an extension to the surrealist story, the need to find out what happens after the “happily ever after” of the movement. The exhibition made numerous references to surrealist techniques (word play, collage and metamorphosis).  This in-conversation positions Figgis’s long-term critique of the kitschification of surrealism within the Scottish cultural landscape where he has forged his artistic career. 

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Apr 16

2021

Art History, Cathy Wilkes, Clare Stephenson, Contemporary Visual Art, Salvador Dali, Surrealism, Surrealism and Scotland

The Spookier School: (Anti-)Surrealism in Glasgow

This paper poses the question ‘What is Surrealism?’ from a particular vantage point: that of a practicing artist who has lived and worked in Glasgow since the turn of the twenty-first century. With reference to my own art practice, I will consider my troubled relationship with the category ‘Surrealism,’ as contingent with the specific trends of the Glasgow art-scene during this period and the broader international context.

In particular, I will address the apparent interest in surrealist methods demonstrated by Glasgow-based artists in the early 2000s (in opposition to the neo-conceptual and relational aesthetic genres that had placed prominent Glasgow artists on the international map in the previous decade). Whilst acknowledging the value of research into the historical surrealist movement (for shaping a more rigorous understanding of my practice), I will also recount my frustrations with the movement as they emerge in two areas: doubt regarding the ‘revolutionary’ power of the unconscious, and the potential valorisation of ‘linear’ narrative thinking – even in the domain of the ‘fantastic’. Read more →

Jan 07

2020

Alfred Hitchcock, Art History, CASTRO Projects, Contemporary Visual Art, Jessie Whitely, Narrative Painting, Writing as Creative Practice

Jessie Whitely in Conversation with Laurence Figgis

CASTRO introduces Artist Talks: a nine-event series which offers the chance to hear from young artists through learning and discussing about their practice. The Talks aim to connect the practice of the artists currently on the Studio Program, external professionals and the public.

In conversation with a professional of their choice, each participating artist will discuss themes in their work as well as current issues in contemporary art. As all events in the CASTRO Public Program, the talk will open up to a round table discussion with the public.

Jessie Whiteley is a Glasgow based artist. Her current work is primarily painting, drawing and comics, as well as collaborative projects. Read more →

Feb 28

2019

Contemporary Visual Art, Ekphrasis, Lotte Gertz, The Still Life, Writing for Other Artists

Paintings with Legs

‘and the world is a white laundry,
where we are boiled and wrung
and dried and ironed,
and smoothed down’(1)

Inger Christensen

When I visit Lotte in her studio, and I look at one of her paintings, I see legs. These L-shapes have been made from cut-wood shapes smeared with ink, pressed against the calico to leave a mark (a sort of wood-cut, a sort of mono-printing). And all I can see is legs. But that seems like a heavy cumbersome word—“legs”—too cumbersome—and I keep the word to myself, until the artist says it—legs. Read more →