Monica McCarey
iota...What IS this place?
iota...What IS this place?

Opening Noon Saturday 6 August 2022

Misc. Radicalitionists by Rowena Comrie.

6-20 August 2022. Private View 6 August 6-9pm.

‘Expector’ 102x127cm

New Abstract Paintings by Rowena Comrie.

‘Paintings inspired by social revolutionaries, no longer in fashion, radical in their time, now forgotten or dismissed. My aim is to communicate the contradictory intricacies of judgement applied to radical achievers. To feel the power of their achievements by using abstract painting forms in response to their dynamic energy and free thinking. Although sidelined by todays society, their influence continues to contribute. Inspired by them, the paintings open the mind up to fresh sensations, to thoughts that both compliment the known and transcend experience.’

Rowena Comrie, July 2022.

TODAY! Saturday 11 June '22 OPENING 5-9pm.

Situated Knowledges: Organism; Plantationocene; Biopolitics by Rachy McEwan & Raya Gray

11-25 June 2022. T W F Sa. 12-5pm Th 12-6pm.

In multispecies alliance, across divisions of nature, culture, technology they explore the relationship between organism, language and machine. The boundaries are blurred through bodies being a multitude of both human and non-human cells. Their work actively engages with ecological and technological perspectives and issues. Mapping terrains and infrastructures to draw connections between ecology and technology made by the infrastructures that nature provides through a semi-fictional conceptual artistic lens.

Simultaneously working with traditional media and less conventional types that evoke the senses, they allow for

objective investigations with a keen acknowledgment of the role subjectivity plays in producing knowledge. Their view on knowledge production is less about a definitive outcome and more about fluctuations in what we are looking at and researching, where they open up nonconceptual spaces.

Through research and techno-sensual artistic exploration, Rachy and Raya open a new discourse in the realms of cognition and artificial intelligence, introducing concepts of the sensorial ecology of intelligence, machine ecosystems,

and biological machines. Maintaining a practice focused on co-subjectivity. Their project collaborates with engineers,

synthetic and microbiologists, scientists, perfumers and non-human organisms.

What's it all about then? Colin Robertson

Part 2. What’s it all about then 31 March–9 April 2022.

‘I’ve often used words and/or text in drawing but, for a time at least, they appear to have taken over, to become the main building block of the image on paper and spell out what the drawings are about   Statements – questions - no answers or resolutions but, on the positive side, the fact of wonder.’

Colin Robertson, born Glasgow 1936, now lives in Battlefield, south side, with partner Anne.  Graduate of Dundee College of Art and Technology in design & crafts.  In a post-diploma year he mostly drew and painted and won a travelling scholarship. Suffering from severe overdosing of ART in Italy, he escaped eastwards and returned with drawings and 3- dimensional works in response to the interior spaces of the mosques in Istanbul. Exhibited in Edinburgh in late 60's, paintings of Dundee bus conductresses and life aboard a trawler.

Worked at many trades: wireless operator doing National Service; commercial artist in Glasgow; farmworker in Perthshire; volunteer kibbutznik in Israel (before 67 war); trawler deckhand on boats sailing out of Rekyavik and Grimsby in winter and painting in a cottage in Glenisla in summers; cinema night-cleaner in London; council gardener in Westminster and trade union branch secretary in a local authority.  He has always drawn and painted.

iota OPENING! NOON 19 March 2022

Particularly as Colin Robertson’s show was the first to be cancelled due to Covid 19, we are delighted to present a two part show of his drawings.

Please note our new opening hours: Wed Fri Sat 12-5. Thurs.12-6 and by appointment.

Part 1.

MARY DON’T YOU WEEP

It’s the backing to Aretha Franklin by the South Carolina Community Choir, the hand-clapping, the guitars and the organ that grabbed me. 

All Saints   The Mangrove Steel Band’ and ‘The Undivided’ played reggae and jazz in our street when we lived just round the corner from All Saints Road in London’s Notting Hill.   At that time I made drawings and paintings of three West Indian women in Afros and platform heels seen on the Circle Line -  they are somewhat reinvented in a number of drawings.

Bad Moon  “Can we have some music” was the cry that often went up to the bridge from the deck of the Ross Cougar.

 A couple of years back I was in a record store in Glasgow.  ‘Bad Moon Rising’ came up on the turntable.  Instantly I was carried back fifty-odd years to being one of the yellow oilskin-clad figures on that deck, knee deep in fish, knife in hand: ‘fish in the other and two in the air’.

These drawings all date from the period just before Covid. The second batch follows on chronologically.

Mary Don't You Weep

Mary Don’t You Weep

Part 2.

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT THEN

I’ve often used words and/or text in drawing but, for a time at least, they appear to have taken over, to become the main building block of the image on paper and spell out what the drawings are about   Statements – questions - no answers or resolutions but, on the positive side, the fact of wonder.

iota Presents: Transitional Toys (Security Objects):13-21 December & 4-11 January

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An exhibition with events by Scottish, Swiss  and Italian artists.

The Swiss connection:

Geneva based Scottish poet, Peter McCarey invites internationally acclaimed artists to consider an international concept, produce new work and conspire to bridge cultures across five disciplines.

See https://www.iotaarts.space/press

With support from Pro Helvetia, Fondation suisse pour la culture

and République et canton de Genève.

The artist Carmen Perrin exhibits a mobile sculpture entitled "Le bruit des yeux";

Alexa Montani (Geneva) plays a composition by Jacques Demierre (Geneva) specially composed for toy piano and musical box on the opening night;

Vincent Barras (Geneva and Lausanne University) performs an improvised "speech" on the theme of the exhibition on 4 January;

Peter McCarey (Glasgow/Geneva) designed a sculpture for the exhibition, which will be Clyde built. Peter McCarey's previous installation in collaboration with Duncan Scott was exhibited at Iota and at the Fonderie Kugler, Geneva.

Scottish/U.K based artists include T.D. Coats, Laura A. Hunter, Chris McCabe,Robert McNeil, Craig Mulholland collective ‘Hommages’with CARMEL O’BRIEN & M.V.BROWN plus Italian artists, Caterina Borelli and Clara Brasca Plus a guest contribution from Russian artist Yuri Vashchenko.

Norman Sutton Hibbert: KINDER KINDER

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19 Sept.-5 October @iota

For most of his adult life Sutton Hibbert has been interested in the impact that the behaviour and attitudes of adults, both in the micro and macro sense, have had and are still having on children.

Children still die every day or become parentless due to preventable diseases; world-wide there are thought to be in excess of 250,000 child soldiers; countless die or are maimed due to senseless conflicts, while others are persecuted because of religious or ethnic intolerance.

The works in this exhibition respond to the stories of many of these children, past and present. 

The unashamed use of materials such as fabrics and bright colours, which are part of the daily lives of all of us, are aimed at engaging the viewer and encouraging reflection on the lives of children today.

Artist gets press coverage!!

Great to see all the recent press coverage on our favourite 'discovery', Robert McNeil and his works recently purchased by Glasgow Museums.

Robert also produces great work outside of this story, as do so many talented artists, but the coverage of them and their daily contribution to our lives is way too low.

Thanks also to the Evening Times, the Daily Record & Artdaily.com for mentioning iota.

https://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/17856033.artist-robert-mcneil-39-s-art-marks-bosnia-massacre-anniversary/


Ruaridh Fraser 'STREET SHAPES'

Friday - 23rd August - More emerging talent at iota!

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‘Street Shapes’ presents the emerging talent of Photography Student, Ruaridh Fraser.

Born and based in Glasgow, this urban context offers him endless inspiration and source material for street photography, which is his main interest. Fraser uses an old Pentax to produce carefully composed images. Packed with rich colours, shadows and shapes, this young view of the world is both painterly and punchy.

Clara Brasca: 'ATELIER'

iota welcomes Italian artist, Clara Brasca, and presents 'Atelier': new, large format work, and projection of her previous work.

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Opening Night: 6-9pm. Fri. 14th June.
Exhibition until Saturday 29 June  2019

Clara Brasca was born, lives and works in Milan, where she graduated in architecture from Milan Polytechnic and from Brera School of Art. Interested in the development of contemporary work through classical language, and working predominantly in portrait and landscapes, she explores various techniques, scales and materials: oil on linen, mixed media, paper, glass, ceramics. As well as collective shows, her work has shown in solo exhibitions in Tokyo, Kyoto, California, Barcelona, Glasgow and throughout Italy.

'Atelier'

‘The artist’s studio is primarily a mental space, rather than a physical one. It is an existential refuge and it is where the work is realized; it envelopes the thoughts, meditations, the artist and all the objects and materials which combine to bring about the manifestation of work.

After many years of painting in the studio, I felt a desire to paint it’s portrait. Painting one’s studio is similar to painting a self portrait, even if depicting the pure architectural space rather than one’s own image.

Time passes differently in the studio and from within it, everyday reality is breached, giving access to another place, another reality: that of art.’

Clara Brasca.