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We are delighted to welcome Anna Macleod to ESW for her REACH Scotland Residency. During her residency, Anna wishes to develop a research and sculpture making project as an edition of her series of works ‘Water Conversations’, The Water of Leith is of interest to Anna as a way to talk about the redemptive qualities of water in both its physical and metaphysical forms.
I’m interested in how meaning forms organically through symbols and through appropriation.
A lot of my work is on the cusp between something that’s so beautiful and so wonderful, but also maybe disgusting or wrong.
For me, objects and stories are inseparable, everything has a narrative and I think my job as an artist is to find a platform, an audience, and the purpose for sharing that in an exciting and engaging way.
I’ve always been interested in the spaces between things, the liminal spaces, spaces between the fields and roads. There’s no real purpose for them but they’re developing their own purpose, and their scale was quite good – a short distance that is manageable to move around.
I have to say, my painting… I’m not very happy with it. It doesn’t bring me much joy at all. Whereas on the other hand, I find making sculptures very enjoyable. It’s a good thing to do, to engage your brain with even measuring and cutting and the whole process. I think that is very satisfying.
We definitely treat our practice as research. In fact, we’re particularly interested in artistic approaches to art history.
I work with large quantities of material, texts and images. I am going through many stages to process that, to select and choose and to make. The computer screen is too small to see more than two images at the same time, this is why there is that big magnetic wall here, an extension of the screen, my playground.
The landscape really inspires me and how mystical it feels. The way the wind blows, you always get a sense that there’s something else. It’s the unseen that inspires me.
We have taken some time to visit and discuss ideas with artists working at ESW in different ways including several Studio Holders and Project Space Holders who are based in the building.
We caught up with Studio Holder Louise Gibson to hear about her materials and processes spanning recycled metal, resin labs and building relationships.
There’s just this social assumption that there is an absence that needs filling. And there’s the responsibility to fill it. People project onto me that something should go there. What happens if you mess with those norms?