Glasgow’s very own Gallery of Modern Art plays host to a mixed media exhibit which sets to provoke our thoughts on marriage, sex, documentation and our attitudes to recording our lives.

‘Please Turn Us On’ is the title and it’s brought to us by a collaborative gathering of Arthur Ginsberg w/ Video Free America, Heather Phillipson, Stansfield/Hooykaas and Videofreex.

As we know, video nowadays plays a significant part in our daily lives and it can be a great way for an artist to get a direct message across to their audience. The GoMa itself often gives us various video installations with its exhibits and with benefit of presenting them in the darkness for added effect in giving its audience the artists complete attention.

You’re welcomed in to the exhibit with photographs of Glasgow across a large board. We are forced with the question What’s It To You? This part was created by Sta...

The Lighthouse in Glasgow has opened a new exhibition that will satisfy your inner art nerd and if you, like me, are a little bit geeky and a whole lot of arty then Adventures in Space could be this summer/autumn must see exhibit.

open of new exhibit Adventures in Space

On Floor one of the Lighthouse you’ll be transported in to a world of Stanley Kubrick, Aliens, Doctors and Big Brother as this show details exactly what it took to create those epic scenes of architecture in books, plays, films and programme. A timeline covers all you need to know and features so many amazing facts about each feature and in between we’re treated to bonus installations on screens (also I geeked out at the DON’T PANIC sign I found in a corner).

screens assist in creating futuristic feel

detailed designs display fantastic architecture in sci fi

The feel of the exhibit is cold, dark space. It’s eerie...

This week we learnt of the sudden death of Glasgow’s own Kevin Hutcheson, an artist of wonderful merit, at his home. His style, I would best describe as being, was thought provoking and it would be often hard not to find one of his exhibits in some of Glasgow’s galleries such as the GoMa and Transmission.

Hutcheson completed his MA at the Chelsea College of Art in London after studying at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee. From there his works included many typographic pieces, depicting the likes of ransom notes, offering messages. His works can mainly be found at Patricia Fleming Projects, a gallery in Glasgow, that works with clients all over the UK and where Hutcheson was a resident gallery artist. Project artists working from the gallery include David Shrigley, Eva Rothschild and Jennie Savage. He was a part of some of the most important circles in the art...

‘The diseases that we civilised people labour under most are melancholy and pessimism.’

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30th 1853 in Zundert, Netherlands. He was brought up in a very religious and cultured lifestyle open to the arts but strict with it. Gogh is famous for his style, especially his later abstract years which arguably could be a result of how his mind was then. In today’s blog I’m looking at van Gogh, his work and how his mental health may have played a significant part.

Gogh had taken great insight from the impressionists he met in his time trying to grow his maturity and make his mark in the art world. He took upon styles such as Monet and with the frustration of attempting to work with those in mind he ended up finding his own take on impressionism. This resulted in van Gogh asking his dear friend Gauguin (impressionist friend and famous for his primitivism...

International Women’s Day is here and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to take a look at our representation in Glasgow’s art scene.

I was online early this morning and caught the attention of a recent “debacle” about a certain naked woman plastering herself over twitter and the few women calling her out on her attempt of using it to promote herself as some sort of role model. Just as I was about to throw my laptop into the River Clyde and have my vagina sewn up I thought “You know, I wonder what’s going on with women in our great artistic city”. So I went online and… I didn’t find a lot going on, sadly. I personally feel that women are rather underrepresented in design. Which, following the recent female representation in the gaming industry, is a shame because art can be so gender neutral. The exhibitions I have come across from women have been very strong on the message of their...

Adult colouring books. Is there anything that makes you want to implode more? Art therapy appears to be becoming that little more mainstream. Which is nice, I guess, but for those of us battling real mental health concerns it can look a little…Insulting?

credits - the feminist wire.com

Mental health can be a sensitive subject, fortunately our society is further attempting (and in many cases succeeding) to consider our behaviour towards the stigma. Campaigning for the rights of people with mental health issues and educating those who may not be familiar with an illness like depression, schizophrenia, etc. An illness that in many ways is invisible can be tough to explain to people with no such experience at all.

Van Gogh’s - The Starry Night

Mental health and creativity is no big secret. We live in a world filled with artists, painters, writers, poets, etc who are living with such...

Modern Art has always had its fair share of criticisms. Yet what can we say is the root cause of the outrage? Is it the controversy of the piece, the money used to produce it or is it to do with class? The privileged arts student versus the working class busker. One persons struggle might be anothers inspiration. What makes art right or wrong?

Take the recent Ellie Harrison debacle. The artist currently working on a project in which they can only work, live, socialise, etc in Greater Glasgow. People are actually taking part in a petition right now to take her grant away. What if they revoke it? Does that mean whenever someone doesn’t like an artist or project they can petition for the work to be disbanded? People campaign for freedom of speech but whatever happened to freedom of expression?

Harrison aside, we need bad art (bare with me). Modern art is a fantastic series of the...

So the Turner Prize 2015 has announced its winner and I’m happy to say it was Assemble who took the cheque.

Assemble are the first collective to win the prize and you can’t help but feel they were the most deserving, not only are they a group using their skills in architecture and design, they’ve used this nomination to promote issues in social housing - a topic that has made a huge yet devastating impact all over the UK. They put the work into artwork and decried an opportunity for self important modern installations for good and honest show and tell. This has been missing from the immediate art world for a long time.

Other nominees did not go unnoticed, Janice Kerbel gave us a very interesting piece combining opera and using it to interpret slapstick comedy in a range of scenarios. It was unique to see the use of such serious and dramatic vocals used to describe what has always...

Scotland is playing host to the first Turner Prize in its city and it’s great news that Tramway on the South side has been chosen. Tramway itself is a hidden gem of a gallery which holds workshops, extensive space and a cafe giving you a view of the Hidden Gardens.

Artists nominated for the Turner Prize this year are Bonnie Camplin, Nicole Wermers, Janice Kerbel and Assemble which is a showroom for the talented Granby Workshop.

• full list of nominees past and present as Glasgow hosts this years Turner Prize

Firstly, Janice Kerbel gives us an array of live performances with DOUG shown at various times every day. The piece introduces a variety of features combining opera with different types of performance.

Nicole Wermers shows her untitled piece. It’s described as a sculpture which I would argue is labelled loosely. The idea behind the piece, which features fur coats sewn in...