Phoenix Nights: GSA Phoenix Bursary students show their work

On 23 May 2014 the eyes of the world were upon Renfrew Street as a fire took hold in The Glasgow School of Art’s renowned Mackintosh Building. The building housed all 102 final year 2014 Fine Art students, just hours away from submitting their final work for assessment. Thankfully no one was hurt, but as a result of the fire many students’ work was damaged or destroyed. In recognition of this, the GSA, with the generous support of The Scottish Government, established the Phoenix Bursaries. The Phoenix Bursary Scheme offered the recent graduates studio time in venues across the world, a bursary and a materials budget in order to develop their practice and create a new body of work.

About half of the Phoenix Bursary holders were kindly hosted by art schools, universities and studios across the globe – from the United States to Mexico, around Europe and as far away as Mongolia. The other half chose to remain in Glasgow and were housed in purpose-built studios at the Whisky Bond from October to February 2015. These Glasgow-based artists took part in workshops, inductions and had access to mentoring and tutorials.

As well as providing the environment and the means for the artists to produce new work, the Phoenix Bursary Scheme has been a unique period of structured transition for the graduates. The Scheme has opened opportunities for the graduates based all over the world to varied methodologies and studio practices, while the Glasgow studio placements have allowed for cross-disciplinary contact among artists from different departments, exhibition collaborations and – importantly – the forging of links with Glasgow’s creative community. “We are hugely grateful to the Scottish Government and our sister institutions across the world,” said Professor Tom Inns, Director of GSA. “Without their support it would not have been possible to create the Phoenix Bursary programme, and to offer this important opportunity to the artists as they set out on their professional careers.”

The Scheme will culminate in a final group show of the graduates’ work, curated by Sam de Santis and Sukaina Kubba. The Phoenix Bursary Exhibition is to be held at The Glasgow School of Art’s Reid Building in July.

The Phoenix exhibition is an important opportunity for the graduates to showcase their work to an audience of industry and the public, and will also be a final celebration of the year’s journey. The works within, covering fine art disciplines of Painting + Printmaking, Sculpture + Environmental Art and Fine Art Photography look set to be powerful and intriguing. Ella Porter’s (Painting + Printmaking) pieces are influenced by both early minimalist sculpture and modernist furniture design, and by architectural and interior design. In her pieces handcrafted porcelain clings to a silk net backing, and modular, almost cellular forms merge and multiply.

Yaka Collective’s Tim Dalzell (Sculpture + Environmental Art) will explore the virtual environment and its crude replication of ‘reality’ in his show Rich 16khz. Tim takes the identity of US telephone giant AT&T’s voice-generated American male ‘Rich,’ creating an entire appearance and personality for him. Isabella Widger was based in Glasgow at the Whisky Bond for the programme and despite originally studying painting, has used the Scheme to explore new print and installation-based work.

Spending his residency in Vancouver, Canada, travelling both there and extensively around Scotland has formed a basis for Saule Žuk’s (Fine Art Photography, 2014) work. “Exploring various landscapes made me think about the landscape as part of one's identity,” he says. “That identity is constantly shifting depending on the environment and other factors, just like that of the constantly moving but invisible wind.” His Red Ochre Sheets are papers soaked in red ochre collected from some of these various locations in Scotland, creating a unique series of red ochre drawings that he invites the audience to share and take home.