Sgàire Wood: In Pride, In Piety, In Vigilance @ Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh

The first time I see her, I want to know who she is. She appears nude on a billboard, draped in her own impossibly long hair, surrounded by animal skins and Persian rugs, clutching the head of a snarling tiger. Her name is Sgàire Wood. She is Scotland’s answer to Angelyne, the 1980s icon who became famous by plastering her image across LA’s billboards, selling only the spectacle of herself. In this captivating shot of Wood in Fountainbridge, drag collides with the strange glamour of taxidermy. It is bold, absurd and faintly unsettling. It is not something you easily forget.

Although her images, including this one, Tiger (2024), are found throughout Edinburgh courtesy of the BUILDHOLLYWOOD project Your Space Or Mine, these days, the Glasgow-based Irish artist and performer’s practice expands beyond the streets and queer nightlife scene where she made her name. Her commission for Jupiter Artland – In Pride, In Piety, In Vigilance – marks her first foray into large sculptural work. Through it, Wood uses ideas of heraldry to show that ideology can be embedded in what may look ornamental. Her signature maximalism blends the grave and political with the humorous, inviting us to contemplate the performativity of fascism and play with symbols of violent authority.

There are moments in the exhibition that are truly memorable. Outside, a giant abandoned swan pedalo dressed up as a riot van is quickly overrun by wriggling children. As riot van becomes playground prop its authority is punctured by the children’s irreverence. Before we even enter the gallery, Wood primes us for juxtaposition and excess. Yet, walking through the doors, we are confronted by a sea of white. White walls, white curtains, white carpet hugging the edges of the room, and three white bird sculptures.

In Pride, In Piety, In Vigilance by Sgàire Wood. Image by Neil Hanna.

The peacock in her pride, the pelican in her piety and the crane in her vigilance form the central axis of this exhibition. Its perimeter is decorated by large shields jutting out from the walls and bearing clashing iconography. Echoes of political violence abound, mostly drawn from Wood’s early encounters with Northern Irish sectarianism. These memories are found in small gestures, from the pile of bricks gathered at the crane’s feet, which you could pick up and throw, to the personal coats of arms that form the peacock’s tail. In this space, fascism seems to wink at you. Through the humorous assemblage of assault rifles in silhouette, camouflage print, a bedazzled union jack, psychedelic colours, fake eyelashes and bulging text, we enter a surreal comedic world which is both disorienting and sinister.

It is so disorienting that I often find myself losing track of her point. The multiplicity of fragmented references compete for attention, making it hard to hold much of what you see in mind. There is a palpable feeling of experimentation in the work. It’s easy to imagine Wood in her studio, putting two patterns together and wondering does it work? Yes, no, maybe, sometimes. The results can feel arbitrary. If not for her willingness to share deep knowledge of heraldry and the helpful wall text, one might feel entirely adrift. Arbitrariness may indeed be part of what she is getting at. It may be true that the associations we make between patterns, textures, colours and their meanings are essentially ungrounded. Even still, I find myself wondering, so what? While the exhibition gives me plenty to decipher, it doesn't keep me hooked. As I think back to that first image I saw of her, I realise it was so captivating because its elements, however strange, seemed to belong together. The same cannot be said for a large proportion of this new work. 

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In Pride, In Piety, In Vigilance, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh, until 18 Oct