A series of page grids for photographs documenting Tadeusz Kantor’s production of The Water Hen for Richard Demarco’s Edinburgh Festival Programme in 1972. The book came out of the Demarco Digital Archive project with Euan McArthur during which we discovered The Water Hen on an obscure video format.
The subsequent digitisation and enhancement by Adam Lockhart allowed The Water Hen to be widely disseminated and to be described as addressing the last gap for Kantor scholarship.
Photo: Andy Rice
This drawing was pasted into the book after being used to transfer the main image for the Iolaire Memorial proposal invited by WW100 Scotland. The successful commission was carried out in collaboration with Will Maclean and Marian Leven with each producing distinct elements within a coordinated environment. The proposal drawing is now in the collection of Museum nan Eilean, Stornaway. The completed project is extensively documented with other works by Maclean & Leven in Compelled by Memory, The Lewis Land Monuments 1994-2018, Bristol, 2022.
Photo: Andy Rice
These collaged drawings propose the re-use of 4 eyeletted squares of fabric made by Bisset & Ross, sailmakers, in Aberdeen for an exhibition in the Compass Gallery, Glasgow. This was part of a plan to either destroy, archive or re-purpose parts of old works still in storage. As an extension of the long-running Seasign series these could have further layers of fabric – either bright as in the drawings or more sonorous as ‘night signs’.
Photo: Andy Rice
Proofs from an extended series of small square screenprints had been parcelled up in brown paper, rubber-stamped and shown in green canvas bags as part of a wall-based work shown as part of the series of exhibitions – Singing for Dead Singers (2000). Twenty years later they were found to be stained from glue leeching out from the bags, but only on the parcel wrapping. These were then subjected to intense overworking which revealed hitherto hidden geographies – coastlines, mountains or icefloes.
Photo: Andy Rice
An unregistered colour test sheet from the print series, Metal Maus Musac Mask. Screenprinted on newsprint – 2 transparent yellows, 1 transparent grey and a transparent magenta from a random pattern gradation. Drawn over with red and black rollerball pens.
Photo: Andy Rice
An offset print from freshly printed linen for one of five backdrops for Anon, Anon & On. Some three meters high each curtain will hang freely from individual aluminium structures. The outer pair rearrange the title of a manuscript collection of songs – ‘Secret Songs of Silence’: Secrecy of Silent Song Secrets and Silence of Secret Silent Songs. The offset is worked over in colour pencil and rollerball pens.
Photo: Andy Rice
By mirroring a drawing of a piece of basketwork in both directions the suggestion of eyelids emerged. other images in this extended series, based on a fisher’s long line basket, often had been given a mouth with the handles suggesting ears. But only in this drawing were the staring eyes the focus.
Photo: Andy Rice