Late c19, Nicol’s Vulcan Works Aberdeen, James Nicol his family and workers.
Over several generations both sides of my family came from upper Donside, and in time, settled in Aberdeen. On my mother’s side were engineers and blacksmiths, while her father was a stained glass artist. Among my early memories are visits to Nicol’s Vulcan Works to watch my uncle welding and forging metal.
2018
With waxes for the lost wax casting of part of the Iolaire Memorial at Powderhall Bronze, Edinburgh. The memorial was to be the final project in WW100 Scotland, commemorating the dead of the Great War. A partnership with Will Maclean, who cast a seaman’s wreath set into a wall with seating by Marian Leven. The bronze of the heaving line (above) was paired with bronze arcs naming the 201 men who lost their lives.
Photo: Will Maclean.
2021
Invited to participate in Living-Language-Land one of the British Council COP26 Creative Commissions, for the climate summit in Glasgow. This offered a platform for minority language-holders to select a word emphasising land or nature. “Scrogs” comes from a ballad sung by a North East traveller family, and making connections to folklorist, Hamish Henderson; gallery director, Richard Demarco; & German polymath and founder of the German Green Party, Joseph Beuys.
2022
Raptor Patch by Alan Grieve & WORKSPACEDUNFERMLINE, an exhibition and performance as a visual response to buzzard activity around Caputh Hill in Perthshire. Part of an ongoing series of exhibitions and installations in the Window, a public-facing space at 5 Melville Street, Perth, organised with Fergus Purdie.
Photo: Andy Rice
2023
In effect three solo exhibitions with Lennox Dunbar & Ian Howard at Aberdeen Art Gallery. AW with photographer Stuart Johnstone.
Photo: Andy Rice