Awl-love. New works by Stuart Gurden

19 August - 23 September, 2006

31 August 6pm: Film screening + Artist's Talk

Centred on a new video film, 'Awl-love' explores the popularisation of Aberdeenshire's many recumbent stone circles, and their 'recuperation' by various, competing interests, whilst also touching on the debate between scientific rationalism and more esoteric ideals.

Initially referencing Julian Cope's gazetteer of British megaliths The Modern Antiquarian, 'Awl-love' was filmed during a 1000-mile road trip to 'verify' 41 of the region’s circles. The film moulds visual familiarity and constant motion into awkward rhythmic forms. Its structure is dictated by an attempt to find the exact position Cope stood in at each circle as he took the photographs for his book.

The viewer is led through this visual landscape by a stream of consciousness narrative that competes with a constantly changing audio soundtrack (influenced by John Cale’s and Terry Riley’s early sound experiments, and American poet John Ashbery’s epic poem The Skaters, as well as more current underground 'low-fi' and 'noise' music.

The film is exhibited alongside related new and recent works on paper, a photograph and cast bronze objects, which use a kind of 'over-wrought realism' to construct a series of diverse portraits.

Following a Research Residency at the Scottish Sculpture Workshopin Lumsden in 2004 'Awl-love' was completed with the help of a Production Residency at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop during 2005-06, and funded by the Esmee Fairbairn foundation.

With additional assistance from Glasgow City Council Visual Arts Award.

Stuart Gurden – Artist's Statement

Through an ongoing series of video films and installations, Gurden continues his interest in the conflict between liberal and libertarian* creativity and idealism, and the tensions exposed in our responses to the materiality of our world.

Often the work revels in layering and detail, and the appearance of knowledge and productive connections. At its centre is a vicarious exploration of the experiences of 'cultural' figures, disciplines and moments. It is also, perhaps, an attempt to synthesize meaning from salvaged remains – and an (im)potent stab at renewed Futurism**.

Recent works have absorbed various 'marginal' icons and references into semi-fictional constructions and re-stagings. Indirectly present in the work these figures (such as biologist Richard Dawkins, poet John Ashbery, Mark E. Smith of The Fall and minimalist composer Terry Riley) become phantoms for specifically masculine cultural positions and hierarchies, highlighting the awkward presence of ego and authority within the free flow of the creative drive.

The use of precise sculptures, drawings and photographs, tangential to the films, further repeats and mutates cultural fragments, utilising a quasi-realism to test the original information, or to present fictions as authoritative.

• *A libertarian: person who believes that people should be free to think and behave as they want and should not have limits put on them by governments.
• **Futurism was a new way of thinking in the arts that started in the 1920s and 1930s, which attempted to express through a range of art forms the characteristics and images of the modern age, such as machines, speed, movement and power.