Output details

Ross Sinclair - Real Civic Life

This exhibition continues my research inquiry into issues of 21stC national civic identity in an international context. The inquiry was continued in this show via the development, construction and presentation of more than 30 discrete painting/assemblage/neon works which questioned the contemporary utility of the (civic) portrait. The Swedish context provided neutral ground, playing host to aspects of the visual culture of nationhood of Scotland and the USA. My practice explores the impact of the USA on European and, specifically, Scottish identity. Re-imagining portraits of Lincoln and Darwin, as well as Burns and The Monarch of the Glen, this body of work attempts to chart a new landscape of relationships between these cultural, political and scientific torch bearers in order to “illuminate a path out of our contemporary darkness” from Scotland to Stockholm via the cultural/political influence of the USA. The archaeology of this project starts with my Real Life Painting Show at CCA Glasgow in 2006, with accompanying symposium/interviews etc. links, http://www.artandresearch.org.uk/v1n1/sinclair.html, and a subsequent exhibition with the Knapper Gallery for which I presented a select version of the Real Life Painting Show. I continued to develop this critical line of research in my practice as well as the formal aspects of hybrid production, and moved to the use of painting combined with installation, for example, in the work “Anglo American Love Song” in Freedom Centre, Hales Gallery, London 2008. “Real Civic Life” in Stockholm, develops that research further by exploring the possibilities of the painted portrait to address the complexity of national identity and cultural relationships in relation to an international audience. In turn this project has subsequently informed the development of my practice and led directly to the 2012 Deveron Arts “We Love Real Life Scotland”, residency/monograph project which took the inquiry into a relational context.