Our Gardner Muirhead: Leitmotif exhibition opened on Saturday 2nd May and there was a great turnout for the unveiling of this exciting new body of mixed media artworks by the Glasgow-based artist.
“Once I have a collection of materials which I think hint at a theme, I allow the images to make their own connections and dialogues. For around a week, the components are constantly in flux – rearranged, photographed, shifted - until they find their place together. It is by this process that they are organized into a composition. The end results are usually a surprise to me.” – Gardner Muirhead
“Once I have a collection of materials which I think hint at a theme, I allow the images to make their own connections and dialogues. For around a week, the components are constantly in flux – rearranged, photographed, shifted - until they find their place together. It is by this process that they are organized into a composition. The end results are usually a surprise to me.” – Gardner Muirhead
Gardner Muirhead was born in West Lothian in 1962. He graduated from Edinburgh College of Art with a degree in tapestry design in 1984. He has a postgraduate degree from Jordanhill College of Education and has been a full time teacher of Art and Design in Glasgow since 1987. He has exhibited textiles, painting and printmaking in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Fife.
Since 2005, Muirhead has been incorporating Japanese woodblock printing into his work. For this new exhibition, he has experimented with making mixed media works combining woodblock printing, lino printing, photography and found imagery.
Since 2005, Muirhead has been incorporating Japanese woodblock printing into his work. For this new exhibition, he has experimented with making mixed media works combining woodblock printing, lino printing, photography and found imagery.
Among his eclectic aesthetic influences are Bauhaus and modernist design, DADA, Op-Art, neo-plasticism, Pop Art and the American abstract painter Burgoyne Diller. Muirhead is also interested in the playful, colourful and modular designs of Memphis Design Group, the Italian design company led by Ettore Sottsass.
These influences translate in his work to a tightly considered approach to colour, surface, balance and space, which reflects his interest in modernism, typography, German cinema and Cold War aesthetics. Much of the found imagery in Muirhead’s work is from flea-markets, particularly in Berlin and it is informed by a collector-curator’s passion for print culture, especially of the mid 20th Century: magazines, cinema posters, street signage, redundant text books, window displays and advertisements; all these and more are reflected in Muirhead’s assemblages and collages.
These influences translate in his work to a tightly considered approach to colour, surface, balance and space, which reflects his interest in modernism, typography, German cinema and Cold War aesthetics. Much of the found imagery in Muirhead’s work is from flea-markets, particularly in Berlin and it is informed by a collector-curator’s passion for print culture, especially of the mid 20th Century: magazines, cinema posters, street signage, redundant text books, window displays and advertisements; all these and more are reflected in Muirhead’s assemblages and collages.
One of the most compelling aspects of Muirhead’s art practice is the way in which these concerns are combined with masterly printing technique, where found material is juxtaposed with an exacting approach to the craft and process of moku hanga or Japanese woodblock. This, combined with stencilled metal, spraypaint, lacquer and other materials give his mixed media collages an incredible variety of surface texture.
To see the exhibition online, click here.
To see the exhibition online, click here.
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