The Society of Scottish Artists is delighted to introduce twelve new Professional Members.
Professional Members are artists who are actively practising professionally within one or more branches of the visual arts and are selected in recognition of their talent and dedication in this field.
These artists represent a broad range of styles, and their work reflects the variety and vibrancy that can be found across the SSA membership – professional, ordinary and student.
The artists are:
Jill Bennett
Jill Bennett is a printmaker working mainly in stone lithography, though occasional working in plate litho, screenprinting, etching and drypoint. It is through stone lithography that Jill expresses her fascination with all things old, crumbly and ruinous: layers of peeling paintwork, the gorgeous colours of rust, the texture of disintegrating stone. more
Juliana Capes
Juliana Capes is an Edinburgh based artist who makes public artworks, temporary installations and durational artwork. Her ambitious installations investigate space and participation, with environments and interactions inspiring and contributing to meaning. Her work has been exhibited across the UK and internationally. Recent exhibitions include installations at Deptford X Festival, National Galleries of Scotland, Cupar Arts Festival and LeithLate16. She has recently been supported by an Award from Edinburgh City Council and Creative Scotland and was awarded the SSA 2015 Exhibition Award.
Rhona Fairgrieve
Rhona Fairgrieve was born and lives in Scotland. Drawing is the core of Rhona’s practice. She works primarily on paper with ink. Rhona loves walking. Ideas and themes for her work often come from memories of days walking along beaches, canals, lochs, and rivers and exploring towns and cities in Scotland and abroad. She works from her studio on the hill above Falkirk overlooking The Firth of Forth and exhibits in local and city galleries and exhibitions. more
Aleksandra Kargul
Aleksandra Kargul began her printmaking practice in Art High School in Poland where she specialised in etching. She came to Edinburgh in 2007 to study Interior Design and graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2012. After graduation, she continued to develop her artistic work through lithography, often on a commissioned basis. In 2015 she joined the team of Edinburgh Printmakers as a studio assistant and learned other printmaking techniques such as screen printing, photo gravure and cyanotype. Aleksandra was recently awarded the prestigious Eichstaett Lithography Prize comprising a residency and solo exhibition in Bavaria, awarded through the SSA Open Exhibition 2015. more
Kirsty Lorenz
Kirsty Lorenz is an artist for whom flowers are a central subject, depicting them in different ways and contexts through painting, drawing, mixed media and installation. Over the years her incorporation of flowers into her artwork has grown from straight portraiture to more complex compositions and ideas. Kirsty’s ‘Votive Offerings’ project is an ongoing project, a series of portrayals of wild flower posies. Kirsty works from her unusual studio on Platform 2, Ladybank Railway Station in Fife. more
Jane McCance
Jane McCance was born in Glasgow and lives and works on the Ayrshire coast, she is an alumna of Glasgow School of Art. For Jane, painting is a process and a final result which is concerned with the need as an artist to both connect and disconnect with herself, with the world and with the viewer. The act of painting is largely solitary. Much time is spent alone, physically engaging and often struggling with a plastic medium. It involves a forced absence from the rest of life, and yet it requires an involvement with life, with emotion, with ourselves as necessarily social animals. more
Alan McGowan
Alan McGowan‘s practice is divided between producing drawings, paintings and sculpture for exhibition and teaching workshops in drawing, painting and anatomy for artists. His work has been exhibited throughout the UK and in the USA, South Korea, The Czech Republic, Portugal and Finland. In 2015, Alan was selected for the BP Portrait exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and exhibited in New York, the Westbeth Gallery, and in London at the Threadneedle Prize for figurative art exhibition. His sculpture has been accepted into the Society of Portrait Sculptors annual exhibition in London and won the Powderhall Bronze Foundry Prize at VAS, Royal Scottish Academy.
Deirdre Robertson
Deirdre Robertson‘s work explores the recurring themes of time, loss, individual and collective memory and renewals. Her practice emerges largely from the movement that Nicolas Bourriaud describes as “relational aesthetic”; working both as facilitator and collaborator in the ongoing creative process of rebuilding the lost, sharing of information, the reawakening of memories, celebrating the unique in the local, energising ideas and repurposing the forgotten. While largely fun, celebratory and concerned with achieving the positive outcomes of regeneration and renewal, several of her projects are unashamedly bleak and overtly political. more
Carol Sinclair
Carol Sinclair completed a BA (Hons) at Grays School of Art in Aberdeen in 1989, before setting up her own ceramics studio in Edinburgh in 1990 to design and hand make ceramic tiles. Over the next 15 years, she ran her studio and interior design gallery, Sinclair Wilson Interior Creations. In 2012, Carol began to develop a new body of work as a ceramic artist, exploring the theme of memory and connection as a response to being a carer for a family member with dementia. Carol works with fine translucent porcelain paper clay to create layered compositions that echo the way we build memories, through time and experience. more
Jill Skulina
Jill Skulina is an artist based in Dundee. She graduating with an MFA from DJCAD in 2007 and has been exhibiting work for 15 years, including at SSA, VAS, The Meffan Gallery, Summerhall, Hannah Maclure Centre and The Cupar Arts Festival. Jill regularly facilitates creative workshops and as part of the WASPS Meadow Mill curatorial panel, have organised open studios, programmed events and selected submissions for exhibition. Last year she received Development Programme funding from the Fife Visual Artist and Maker Award. more
Jayne Stokes
Jayne Stokes documents the world around her and thinks of herself as an artist explorer. Her work is often based on the journeys made, whether that be a walk to the shops or a 100-mile road trip. Often Jayne will utilise found objects such as old tins and matchboxes, she likes to use objects in painting because they have a history, they have been on a journey, they bear the marks of time. Jayne studied Drawing & Painting at Edinburgh College of Art.
Gill Tyson
Gill Tyson‘s practice revolves around remote and often hostile locations, seeking out human markers in the landscape. More recently she has moved away from transient observation and study to a more in-depth response to the environment – landscape, weather, sky, sea, history, and tales – from and of one remote location on Morvern. She works predominately in lithography, and at times in wood engraving, screen-printing, drawing and painting, sometimes combining several techniques in one work. more
Information on all Professional Members can be found on the SSA website.