On the Map 2006

Beagles and Ramsay
artistsMessrs Beagles and Ramsay continued their post-mediam foray into everything sweetly narcissistic with glittery island-sized monuments to ego at Tramway in February. The artists posed at posing as art world luvvies, gobbling up thier own selves by sending up the myth-making machine that lionises contemporary artists.
www.beaglesramsay.co.uk Susanna Beaumont
gallerist Spurred by frustration at Edinburgh’s lack of international contemporary art spaces, Beaumont set up her own independent commercial gallery, doggerfisher, in May 2001. In doing so, she has extended the potential for Edinburgh as a viable place for representing and dealing in international contemporary artwork. Her background in Public Art Commissions and Exhibitions (PACE) and as visual arts editor for The List magazine partly informed Beauumont’s knowledge of the Scottish scene, and she has now cemented her interarnational reputation in presenting artists such as Rosalind Nashashibi, Nathan Coley ad Claire Barclay.
www.doggerfisher.com

Karla Black artist The sculptural installations of the Glasgow-based artist Karla Black includes an element of ‘risk’. Her sometimes flimsy constructions not only look like they are about to fold into themselves, but bravely tackle the formalist problem of pure abstraction and ‘faktura’ (truth to matreials). Black’s work retains traces of its construction, and is created out of materials that skim the surface of the female body—lipstick, nail varnish. Black’s work had a major outing in 2005 in the CCA show Like It Matters . Underlining an increaasing recognition of her talent, she has been busy this year with shows at Edinburgh’s doggerfisher, New York’s Broadway 1602 and at Hanah Robinson’s new Mary Mary Gallery in Glasgow.
www.marymarygallery.com

David Blyth artistDavid Blyth works autobiographically, mostly in sculpture, often with taxidermy, responding to the environment in the north east of Scotland. Hi new film ‘Lambkin’ looks at the horrors and beauties of procreation on the farm and relates to the birth of his own son.Christine Boreland artist Shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1997, Borland’s work has a natural beauty which overlays a sharp intelligence and curiosity about the mechanics of society. She carefully peels back the literal understandings of subjects such as forensic science, judicial process and medicine, rebuilding their DNA into objects which arouse intrigue and fascination. The Glasgow School of Art graduate lives in Kilcreggan and has a major solo show at the Fruitmarket in Edinburgh in November 2006.
www.lisson.co.uk

Martin Boyce artist This Glasgow-based artist creates sculptural installations that start with the inspiration of modernist design and end up at an altogether less certain destination—spatial landscapes that appear to oscillate between representing interiors, urban exteriors, and dimly recalled utopias synthesised out of metal grilles, mattress frames and neon tubes. Graduating fom Glasgow School of Art’s MFA programme, Boyce broods over imaginary spaces made real. He has recently been on residency in Berlin and has been selected to show at Münster in 2007.Fiona BradleycuratorCambridge graduate Bradley’simpressive career has taken her to the Tates in London and Liverpool, the Hayward Gallery and finally to Edinburgh where she has been director of the Fruitmarket Gallery since 2003. Her programme splices high calibre international artists such as Louise Bourgeois and Fred Sandback against showings of Scottish-based artists such as Callum Innes and Christine Borland—a mix allowing home-grown talent to share a platform with the rest of the world.
www.fruitmarket.co.uk

Katrina Brown curatorA Key figure on the international circuit, Brown has been enlisted by Jonathan Mills, new director of the Edinburgh International Festival to join him in creating a new visual arts element of the festival. She has been curator at DCA since 1997 and was responsible for the seminal Here + Now exhibition in 2001, a review of 1990s Scottish art, held over five venues. Brown has introduced many high profile international artists to the UK for the first time and is also an accomplished writer with an impressive body of work behind her, including a Douglas Gordon monograph for the Tate.
www.dca.org.uk

Jenny Brownrigg curator
Curator of the University of Dundee’s exhibitions department since 2002, Brownrigg has a generous intelligence which she uses freely to promote emerging and estalished artists, develping an internationally recognised exhibition programme. She recently co-curated Bucharest’s Young Persons’ Biennial: Absent Without Leave 12 Oct-16 Nov 2006, and is Visual Arts Advisor to the Scottish Arts Council.
www.exhibitions.dundee.ac.uk

Roderick Buchanan artist
Winner of the first Becks Futures Prize in 2000, Buchanan examines our collective and individual identities through sports and games in a variety of media. Living and working in Glasgow, he was one of the 1990s Glasgow School of Art graduates who is now internationally exhibited. He is a founder member of the regular Artcup, a meeting of art and football, this year held in Huntly, Scotland and previously hosted in Lisbon, Helsinki and Belgrade.
www.lisson.co.uk

John Calcutt curator/writerA history of art graduate from Edinburgh University and Courtauld Institute, John Calcutt is a curator, critic and teacher, not to mention one of the most prolific writers on Scottish contemporary art. Calcutt contributed to the landmark survey Here + Now, and has curated shows such as the CCA’s Ourobros: The Music of Spheres in 2004. Currently a lecturer in Historical & Critical Studies and a teacher on the MFA course at Glasgow School of Art, he also writes for the Observer and the Guardian.Nathan ColeyartistSince his cardboard mini settlement of 286 places of worship in Edinburgh was bought by the National Galleries of Scotland following his solo show at the Fruitmarket Gallery in 2004, Coley has continued to experiment with a variety of media. His latest installation ‘There Will Be No Miracles Here’ took him to the island of Bute, where the Mount Stuart Gallery operates over the summer months.
www.doggerfisher.com

Phil Collins artist
Runcorn-born and Glasgow-based artist Phil Collins has the ability to elicit the hidden performer in even the most benign and unexpected individuals. From ‘How to make a refugee’ 1999, to ‘they shoot horses’ 2004 in which Palestinians perform an eight-hour disco marathon, and most recently ‘shady lane productions’, his installation for this year’s Turner Prize, Collins shape-shifts between social documentarist and ambiguous orchestrator. With a BA in english literature and drama from Manchester and an MA in fine art from Ulster, he is a modern day video satirist whose uncomfortable portraits expose western complacency as much as refusing to give in to pessimism.
www.shadylaneproductions.co.uk

Sorcha Dallas gallerist
After graduating in painting from Glasgow School of Art in 1999, Sorcha Dallas was looking for a DIY project. The result was Switchspace—an art gallery with no fixed abode. Co-founded with Marieanne Greated in 1999, its first show was in Dallas’ front room in her Glasgow flat. It closed with a show by Cathy Wilkes and the commercial gallery Sorcha Dallas was founded in 2004. Showing at Basel, Art Forum Berlin and Frieze earlier this year, the gallery represents artist with growing international reputations such as Alex Pollard, Kate Davis and Gary Rough.
www.sorchadallas.com Kate Davisartist
New Zealand-born Davis is known for her drawings from life—objects and body parts tell mini dramas with a light touch and a sense of mystery. She has shown widely abroad including at Basel, Vienna and New York and has just completed a residency at Scottish Sculpture Workshop in Lumsden where she has worked in bronze for the first time.
www.sorchadallas.com Richard Demarcoartist/curator
It’s difficult to quantify the impact Demarco has had on the contemporary art world. Active since the 1960s, he has had numerous galleries showing stellar artists of their time such as Mark Boyle, Jasper Johns and Joseph Beuys. For two decades he created a mythic journey ‘The Road to Meikle Seggie’ bringing toghether many hundreds of international artists. His role in the founding of the Traverse Theatre, his Strategy Get Arts exhibition of 1971 and his connections with Eastern Europe also stand out. Active as ever, his gallery in a grain store on an East Lothian farm represent yet another avant garde achievement. His archive is currently being catalogued at Dundee University and will be exhibited at various venues over the next year.
www.blinkred.com