Biography & Exhibition History
Last updated January 2012Understatement
The volatility of the fixed
Overstatement
My work is concerned with alchemical transformations in the moving image. The moving image is volatile, unfixed and dynamic in its relations with a world it does not represent. It is its own fluidity, its own frame of reference. Moving images are the matter of perception, a matter to be destroyed, recreated, mixed and transmuted. From the moment of perception, through the mediation of the camera, the processing, the editing, through to the projection and spatialisation of the work, this dynamic of transformation is enacted. The boundaries between the real and the unreal, the fixed and the volatile, the seen and the imagined, are dissolved. The matter of the image is elemental.
Biography
Richard Ashrowan (b.1966) is a moving image artist who lives and works in the Scottish Borders. He works primarily with high definition film and video, creating immersive video installations, still photographic works on paper and written texts. His works have been exhibited at the Foksal Gallery and Fabrycka Sztuki in Poland, the Brukenthal Museum and Casa Artelor in Romania, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, The Forest Gallery, Selkirk, the Ruskin Gallery in Cambridge, and the Threshold Artspace in Perth. In addition he has works in public, private and corporate collections. An artist monograph of his recent work, 'Lament' has been published by Nowhere Arts. In addition to his practice, he is currently engaged in a practice-led PhD at Edinburgh College of Art. He is also curator of Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival in Scotland.
Previous Exhibitions
2011
Sensory alchemy - a laboratory of failure
Inspace
1, Crichton Street, Edinburgh
Dec 7th - 9th 2011
Diagram: Utopia
The Horsebox Gallery
Touring (group) show, various places, Scotland
Sept - Nov 2011
Hear: See: There
(A/V performance collaboration with James Wyness)
Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival
Hawick, Scottish Borders
Oct 24th 2011
Seven Seals
I-Park
East Haddam, Connecticut, USA
16 Oct 2011
Mutus Floris
Bump Gallery
Galashiels, Scottish Borders
26th - 27th August 2011
Supernature - a collection of films
Supernormal Festival
Braziers Park, Oxfordshire
19th - 21st August 2011
Fingal's Cave
An Tobar
Isle of Mull
2nd July to 30th July 2011
Alchemist
Liverpool John Moores University
Film Philosophy
6th July to 8th July 2011
Mutus Floris
Montreal Underground Film Festival
May 14th 2011
Mutus Floris
The Generator Shed
Scottish Borders
May 7th to May 15th 2011
Invite and directions
‘Going Outward’
Curator, Exhibitor
Geopoetics Festival
Brantwood, England
March 2011
Reflections, Inversions, Symmetries
Royal Scottish Academy
Edinburgh, Scotland
February/March 2011
Alchemist
New Moves International
International Festival of Live Art (single channel screening)
Glasgow
February 2011
2010
Alchemist and Lament
Alchemy Film and Media Arts Festival
Curated by Richard Ashrowan
Hawick
September 2010
Alchemist
Glasgow International
The Jacobean Building, 49 Virginia Street (first floor), Glasgow. G1 1TS
April/May 2010
2009
Lament & Fingal's Cave
Atlantic Islands Festival, Isle of Luing
Scottish Centre for Geopoetics
July 2009
Fingal's Cave
Mendelssohn Festival
An Tobar, Tobermory, Isle of Mull
June 2009
Lament (group show)
SSA annual exhibition
Vision Building, Dundee
May/June 2009
Lament (solo show)
Forest Gallery, Selkirk
April 2009
Borderline/Lament (solo show)
Casa Artelor, Timisoara, Romania
Curated by Ileana Pintilie
March 2009
2008
Fingal's Cave (solo show)
Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
Curated by Jaromir Jedlenski
June/July 2008
2007
*Poprzez Portret
Fabrycka Sztuki, Lodz, Poland
Curated by Krystoff Noworyta
December 2007
Contact Rushes
The National Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu, Romania
Curated by Ileana Pintillie
(part of a Demarco Archive exhibition)
November 2007
*Contact Rushes
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh
Curated by Richard Demarco
August 2007
*Evanescence - Ice/Thaw Norway
Demarco European Art Foundation, Edinburgh/Glasgow
April 2007
2006
*A Landscape Symphony in 22 Movements
Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge
October 2006
2005
*A Landscape Symphony in 22 Movements
Threshold Artspace, Perth Concert Hall, Perth
Curated by Iliyana Nedkova
October 2005
The Guru
Threshold Artspace, Perth Concert Hall, Perth
Curated by Iliyana Nedkova
October 2005
2004
The Windmills of Innerleithen
Videomedeja
Novi Sad, Serbia
Drift touring programme
The Windmills of Innerleithen
Edinburgh International Film Festival
Stills Gallery
Drift touring programme
2003
The Windmills of Innerleithen
Innerliethen, Scottish Borders
Curated by Iliyana Nedkova
June 2003
*Reception
Ledingham Chalmers, Edinburgh
January 2003
Residencies
2011
I-Park
Artist Residency Centre
East Haddam, Connecticut, USA
2007
Brantwood
Former home of John Ruskin / Brantwood Trust
Coniston, Lake District, England
2004 -2005
Threshold Artspace
Perth Concert Hall, Perth
Lead Artist
Public Collections
Threshold Artspace
Perth Concert Hall, Perth
Anglia Ruskin University
Cambridge
Corporate Collections
Ledingham Chalmers
Edinburgh
Publications
Lament
Nowhere Arts
Artists monograph 2009
Borderline
Timisoara, Romania
Group catalogue/ conference paper 2009
In Romanian and English
Fingal's Cave / Blue Flora Celtica
Foksal Gallery, Poland
Joint exhibition catalogue 2008
*Contact Rushes / Poprzez Portret
Fabryka Sztuki / Narodowe Centrum Kultury
Exhibition catalogue 2007
*A Landscape Symphony in 22 Movements
Threshold Artspace
Exhibition catalogue 2005
*Threshold
Threshold Artspace
Project catalogue 2005
The Windmills of Innerleithen
Exhibition catalogue 2005
Reception
Ledingham Chalmers
Exhibition catalogue 2003
* Note to the above:
Works marked by an asterisk were produced during a period of joint practice with Alexander Hamilton, under the name 'Hamilton & Ashrowan'.