Photo of Bernie Reid by Neil Hanna
Edinburgh Printmakers are delighted to announce the first UK institutional show for artist Bernie Reid. The Edinburgh-based artist's body of work over a 30-year career includes mixed media paintings, trompe l'oeil decorative rugs, graphic screen prints and sculpture. Reid's work has been shown internationally in galleries which include MOMA New York, SFMOMA, 019 in Ghent, Serpentine Galleries in London, Garage Museum in Moscow and on the island of Stromboli for the Fiorucci Art Trust. Ornamental Breakdown will see Reid employ mediums and techniques associated with graffiti such as stencils and spray paint to create a new collection of work which aims to push stencil art and the decorative in a new direction.
His mixed media paintings use these techniques alongside traditional oils to depict abstracted and psychedelic figurative forms influenced by the subcultural practices of sampling and hacking established culture in order to create new identities. For Ornamental Breakdown, Reid will create a new series of artworks using industrial flooring material as canvas. Citing the anti style graffiti movement and the work of Italian futurist Fortunato Depero as influences the artist will use shapes and patterns to build and construct figures and landscapes from imagination exploring painting processes and forms of representation.
Speaking ahead of the exhibition artist Bernie Reid said: "My practice, as it is at the moment, is rooted in my relationship with stencils. As much as I've wanted to leave these hand cut apertures behind sometimes, I always seem to go back to them but now in a different mode. In the past I manipulated photographic reference to create 'versions' of an image but now I use shapes and patterns to build and construct figures and landscapes from imagination.
This show will hopefully represent a kind of personal liberation. I've cut and created thousands of stencils over the years and have always used them for what they were originally intended for whether that be a painted trompe l'oeil rug or an illustration brief. I now want to release all the image making potential of these stencils in a much more random and freer way. Pushing stencil art and the decorative in a new direction."
Curator Tiffany Boyle said: "We're thrilled to have this cohort of newly-commissioned work from Bernie Reid opening in Gallery 1 and running through to March: there's a real crossover between the way that he uses stencilling and building up layers of the image and printmaking techniques, reflecting the way the artist also frequently works with screenprinting in his studio. I have long admired Bernie's work so after all that time it's been really exciting to work with him, and see the work develop from his studio and emerge into the gallery. Generously supported by Vastint, these new works have allowed the artist to push forward new aspects of their practice."
Supported by VASTINT, Ornamental Breakdown runs from 2 February to 16 March in Gallery 1, Edinburgh Printmakers Castle Mills, Fountainbridge Edinburgh.
Running concurrently in Gallery 2 is a series of rarely seen print editions from the Edinburgh Printmakers archive. Selected EP Editions brings together a cohort of artworks, produced from 1987 to the present, and profiling print mediums spanning screenprint, etching, lithograph, blocktype, intaglio, collagraph and digital prints. Featuring: Ravi Agarwal; John Bellany; Paul Coldwell; Calum Colvin; Katy Dove; Ruth Ewan; Hideo Furuta; Peter Lynch; Wendy McMurdo; Sandy Moffatt; Scott Myles; Marilene Oliver; Carol Rhodes; Robin Spark; and Donald Urquhart.
