Elaine Shemilt

Last updated

Elaine Shemilt
Elaine Shemilt on South Georgia in 2009.jpg
Shemilt on the Island of South Georgia in 2009
Born (1954-05-07) 7 May 1954 (age 69)
Edinburgh, Scotland
NationalityBritish
Education Winchester School of Art,
Royal College of Art, London
Known for Video art, Photography, Printmaking, Performance Art
Notable workDoppelgänger (1979)
Quattro Minuti di Mezzogiorno (2010)
Movement Video Art, Feminism
Children Genevieve Murphy (composer), Emile Shemilt, Ben Murphy

Elaine Shemilt (born 7 May 1954) is a British artist and researcher especially known as a fine art printmaker. [1]

Contents

Her work does not take a conventional approach to the medium and ranges across a wide variety of media. According to the art historian and theorist Alan Woods: "Her work initially focused on installation, the various printmaking media were used in an attempt to continue and develop the installations by other means. If the event is inevitably lost, a new artwork is launched from it, and as themes and subjects occur and re-occur, their re-generation might usefully be imagined as located within an extended family of images." [2]

Biography

Between 1960 and 1972, Shemilt grew up in Craigavad, County Down in Northern Ireland. She attended non-denominational Bloomfield Collegiate School and Victoria College, Belfast during The Troubles where her experiences motivated her to develop the themes of conflict, censorship and psychological constraint in her work. [3]

Shemilt's installation, Ancient Death Ritual was selected by Helen Chadwick for the Hayward Biennale of 1979 AncientDeath.jpg
Shemilt’s installation, Ancient Death Ritual was selected by Helen Chadwick for the Hayward Biennale of 1979

Shemilt is a graduate of the Winchester School of Art and the Royal College of Art. From 1980–1982 she was one of the first Artists in Residence at the South Hill Park Arts Centre. She has exhibited internationally including in Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Canada, USA, Australia, Italy and Germany. In Britain she has exhibited at the Hayward Gallery and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London and at the Edinburgh Festival. She was a pioneer of early feminist video and multi-media installation work alongside her fellow artist and friend Helen Chadwick, who selected her for the Hayward Annual in 1979. [4] Of her early video works, only two have survived: Doppelgänger (1979), [5] and Women Soldiers (1984), which were recovered and remastered by the REWIND video art project in 2011. [6]

Shemilt established the printmaking department of the School of Fine Art, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (University of Dundee) in 1988 and was course director of printmaking from 1988–2001 and Chair of Printmaking from 2001–2021. She is retired from academia but remains Professor Emerita of fine art printmaking and a professional member and former President of the Society of Scottish Artists [7] [8] and was its president from March 2007 until 2010. Shemilt was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2000 and of the Royal Geographical Society in 2009. She has collaborated with the video artist Stephen Partridge on several installations, including "Rush", first exhibited at London's Fieldgate Gallery, [9] and "Quattro Minuti di Mezzogiorno", a HiDefinition video installation, [10] exhibited in Italy in December 2010 – January 2011. [11]

South Georgia

In 2002 she was made a Shackleton Scholar [12] and was awarded a Carnegie Scholarship. She is a trustee and vice chair (2002–2020) of the South Georgia Heritage Trust [13] established to promote the environmental protection and habitat restoration of South Georgia Island, a natural wilderness in the Southern Atlantic. [14] In 1998 Shemilt was invited to lead a project to improve the environment of the military base on the Falkland Isles by the then commander, Brigadier David Nicholls. The experiences of the staff and student team she put together led inevitably, to independent artworks by all. Four years later in 2002 this led to the exhibition, Traces of Conflict, The Falklands Revisited 1982–2002 at the Imperial War Museum. Shemilt's work in this exhibition was inspired by the abandoned field hospital at Ajax Bay, and according to the Imperial War Museum Keeper Angela Weight, Shemilt "was gripped by the aura of a place where the writ of war did not run and young men were tended irrespective of whether they were friend or foe." [15] In 2011 she produced a series of Screenprints and laser cut embossed prints and a suite of these were acquired by the National Museum of Northern Ireland for their permanent collection in 2020. These were featured in a BBC4 programme Inside Museums, (episode 3) on the Ulster Museum in Belfast, broadcast on the 13th Oct 2020 at 7pm. The programme was presented and written by Emma Dabiri, who wrote:

“The final work I want to show you is also by a woman – though this one, interestingly, does the reverse, imploring us NOT to travel. Elaine Shemilt is a contemporary artist, whose practice in recent years has turned more and more to environment activism. This print is an outline of the Island of South Georgia. Situated on the edge of the Antarctic South Georgia is a place loaded with significance. It was once a base for seven whaling stations, home to a grisly orgy of blood and blubber, synonymous with the destruction of the natural world. But in recent years the island has become a bellwether for environmentalists. A barometer for the effects of climate change. Shemilt invites us to look at this simple beautiful object – an embossed line on card and engage with a terrifying idea… that unless things change, unless we change, there will be fewer places for us to travel to at all. It demonstrates one of the most profound ways in which our world has changed. All that exploration, and the exploitation of the world’s resources, has created a world in which we need to travel less. Even after a lockdown, where the skies were empty of planes for weeks, we cannot afford to become complacent." [16]

Art and science

A Blueprint for Bacterial Life - HiDef video digital installation at DCA, Dundee, 2006. Blueprint1.gif
A Blueprint for Bacterial Life – HiDef video digital installation at DCA, Dundee, 2006.

An important strand of her work involves collaboration between art and science. Her work with the Genome Diagram developed by Dr Ian Toth and Dr Leighton Pritchard at the Scottish Crop Research Institute resulted in a portfolio of work including installations, digital animation, prints and music. [17]

Scales of Life installation shot of the panels on the CTIR Building, 2013. Photo-copy-web.jpg
Scales of Life installation shot of the panels on the CTIR Building, 2013.

In 2013 Shemilt completed a major SciArt commission for the University of Dundee College of Life Science's new Centre for Translational & Interdisciplinary Research building: The Scales of Life which embodies science and the visualisation process. She collaborated with the Regius Professor Michael Ferguson and the architect Jo White. On three facades of the CTIR building, 16 columns of large metal cladding panels incorporate her artistic abstractions which represent the four key scales of life: Molecular, Organellar, Cellular and Tissue. The cladding panels (1.5m wide x 3.6m high) are made from a high quality anodised aluminium and are arranged vertically into groups of four panels. The panels address the essence of the four main scales of life and the intangibility of their size and dimensions. The visual abstractions reflect both an interpretive aesthetic approach, and the need to retain scientific recognition and accuracy. The main objective of the work is that the series of images reflect in a meaningful way the scientific research being undertaken within the CTIR building. The CTIR was officially opened by Sir Paul Nurse on 1 October 2014. [18]

Research

In 2013 she was awarded a Royal Society of Edinburgh Caledonian European Research Fellowship to study and research in Italy, and was chair of the international printmaking conference IMPACT 8 held in Dundee in August. [19]

In 2014 she was awarded £234,872 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to act as principal investigator on the research project European Women's video art in the 70s and 80s (EWVA). [20] A publication associated with the project was published in May 2019. [21]

Starting in March 2018 she started work as principal investigator on another AHRC-funded research project (£215,602), Richard Demarco, the Italian Connection | Exchanges between Scotland and Italy through Richard Demarco in the European context – a study on the eponymous artist, animateur, gallerist, and promoter of the visual and performing arts. [22] A major publication is the main outcome of the research published in late 2022 by John Libbey Publishing.

Exhibitions

Interest in Shemilt's early video and performance work has grown during the early 21st century. For example, the exhibition, SHE DEVIL 8, in Rome in 2016 was described:

Still from Doppelganger, video work 1979 Dopple.jpg
Still from Doppelgänger, video work 1979
"The godmother of SHE DEVIL 8 is Elaine Shemilt with the video performance Doppelgänger. The work is part of a series of video experiments by women artists in the 1970s and 1980s, rediscovered and digitally remastered by the research project REWIND,.... Doppelgänger is one of two still existing videos of a series begun by Shemilt in 1974, salvaged in 2011. The term doppelgänger is used in German culture to indicate the evil twin (doppel / double, and gänger / goer). The doppelgänger of Elaine Shemilt is utterly feminine. The artist puts on makeup in front of the mirror in a ritual divided between the face and its reflected image that generates the double, the absolute protagonist of the finale." [23]

In 2019 she and artist Federica Marangoni collaborated on Parallel Dialogues Through Video and Time at Casa di Carlo Goldoni, Venice. The exhibition, curated by Laura Leuzzi and Iliyana Nedkova with Adam Lockhart, was planned to tour to Scotland in 2020, but cancelled due to Covid. [24] Articles, Exhibitions and Journal Papers reflect the renewed interest in Shemilt's works. [25] [26] [27]

Works installed at Feminist Avant-Garde, Arles, France Works installed at Feminist Avant-Garde, Arles, France.jpg
Works installed at Feminist Avant-Garde, Arles, France

Shemilt was featured in Gabriel Schor's book, The Feminist Avant Garde, Art from the 1970s in 2016 and 2nd Edition in 2022. [28] In 2018. several of her works from the 1970s were acquired by the SAMMLUNG VERBUND art collection in Vienna, [29] and her work is in a touring exhibition, The Feminist avantgarde of the 1970s (+ various titles), showing in Stavanger (Norway 2018), Brno (Czech Republic 2019), Barcelona (Spain 2020), Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz (Austria), New York City (2020 – postponed due to COVID), and in the Feminist Avant-Garde, Exhibition within Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles Photographic Festival, Arles (France) July 4–25 September, 2022. [30] In November she was an exhibitor and guest at the festival, About The Future, at Palazzo GIL, Campobasso, Molise Culture Foundation, Italy. [31]



Academic works

Works in collections

Selected works

Related Research Articles

Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. Video art can take many forms: recordings that are broadcast; installations viewed in galleries or museums; works streamed online, distributed as video tapes, or DVDs; and performances which may incorporate one or more television sets, video monitors, and projections, displaying live or recorded images and sounds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Hall (video artist)</span> English artist

David Hall was an English artist, whose pioneering work contributed much to establishing video as an art form.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elaine Sturtevant</span> American artist

Elaine Frances Sturtevant, also known professionally as Sturtevant, was an American artist. She achieved recognition for her carefully inexact repetitions of other artists' works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Demarco</span> British artist

Richard Demarco CBE is a Scottish artist and promoter of the visual and performing arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design</span> Art school of the University of Dundee

Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (DJCAD) is part of the University of Dundee in Dundee, Scotland. It is ranked as one of the top schools of art and design in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackie Hatfield</span>

Jackie Hatfield was an artist, writer, and academic. According to the influential artist-led no.w.here website: "Jackie Hatfield is an artist and writer who makes expanded and participatory cinematic artworks using digital video, performance, sound and digital print. She has co-edited two critical books around women's use of technology in art practice and has published essays that concentrate on under-explored histories of experimental film and video practices."

Zuzanna Janin, is a Polish visual artist and former teenage actor. Janin lives and works in Warsaw and London. Janin has created sculpture, video, installation, photography and performatives. She used the names Zuzanna Baranowska (1990-1992) and from 1992 Zuzanna Janin. Her work was shown in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and A.I.R Gallery New York. She is included in Feminist Artists Data in Brooklyn Museum, NY.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Partridge</span> English artist

Stephen Partridge is an English video artist who studied under David Hall and his career as an artist, academic and researcher, helped to establish video as an art form in the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renate Bertlmann</span> Feminist avant-garde artist

Renate Bertlmann is an Austrian feminist avant-garde visual artist, who since the early 1970s has worked on issues surrounding themes of sexuality, love, gender and eroticism within a social context, with her own body often serving as the artistic medium. Her diverse practice spans across painting, drawing, collage, photography, sculpture and performance, and actively confronts the social stereotypes assigned to masculine and feminine behaviours and relationships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madelon Hooykaas</span>

Else Madelon Hooykaas is a Dutch video artist, photographer and film maker. She makes films, sculptures, audio-video installations and has published several books.

Mary Beth Edelson was an American artist and pioneer of the feminist art movement, deemed one of the notable "first-generation feminist artists". Edelson was a printmaker, book artist, collage artist, painter, photographer, performance artist, and author. Her works have been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

Nil Yalter is a Turkish contemporary feminist artist. She attended Robert College in Istanbul, Turkey and currently lives and works in Paris. Her work, which is included in many collections and museums, includes not only drawings and photographs, but also videos and performance art. In fact she is the first Turkish female video artist.

Catherine Elwes is a British artist, curator and critic working predominantly in the field of video art and a significant figure in the British feminist art movement. She was born in St Maixent, France. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and later graduated with an MA in Environmental Media from the Royal College of Art. She began working with video in the late 1970s. In 1979 Elwes performed Menstruation II, a three-day performance at the Slade which lasted for the duration of a menstrual period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vivian E. Browne</span> American artist

Vivian E. Browne was an American artist. Born in Laurel, Florida, Browne was mostly known for her African-American protest paintings, and linking abstraction to nature. She has received multiple awards for her work, been an activist, professor and a founder of many galleries. According to her mother, Browne died at 64 from bladder cancer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tahmineh Monzavi</span>

Tahmineh Monzavi is an Iranian photographer. Her works have been exhibited in museums in several countries, and published by international art magazines and books. She received the Sheed Award in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birgit Jürgenssen</span> Austrian artist (1949–2003)

Birgit Jürgenssen (1949–2003) was an Austrian photographer, painter, graphic artist, curator and teacher who specialized in feminine body art with self-portraits and photo series, which have revealed a sequence of events related to the daily social life of a woman in its various forms including an atmosphere of shocking fear and common prejudices. She was acclaimed as one of the "outstanding international representatives of the feminist avant-garde". She lived in Vienna. Apart from holding solo exhibitions of her photographic and other art works, she also taught at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

Barbara Zeigler (1949) is a Canadian visual artist with a focus in print media. She has also worked in drawing, video, installation and collaborative public art, often combining these media with her work in print to prompt questions as to the character and consequences of our existing cultural paradigms. Her artwork focuses on the evolving relationship between human culture and the ecosphere, with special consideration given to the ways in which individual and collective identity become evident through land usage. Zeigler lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margot Pilz</span> Austrian visual artist

Margot Pilz is an Austrian visual artist and a pioneer of conceptual and digital art in Austria. She was one of the first Austrian artists to combine computers and photography. Her works reflect the avant-garde culture of the 1960s and 1970s in their experimental techniques and performative aspects. Her work received renewed attention in the 2010s.

Feminist Avantgarde: Art of the 1970s is an international series of exhibitions and a book publication curated and edited by the Austrian art historian Gabriele Schor about feminist art in the second half of the twentieth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gabriele Schor</span> Austrian writer, art critic and curator

Gabriele Schor, born in Vienna in 1961, is an Austrian writer, art critic and curator. She is a specialist of the feminist avantgarde of the 1970s.

References

  1. "The Best of Printmaking", Lynne Allen (Editor), Phyllis McGibbon (Editor) (Rockport Publishers Inc. 1997, ISBN   1-56496-371-3)
  2. "Behind Appearance", Arthur Watson/Alan Woods, edited by Roland Box, 1997 ISBN   0-904490-25-4).
  3. Bloomfield Collegiate School Illustrious Alumni
  4. Hayward Annual Catalogue
  5. Doppelgänger on Vimeo
  6. REWIND
  7. "SSA". Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 29 July 2011.
  8. Administrator, S. S. A. (19 August 2013). "Presidents and Secretaries of the SSA". Society of Scottish Artists. Retrieved 28 October 2020.
  9. Analogue & Digital Exhibition
  10. Quattro Minuti di Mezzogiorno, on Vimeo
  11. "Catalogue Information". Archived from the original on 15 February 2008. Retrieved 18 July 2012.
  12. "Shackleton Scholarships". Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  13. SGHT Trustees
  14. South Georgia Website Archived 12 September 2012 at archive.today
  15. Traces of Conflict, The Falklands Revisited 1982–2002, edited by Angela Weight, Imperial War Museum, London, 2002 ISBN   1-901623-99-8).
  16. "BBC Four – Inside Museums, Series 1, Ulster Museum". BBC. Retrieved 19 February 2022.
  17. Genome Diagram
  18. "Sir Paul Nurse to officially open the Centre for Translational and Interdisciplinary Research on 1 October 2014". 29 September 2014.
  19. IMPACT 8
  20. 1 2 UKRI gateway to publicly funded research and innovation
  21. 1 2 Laura Leuzzi, Elaine Shemilt and Stephen Partridge (eds), (2019), European Women’s Video Art in the 70s and 80s . Indiana University Press.
  22. UKRI gateway to publicly funded research and innovation
  23. SHE DEVIL 8 – from press copy of the exhibition, SHE DEVIL 8, in Rome at STUDIO STEFAN MISCETTI Gallery, 16 March-16 April 2016.
  24. "FEDERICA MARANGONI AND ELAINE SHEMILT. Parallel Dialogues Through Video and Time". 26 July 2019.
  25. Leuzzi, Laura. "Embracing the ephemeral: lost and recovered video artworks by Elaine Shemilt from the 70s and 80s – Arabeschi Rivista di studi su letteratura e visualità". Rivista Arabeschi (in Italian). Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  26. "GLI ORI – Editori Contemporanei". www.gliori.it. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  27. Leuzzi, Laura; Partridge, Stephen; Lockhart, Adam (1 August 2019). Approaches, Strategies and Theoretical and Practice-Based Research Methods to investigate and archive video art. Some reflections from the REWIND projects. RE:SOUND 2019 – 8th International Conference on Media Art, Science, and Technology. Electronic Workshops in Computing. doi: 10.14236/ewic/RESOUND19.41 . hdl: 11573/1607074 .
  28. Amazon
  29. Sammlung Verbund Art Collection Information
  30. Sammlung Verbund Art Collection website
  31. "Fondazione Molise Cultura".
  32. "European Women's Video Art in the 70s and 80s – Talk at Tate Modern".