ELAINE SPEIRS BEAUTIFUL REGRETS 10 - 30 AUGUST 2019
Cover: First Love Oil on Board, 60x66cm Additional works will be available during the exhibition. Further information on the artist, artworks and prices can be found on our website and via our Artsy profile.
ELAINE SPEIRS
BEAUTIFUL REGRETS 10 - 30 AUGUST 2019
Join us for the opening on Saturday 10th August from 2-4pm
&Gallery 3 Dundas Street Edinburgh EH3 6QG andgallery.co.uk info@andgallery.co.uk 07711 285 545
ELAINE SPEIRS Elaine Speirs was born in Johannesburg and moved to Paisley as a child. Her childhood experiences in and between these two places spurred an interest in the themes of fragility, contradiction and reinvention that recur throughout her work. Speirs explores the stark contrast she observes between the rich contours of female personhood and the depersonalised portraits of women that appear in the public sphere. Referencing a variety of imagery - ranging from eighteenth century portraiture to contemporary photography and film - the work reclaims the fleeting moments of humanity Speirs glimpses in these images, establishing a tentative connection between the distant and the intimate, between the universal and the personal. Beautiful Regrets has an uneasy coexistence of contradictory states: strength and vulnerability, loneness and hope, love and despair. Speirs examines these tensions by capturing fleeting moments of humanity with Franco Zeffirellis 1968 film Romeo and Juliet. Speirs examines these tensions by employing a dynamic technique of wiping and layering that suggests the human process of erasure and reinvention. We are left with a series of momentary resolutions that contain both clarity and a sense of contingency. Speirs trained at Edinburgh College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art in London. A regular exhibitor at the RSA, with VSA, and at the SSA, she has also exhibited at the Mall Galleries in London. Her awards include the Glasgow Club Award (2012), the Caron Keating Memorial Award, Mall Galleries, London (2012) and the John Purcell Works on Paper Award, Mall Galleries (2015). She was shortlisted for the National Open Art Competition (2014), the Threadneedle Painting Prize (2014), W Gordon Smith Award (2016) and selected for the BP Portrait Award (2019). She lives in Edinburgh with her three daughters.
Juliet’s Bed Oil on Board, 120x150cm
Unconditional Love & Hold Oil on Board, 28x40cm
Forbidden Love Oil on Board, 97x87cm
Lost Sleep Oil on Board, 72x160cm
Kiss Oil on Board, 90x90cm
Lost Love Mixed Media on Board, 129x147cm
First Kiss & Sleeping Juliet Oil on Board, 28x42cm
Last Sleep Oil on Board, 70x85cm
Last Kiss Oil on Board, 129x138cm
ELAINE SPEIRS E D U C AT I O N 1989 - 93 Edinburgh College of Art B.A. Hons 1993 - 95 Slade School of Fine Art M.A. SOLO 2019 2017 2014 2013
EXHIBITIONS &Gallery, Edinburgh, Beautiful Regrets Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh, Portrait of Her &Collective, Bridge of Allan, No Small Dreams Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh, Lost Sleep
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2019 BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London 2018 &Gallery, Edinburgh 2017 Basel, Switzerland Art Fair, Arusha Gallery 2016 Shortlisted W.Gordon Smith Award, Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh 2016 SSA Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh 2015 Thompson’s Gallery, London, Portrait Show 2015 Summer Exhibition, Gallery Heinzel, Aberdeen 2015 Scottish Summer Exhibition, Thompson’s Gallery, London 2015 Mall Galleries, London 2014 Paisley Art Institute, Paisley 2014 Aberdeen Art Gallery 2013 SWA, The Mall Galleries, London 2013 VAS, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh 2013 SSA, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh 2013 Aberdeen National Gallery 2012 Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh 2012 Award Winners’ Show, Glasgow Art Club 2012 Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh 2012 Shortlisted National Open Art Competition 2012 Kelly Gallery, Glasgow 2012 Aberdeen National Gallery 2012 Paisley Institute Drawing Competition 2011 Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh 2011 “Quartet”, Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh 2011 VAS, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh 2010 RSA, Edinburgh AWARDS 2015 Purcell Works on Paper Award Mall Galleries London 2013 Caron Keating Memorial Art Award Mall Galleries London 2012 Glasgow Art Club Award
&Gallery, 3 Dundas Street, Edinburgh, EH3 6QG andgallery.co.uk info@andgallery.co.uk