PINKIE MACLURE | Glass Stories

PINKIE MACLURE

Glass Stories selected works 2015 - 2022

front cover image Self-portrait Dreaming of Portavadie, 2019 back cover image Detail from Green Man Searches for Wilderness, 2020

Published by Kilmorack Gallery ltd, 2022 ISBN 978-1-8384862-5-6 Kilmorack Gallery, inverness-shire iv4 7al SCOTLAND art@kilmorackgallery.co.uk www.kilmorackgallery.co.uk

PINKIE MACLURE Glass Stories selected works 2015 - 2022

detail from Black Friday and the Ghosts of Thrift stained glasss light box

Contents

Black Firday and the Ghosts of Thrift, 2019

3

Fish and Chips, 2020

5

Beauty Tricks, 2018

6

Time Passes, 2021

9

The Good Cry, 2020

10

Green Man Searches for Wilderness, 2020

12

The Gathering, 2021

14

Intertwined, 2019

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Two Witches - Knowledge is Power, 2021

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Musica Unversalis, 2016

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Pills for ills, ills for Pills, 2018

24

A Nestling Listening, 2022

26

Exit Tree, 2022

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Totally Wired | self-portrait with insomnia Posy, 2021

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Mum saved for years to buy herself a lovely new winter coat. She was a dab hand at darning and invisible mending, so she worn the old one until it fell apart.

She would meet her friends and have a biscuit with nice cup of tea from a china cup and saucer.

After Christmas, it was always exciting to go to the January sales.

Somehow these days, though, I can’t control myself, I just can’t cope with all the deals, the plastic, the greedbags and the closing-down sales.

2

Black Firday and the Ghosts of Thrift, 2019 stained glass light box 70cm x 60cm

3

4

Fish and Chips, 2020 stained glass lightbox 76cm x 81cm

5

Beauty and the effects of the beauty industry upon us and our environment. Featuring a bulimic Rapunzel, a Barbie-clone-knitting Gran, a mirror shot to smithereens and Satan running off with all the wisdom piled on his back.

Beauty Tricks, 2018 stained glass lightbox 120cm x 60cm

6

We used to worship the earth. The tree is inspired by the dragon’s blood tree, found only on the UNESCO protected island of Socotra, near Yemen.

The moth is a Pleasing Lacewing, a new species of which has just been discovered in south west China. A symbol of hope.

8

Time Passes, 2021 stained glass lightbox 60cm x 60cm

9

The Good Cry, 2020 stained glass lightbox 60cm x 30cm

10

Green Man Searches for Wilderness, 2020 stained glass lightbox 60cm x 30cm

12

The Gathering, 2021 stained glass lightbox 60cm x 60cm

14

Tree of Life and Death Scenarios, 2021 stained glass lightbox 65cm x 65cm

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I was emailing you, phoning you, texting you, messaging you, trying to get through to you. I commented on your post, I liked your picture; but I didn’t have the power to reach you. You just sat in your car with the engine running, eating a KFC. Every choice you make affects somebody, somewhere. We are intertwined.

Intertwined, 2019 staned glass lightbox 74cm x 54cm

18

Two Witches - Knowledge is Power, 2021 stained glass lightbox 62cm x 100cm

20

Musica Universalis is an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies as a form of music.

She’s transfixed - she’s just heard music for the first time, whispered in her ears by a duo of angels. Her umbilical cord morphs into two audio cables, at the ends of which are microphones recording wrens.

The earliest evidence of human existence on earth shows that, we have always been affected and connected by music - some say we can even hear music in the womb, ear worms obsess us, space telescopes pick up planetary vibrations and sound waves touch us everywhere we go.

22

Musica Unversalis, 2016 stained glass lightbox 58cm x 89cm

Pills for ills, ills for Pills, 2018 stainted glass lightbox 72cm x 102cm

24

A Nestling Listening, 2022 stainted glass lightbox 62cm x 57cm

26

Exit Tree, 2022 stainted glass lightbox 60cm x 38cm

Light in a Glass Story It was hard to look away when the first stainedglass lightbox by Pinkie Maclure was put in front of me. She flicked a switch giving it life, and suddenly a vision glowed on the wall: unique, beautiful and strong. The work was Musica Universalis and it showed a woman awakened to the music of the universe for the first time. Glowing angels whisper songs of nature into her ears and above a spherical Copernican universe rotates. That was only five years ago in her house near the mouth of the River Tay. I ended up buying this piece. Pinkie Maclure’s work succeeds in doing what stained glass was first intended to do a thousand years ago. It enlightens the world. We refer to those early times of stained glass as the dark ages, but are we so different and less in need of enlightening now?

The term stained glass is not quite right in describing Pinkie Maclure’s work. It’s too procedural a term, conjuring the grime of technical process: sandblasting, layering and painting - the mix of medieval and modern alchemy that lies hidden in each piece. Before it was stained glass, it was thought of as illuminated glass, akin to an illuminated manuscript. It filled holes in dark spaces with light, colour and stories of saviour. Without glass, a cathedral was candle-lit-black, almost a tomb, and with

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illuminated glass it was enlightened and a place where worshippers felt connected. Their eyes rose upwards from reminders of death at ground level, through the gothic stone trees, and up higher toward the enlightened glass. Above this was God. Pinkie Maclure’s work does exactly this. It remind us of what is important.

We have published this small catalogue to celebrate this wonderful artist, and to raise awareness of her work and the stories she tells. They are powerful tales, set in the troubled but beautiful world of now, and each piece is a parable that remains long after you have seen it. They are also technical wonders that push the frontiers of what glass, lead and light can do, but discussion of these magics is for another day. It is best just to wonder and look closely, down to the smallest detail, a hidden bird or a word. After this take the whole piece in and feel the colour and composition of a flawless design. Their strength, beauty and intention make these unique, a gift to the world.

Tony Davidson Director of Kilmorack Gallery January 2022

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Totally Wired | self-portrait with insomnia Posy, 2021 stainted glass lightbox 63cm x 52cm

Pinkie Maclure grew up in rural Scotland. For much of her life she has been a musician and performer, supplementing this income with traditional stained-glass work. In 2015 Maclure began to reinvent what had become a decorative art and take it back to its medieval storytelling roots. These incredible beautiful and subversive works are the result.

This book celebrates seven years of work by stained-glass artist Pinkie Maclure and her stories which reflect and illuminate modern life in all its beauty, ugliness and wonder.

Maclure is an artists to take note of.