STOP LOOK LISTEN the collaborative show by award-winning artists Laurie McInally and Maella Wallace marks a significant moment in their careers. It represents their very first collaboration, despite having been peers for the last four years. This work has been formed from a sensitive place of reflection and personal parallels between their two lives.
The artists are proud alumni of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in Dundee, where they met, and have generated individual acclaim for their artistic command and distinctive contribution to Scotland’s contemporary art scene.
STOP LOOK LISTEN opens on the 14th of October 2023, and will run until the end of November at the Federation Gallery, located in the vibrant Kieller Centre.
Laurie McInally is a Glasgow-born, Dundee-based, multi-media artist. Her work explores internalised views on gender, class and sexuality while investigating and challenging the social structures that inherently feed these attitudes. While critiquing culture, social class and status, Laurie’s work offers deeply personal and inclusive overtones, which support the more challenging themes of her practice. Through sculpture, film, print and performance, she presents an interactive and structurally impressive collection of works. Laurie creates immersive works that invite us to confront systemic oppression and abuse. She creates a space for dialogue and self-reflection, whilst redefining the boundaries of traditional art. The aesthetic of domesticity and civic familiarity play a vital role in Laurie’s installation. Reclaiming connotations of the home as well as harnessing the power of repeated imagery to relate the viewer to the experience of her work.
Maella Wallace, also hailing from Glasgow and currently Dundee based, is a multi-media artist whose work surveys the spaces between contemporary practice and craft methodology. Through a dedication to community and heritage, she draws artistic inspiration from a diverse array of aesthetics and processes, to culminate in intimate and biographical bodies of work. Maella’s work references tattoo culture and graffiti scenes, as well as traditional textiles; cultivating a broad variety of creativity that she grew up around. Introduced to traditional rug-making by her gran, the heritage of skill sharing is at the centre of her practice. She combines the warmth and familiarity of domestic crafts with bold graphics and abstract lettering, offering a thought provoking exploration of the feminist and working-class implications of by hand materiality. Through powerful visual representation, Wallace’s work generates an interconnectedness of people and shared cultural experiences through honest exploration into personal history, community and contemporary art.
While McInally and Wallace’s practices take different forms, their collective visions are rooted in feminist theory and class representation, connecting deeply over their critique of the elitism within ‘high art’ spaces. The political and the personal exist uniting their practices as they challenge dominant cultural narratives, societal pressures and expectations that shape our lived experiences.
Within the show, both artists work displays reclamation of domesticity, through material and imagery, as well as a collaborative exploration of where their practices merge. Influenced by inner-city visual language and the deconstruction of shape and colour, the two have fused style and vision to offer a momentous synergy. Combining a highly graphic and bold broadcast over sourced and constructed works, with lashings of digital intervention, STOP LOOK LISTEN aims to immerse.
The Kieller Centre has built its ethos around valuing community, care and culture, making it a deeply significant venue for STOP LOOK LISTEN. The Keiller Centre provides the perfect opportunity and space to enable this work to be widely available to the community, contributing to the accessibility of art for all by democratising the experience of art and inclusivity. Federation Gallery recognises that art has the power to unite people, fostering a sense of belonging, principles which are echoed by McInally and Wallace. STOP LOOK LISTEN serves as a testament to this commitment, by creating an installation where the community can come together, engage, and participate in the artistic process. The Keiller Centre’s dedication to care is evident in its desire to provide a platform for artists. Acknowledging the transformative power of art and its role in shaping and reflecting the culture of a community. STOP LOOK LISTEN as a cultural expression encourages dialogue and reflection on important social issues, contributing to the enrichment of the communities’ cultural fabric.
