My main areas of research have been informed and developed through working Internationally as a practicing artist over the past 25 years. I have worked extensively in public and private spaces, museums, galleries etc. and have a wide experience of exhibition practice, installation and contextually related practice. I have utilised a wide array of formal approaches over the years including Sculpture, Video, Painting, Text and have sought to interrogate how these different formal approaches can contribute to the construction and dissemination of meaning in relation to audience. These are all areas which inform my research interests.

I have particularly explored the paradigm of art practice in context, in relation to audience, and have a broad interest the debates surrounding ‘Relational’ practice and socially engaged art practice. Many of my own works and projects over the years have been made directly in response to various pertinent contextual elements of the political, economic, geographic, historical etc. I am interested in the idea of “The Audience” of art. Who are they? What is ‘The Public? And how do they contribute to the process, definition and articulation of contemporary of Art practice.

For example, I am currently working on a solo publication with Deveron Arts (writing an essay, commissioning texts, editing etc) which will be published in the next few months that reflects on a residency I made in Huntly, Scotland last summer. This will explore, in depth, different ideas and approaches of the paradigm of the Artist in Residence, art in social context, Audience/Participants, the influence of history and geography and culture in national identity as well as the commissioning process’ etc.

I have made a number of solo monographs and numerous group catalogues and am interested in how the ‘history of art’ is disseminated and defined. Though not so frequently recently, I have written a fair bit over the years publishing texts in books, catalogues and magazines and journals and I am still very interested in the role of the text in the articulation of current art practice.

I am currently working on a research project that reflects on the development of the Art Scene in Glasgow over the past 25 years ( “The Glasgow Miracle. New evidence and insight’) through the methodology of interviews with artists.

I am further interested in the broader notion of art practice that explores and engages in concepts of Scottish Identity(or indeed other aspects of Identity) in new and challenging ways. I am further interested in the relation between art and politics and how and indeed if, these complex questions can be addressed in the visual arts in contemporary society.

View Ross Sinclair's outputs on the GSA's Research Repository