The Glasgow School of Art

Pencil to Paper
Susanne Nørregård Nielsen 

20 April - 7 May 2018
Reid Ground Floor Corridor

This exhibition is part of the Glasgow International Festival 2018 Across the City Programme

As part of the Glasgow International's 2018 Across the City programme, this exhibition features new work by GSA alumna Susanne Nørregård Nielsen. The playful interdisciplinary work responds to Sophie Taeuber-Arp's (1889-1943) text 'Remarks on Instruction in Ornamental Design' (1922) to form the foundation for a series of drawings on paper.

Sophie Taeuber-Arp is one of the pioneers of abstract art along with Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich. Sophie Taeuber-Arp taught Textile Design at the Trade School Zurich, Department for Applied Art in the first part of her career. In this text from 1922,  Sophie Taeuber-Arp shows how to develop textile design, but at the same time gives us insight into her use of form, rhythm, line and colour in her artistic oeuvre.

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Susanne Nørregård Nielsen (b. 1970 in Svendborg, Denmark) lives in Fife and is a part-time lecturer at GSA School of Fine Art. She graduated from GSA in 1998 with BA (HONS) in Drawing and Painting.

Nielsen's art practice makes frequent use of strategies of appropriation. Although her practice is rooted in painting, other media and materials such as photography, plants, textiles and embroideries are often used to make the work. Nielsen's central enquiry illuminates art works central to the early 20th century canon, to provoke new thinking on the impact of artists' practice using feminine gendered materiality. Nielsen's most recent and current work investigates textiles' influence on early 20th century visual art, in particular abstract painting and the development of the modernist textile. To that end, over a period of four years, Nielsen has been taking weaving lessons with Jan Shelley, weaver and former head of the textile department at Duncan of Jordanstone School of Art.

Solo shows include:
'Red Yellow Blue', Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, UK (2009); 'Flowerbed', The Glasgow School of Art (2007); 'Mondrian's Flowerbed', Galleri Hornbæk, Denmark (2007); 'Mondrian's Flowerbed', Crawford Arts Centre, St. Andrews, UK (2004). 

Group exhibitions include:
'The Great Glen Artists Airshow', Highland Institute of Contemporary Art (HICA), UK (2010); 'Arttextiles3', third major survey of British artists referencing textiles, Bury St. Edmunds Art Gallery. Touring: Edinburgh City Art Centre, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums, Rugby Museum and Art Gallery, Artsway Sway, Harley Gallery Welbeck, Devon Guild of Craftsmen Bovey Tracey, UK (2004-2006).