Sunday Showcase #1 Recoat Gallery
Located in the West End of Glasgow Recoat Gallery is a breath of fresh air if you fancy seeing something a bit different. Come and see the walls adorned with drawings, spray paint and showcasing the freshest talent to boot. Trisickle’s Arts Editor speaks with one of Recoat’s founders Amy Whiten to find out more!
How did Recoat get started?
Ali and I have done quite a bit of traveling, particularly when we were at Art School, we saw there were a lot of spaces that showed the kind of work we liked and made ourselves, but when we graduated and moved to Glasgow and started trying to exhibit, there weren’t really many spaces in Scotland that we could show and certainly no galleries that exclusively showed this kind of work. We knew we wanted to work together and build a creative project, the gallery concept slowly evolved, so when we saw a small space “to let”, we grabbed the opportunity. We just took a short 3 month lease to see what would happen, we’re now just about to celebrate our 4th birthday, have held 35 exhibitions at Recoat, 15 Satellite shows, shown work from 6 continents and have undertaken a European Tour, so we’re delighted with how it has grown and developed and the reaction that we’ve had from visitors and artists alike.
Describe the galleries aims/ethos?
We exhibit a selection of graphic art, illustration, street art and photography mostly but not exclusively from the genres of Contemporary Urban, Pop Surrealism and Low Brow art. We always want to show the highest quality of work that is well crafted and technically strong but that is accessible and affordable to most people. We want to help cultivate the scene in Scotland surrounding the genres of art that we show and we always aim to showcase Scottish talent and to bring inspirational artists work here from all over the world. We feel it is very important that the gallery and its projects create real opportunities for artists to generate income.
In what ways does Recoat support artists either through the exhibition programme or any other ways?
So far, alongside exhibiting work, we have also been commissioned to create artworks or murals for organisations, charities and businesses, we try to “spread the love” during these projects, giving work to other artists, photographers, film makers, carpenters and printmakers depending on the project.
We are in the process of setting up Team Recoat, this will be a cross between an agency and a collective. We have selected 10 artists that we feel showcase the varied styles of work we show and who we feel deserve promotion and development opportunities. We hope that this group of people will grow and evolve. We hope that we can offer them exhibition, print, exposure and project opportunities and in return they will wear their Recoat team colours with pride!
What upcoming exhibitions/projects are in the pipeline?
From the 20th May FiST is stepping up for a solo show, he has great plans for changing the entire gallery and has created some brilliant work so we are all very excited. On the 1st of July we open a show that has been curated by Mark Lyken called Rudimentary Perfection that assembles a group of notable & emerging international artists linked by their innovative spirit & shared graffiti heritage. Artists include Sheone, Jaybo Monk and Matt W. Moore. We are still in the planning stages but we hope they will each be creating a large scale mural in Glasgow while they are here. Last but not least our 4th birthday approaches, for this show we will be officially launching Team Recoat with an exhibition of limited edition prints and originals from the group.
How is Recoat funded? Will the cuts to arts funding have an impact on the gallery?
We operate as an independent, commercial gallery, so we are sustained by sales and we seek sponsorship for specific projects and exhibitions when needed. At the moment things are harder, most people have less money so we make less sales and it is harder to find companies that are able to support us.
Recoat appears to exhibit artists who come from a street art background… how does the work translate into a gallery space?
We don’t exclusively show work from street artists, we show work from lots of different kinds of artists with different backgrounds, experience and education. But certainly many of our exhibiting artists have at some point painted on the streets. Since graffiti as we know it started in the 70s, people have been keen to exhibit works by these artists in galleries, some artists have been more successful than others at replicating their work in smaller, contained pieces. At Recoat we don’t want to see graffiti pieces on canvasses, that belongs on the streets, and always looks better there, but some artists have found ways to transfer their skills, techniques and energy to create works that aren’t just replicating but are instead translating the best elements of street work into static works for the gallery space. When they achieve this we feel these artists can create exciting, innovative works that are more than valid in a contemporary arts context.
Check out our exclusive Fist Showcase here.
