Outset Scotland was delighted to enable the production of new work by Catherine Street for ‘A hoarding of greenery, a flow of redemption’ — her room installation for the third iteration of NOW at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
Street developed the video ‘Orchids’ and other new works that form part of ‘A hoarding of greenery, a flow of redemption’ during a two-week residency at Cove Park in November 2017, supported by Outset Scotland and the National Galleries of Scotland NOW Fund.
The resulting installation comprised a single channel video, printed paper, 11 collages, and performance. The series of works entitled ‘A hoarding of greenery‘ (2017) are rich with excess, while the ‘Peyote Dreaming‘ series (2017) contain delicate prisms suggestive of visionary effects. Such dreamlike associations are also suggested in the short, looped video, ‘Orchids’ (2017). Here, Street exploits a sensual play between vocal sounds and moving images. On specific dates throughout the exhibition, Street staged a spoken-word performance, ‘Your mind‘ (2017). Finally, the printed text piece ‘Comfort and crisis’ (2017), featuring different forms of writing, brings together the imagery and ideas found throughout Street’s installation.
‘Writing is in some sense at the heart of my work. I often write in different styles. For example, in the performance entitled Your mind, some of the passages are very rapidly and freely written — intuitive — not written in the style of an essay. So with these collages and the video I was aiming to take a similar approach of working quite quickly and intuitively. I was aiming for a light, almost celebratory feel.’
Catherine Street, 2018
‘A hoarding of greenery, a flow of redemption’ was exhibited in NOW at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern One) in Edinburgh from 24th March to 16th September 2018.
Catherine Street studied at Edinburgh College of Art. Recent exhibitions and performances include those at Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, the Reid Gallery at the Glasgow School of Art and the Hunterian Gallery, Glasgow. The artist lives and works in Edinburgh.
The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is home to Scotland’s outstanding collection of modern and contemporary art.
Cove Park, founded by Eileen and Peter Jacobs in 1999, is an international residency centre. Cove Park’s residencies actively respond to the diversity of contemporary artistic practice in all the art forms, whether performing or visual arts, crafts, literature or music. Their interdisciplinary programmes, for both individuals and collaborating groups, offer time, space and freedom to make new work and to find new ways of working. Distinguished alumni include author Margaret Atwood and visual artist Simon Starling.