GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART
ALASDAIR GRAY ARTIST AND NOVELIST Studied Design and Mural Painting 1952–1957 I didn’t have enough Highers to go to Glasgow University, as
JULIE ROBERTS PAINTER AND SCULPTOR MFA student, 1988-1990; AHRB Fellow Visiting Lecturer and Research Lecturer
my parents would have preferred, so I applied to attend night classes in life drawing [at the GSA]. To do that, I had to show a portfolio of work and the registrar suggested that I become a full-time art student. All my friends [at the GSA] were dedicated students, and a very useful source of instruction. We learned from each other, and from magazines. I now feel quite lucky that I went to art school at a time when there was a department of painting, even though the teachers were painters of an impressionist kind, who thought that post- impressionists had gone wrong. I went to a school where they thought drawing was an essential skill for a painter and allowed you to work at it (even though they didn’t entirely like my system of drawing). As a building, the GSA was great architecture. The library that Mackintosh designed was the library that we used, with its nooks and corners and places you could sit in and read, and study, and think. You had the great big studios that have now been turned into mezzanines by putting extra floors in . . . I can’t really compare it with how the art school is now – all I know is that it was one of the most interesting and useful time periods of my education. ■ A Gray Play Book of Alasdair Gray plays acted between 1956-2009 is available now in hardback, published by Luath Press, £50.
I wanted to study at the Glasgow School of Art because of the work of [the New Glasgow Boys] Adrian Wisniewski, Ken Currie and Stephen Campbell – that was the most interesting painting I’d seen in Britain at that time. I particularly liked the social and political dimension of the work. I didn’t even realise it at the time, but that was the real pull of the work for me: while studying at Glasgow my own painting moved in a more political direction, towards feminism and the representation of female bodies in art. I was on the very first MFA course and there was
an expectation that we develop the course as we went along. It was very macho and male dominated, but I think that’s not a bad environment to cut your teeth in. We had loads of space and freedom. There was much more action in Scotland than there was in Wales in the 1980s, and it always seemed that there was a lot going on in Glasgow in particular. We always thought it would stop after we graduated but it has kept going. Talent germinates at the GSA, and it still seems as though the very best artists come out of Glasgow. ■ Julie Roberts is preparing a solo show for Edinburgh Festival 2010 at Talbot Rice Gallery and is about to open a two person show with Moyna Flannigan at Galerie Akinci, in Amsterdam.
TOBY PATERSON ARTIST Student at the GSA from 1991–1995 I studied in the Department of Drawing and Painting and it was during this time that my
interest in architecture and cities developed, becoming a central inspiration for me. I had a particular fascination with industrial architecture at the time, often using photography as well as painting to process my experiences. Despite being a cynical teen amidst the
‘Mockintosh’ revival of the 80s, I was always aware it was something out of the ordinary. What is so fantastic about it as a piece of functioning architecture is that it continues to surprise and delight as I get older, no matter how much I think I know it. As incredible as it is, though, I’ve never been specifically inspired by the building in and of itself. What is inspirational to me is what it offers in terms of a mind-bogglingly rich context to those that occupy it; a real, living lesson in how to integrate sensibility into everyday life in a continuous way. I do still visit, usually to participate in media-related
things. I was amazed to be asked to speak at Graduation this summer. That was as much of a surprise as an honour; the best bit of which was the rare chance to have dinner in the Mackintosh Building’s library. ■ Toby Paterson is currently working towards a solo exhibition at Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh in January and on a public commission for London’s Docklands Light Railway to be completed in 2010.
19 Nov–3 Dec 2009 THE LIST 31