Sorcha Dallas

One of the world’s most famous Scotch whisky distilleries is giving one of their artists the opportunity to participate in a self-directed residency at The Banff Centre.

Artist Kate Davis is the first Scottish artist to be supported by Glenfiddich in Dufftown, Banffshire. Davis will spend three months at The Banff Centre developing her work.

“I was really keen on being exploratory and experimenting. I’m also thinking about how a time-based medium such as time and video could relate to my practice, which has always been static,” said Davis.

The Glenfiddich Artists in Residence program was established in 2002 and has since seen more than 30 leading international artists living and working at the distillery. In Scotland, the artists live on-site in cottages, giving them the opportunity to mix and work alongside other distillery workers.

This is the first time and artist of that program has been sent to study in Canada.

Davis, who is originally from New Zealand, attended high school in England and has lived in Glasgow, Scotland for the last 12 years.

She has a degree in printmaking and an MPhilosophy in Art at the Glasgow School of Art,

“After my degree I was really unsure about it, given tat I had a problem being an artist, and getting a studio, and I don’t think I was ready o leave the institutional support,’ said Davis.

Davis was invited to be a committee member at Transmission Gallery, which is an artist-run gallery in Glasgow that creates a space for contemporary art to be shown in the city.

“Glasgow’s a really great city to be an artist,” said Davis.

Committee members at Transmission Gallery spend their time doing various jobs at the gallery, everything from cleaning the “loo” to accounting. Artists are not paid and are not allowed to show their personal work.

“It’s quite demanding because you have to juggle trying to earn a bit of money, trying to make work, but you don’t have any time, said Davis.

“It was helpful for me because it was almost like doing an MA. It forced me to really work out why that was important in work that was being made at the time.”

Davis says artists typically come out of the two years eager to make their own work, or eager to continue showing other people’s work.

“I came out really hungry to make my own work,” said Davis.

Since 2003, she has worked across a range of media to create installations, which relate to specific works from art history. Davis is recognized for her sculpture, books, film and drawings.

“I’ve been involved in the movement of works that were made in the 1970s, as part of the American Art movement, and what I’m working on here is the beginning of a longer project which is going to be realized in late 2009 in a new gallery in Birmingham, England.” said Davis.

Davis spoke about her work at a Banff Centre Artist’s Talk a few weeks ago.

“I was talking about six bodies of work that I’ve made over the last two years, and that includes book works, installation, and drawings and objects and the way that I’ve been working”, said Davis.

“I’ve created a new body of work, a particular concept, whether that’s a museum, gallery, book work, and I’m trying to build in that for the next body of work.”

Through a discussion of her recent practice, Davis spoke about collaborating with the past and questioning the role of that partnership in relation to a feminist discourse within art.

“Over the last two years, I’ve been using my practice to try and understand two works from art history to reactivate questions that they were asking at the time about how those questions relate to contemporary art practice and my own art practice,” said Davis.

Before leaving Banff, Davis hopes to make a short video, which will help her explore how film can relate to her work.

“It might turn into something larger or it might become part of something larger, but the research that’s leading into it is research that I will be building on for the project in Birmingham,” said Davis.