Micro Residencies 2012-13

This year’s successful artists are Aleksandra Zawada, Ric Warren, Kevin McPhee and Austin Ballard.

This is a diverse group of artists coming from Scotland, England, Poland and the United States whose practices encompass sculpture, painting, performance and installation.
 

Aleksandra Zawada will commence the first of this year’s Micro Residencies in September, continuing her research into museology whilst experimenting with the shift between two and three dimensional space.

These are the first Micro Residencies to take place in the new Bill Scott Sculpture Centre, a purpose built facility for artists. The Micro Residencies are designed to encourage research and experimentation and the new building greatly increases the potential of these opportunities.

Artist’s Biographies

Aleksandra Zawada

Aleksandra Zawada is a Polish artist based in Edinburgh. She graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2011 and since has exhibited across Scotland, China and Japan. She was the recipient of the 2011 RSA Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Travel Award and has work in the Royal Scottish Academy collection. Art was not Aleksandra’s first degree and she also has a B.A. and an M.A. in medical sciences from Gdansk University.
Recent exhibitions include 2012 TUTAJ/TERAZ (HERE/NOW), Royal Scottish Academy; 2011 Xinjekou, Bodaowan Hutong, Beijing; 2009 3回生進級制作展 Kyoto, Japan.

Ric Warren

Ric Warren is a Glasgow based artist and was born in Barnsley, Yorkshire in 1986. He graduated from the Environmental Art department of Glasgow School of Art in 2008 after completing his Foundation Studies at Leeds College of Art in 2005. In 2008 he was a recipient of the Royal Scottish Academy’s John Kinross Scholarship to Florence and has undertaken artist’s residencies in London, Slovenia and Brussels, as well as spending extended periods of time in Venice and Barcelona. He is currently a studio-holder at Glasgow’s SWG3 Studios. 
 
Recent solo exhibitions include; ‘Preventative Measures: On The Spatial Dynamics of Control, Counteraction & Conflict’ (Superclub Gallery, Edinburgh, 2012) and ‘Borders, Boundaries & Barricades: Redeveloping Geographies of Division’ (David Dale Gallery & Studios, Glasgow, 2011). Recent group exhibitions include; ‘PLAZA’ (SWG3, Glasgow, 2012), ‘Industrial Aesthetics: Environmental Influences on Recent Art from Scotland’ (Hunter Gallery, New York, 2011), ‘UNREST’ (CCA Intermedia Gallery, Glasgow, 2011), ‘The Show Is Over’ (Cornish College of Art Gallery, Seattle, 2011), and ‘Characters in Search of an Exit’ (MOT International, London, 2011). 
 
Ric Warren is also one half of the collaborative practice ‘Gallacher&Warren’ (with Kate Gallacher), a project initiated during the ‘2009 New Work Scotland Programme’, exhibitions include; ‘Nothing Fades Quicker Than Yesterday’s Ideas About Tomorrow’ (Merchant City Festival Pop Up Gallery, Glasgow 2011) and ‘FUTUREPROOF’ (Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, 2010). 

Kevin McPhee

Kevin McPhee is an artist, sometimes curator, and occasional collaborator. His mostly object-based installation practice is interested in the possibility, rather than the actuality, of physical form. His work explores the relationship between the audience and the object, and how the audience can participate more actively within that experience.

He has exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at David Dale Gallery, Glasgow (2010) and Sierra Metro, Edinburgh (2009); taken part in the Sierra Metro film programme (2012); a residency at Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus, Schwandorf, Germany (2009); a self-initiated research project at Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas (2011); and participated in the free school project ARTSCHOOL/UK phase 1 & 2 (Cell Project Space and Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2010). 

He was Chair of the committee of Generator Projects, Dundee (2005 - 2007) and is currently completing a curatorial placement at Deveron Arts, Huntly, Aberdeenshire. Previous curatorial projects include; An Association of Companies Defining Movement (the act and the illusion) featuring work by Susie Green, Shelly Nadashi, Ortonandon and Anthony Schrag at Newbridge Gallery, Newcastle (co-curated with Harriet Plewis) and Robert Orchardson and Sarah Tripp at Generator Projects, Dundee (co-curated with Miranda Blennerhassett).

McPhee has been the recipient of the Arts Trust Scotland grant (2012); Visual Arts Award: Edinburgh (2012); Bartlett Travel Scholarship (2011); Arts Council England Grants for the Arts (2011) and the Creative and Professional Development Award, Scottish Arts Council (2009).

Austin Ballard

Austin Ballard was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. He received his BFA from the Art and Architecture Department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, during which time he worked as a studio assistant to Sonja Hinrichson and Malena Bergmann. Ballard accepted his MFA with honours from the Rhode Island School of Design. For the last two years he has worked as a teacher’s assistant to Professor Dean Snyder in the RISD Sculpture Department as well as teach his own sculpture course, entitled Scale: Intimate Space in the fall of 2011.

Ballard has received numerous grants and awards such as the Dan Bown Project Award, Jeanne Stahl-Webber Sculpture Scholarship, Rhode Island School of Design Graduate Studies Grant Award, Attilio and Emma Della Biancia Scholarship, and a Santo Foundation travel and exhibition grant. Most recently Ballard received coverage in the Providence Journal, the 2011 publication of Art Takes Miami, and awarded the Grand Prize at the 2012 Boston Young Contemporaries exhibit at Boston University. He has been awarded full fellowships to the Vermont Studio Centre, the I-Park Residency Program in Connecticut, as well as been invited to numerous group and two person shows throughout the nation. He has exhibited work in New York, Massachusetts, California, Rhode Island, North Carolina, and Texas. Austin Ballard currently lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island.