Prize Winner

Scottish Society of Artists Annual Exhibition

Painting & Printmaking School of Fine Art

Irene Buchan

Contact
ikb4567@gmail.com
@irenebuchan_art
Works
Pink Urinals and Degree Show works
Other works
Degree Show works – Process

Pink Urinals and Degree Show works

My main body of work focuses on the institutional aesthetics of a commonly used object and how that image of a male identified object can be reappropriated. It highlights the sociological and repressed evaluation of what the urinal represents in contemporary culture and identifies the association between mass produced items and man-made objects relating to the body and stereotypical gender roles.

Pink Urinals stems from my early experience as the only female surveyor on a construction site and the blatant sexist behaviour of male co-workers.

Pink Urinals are a component of a series in which body forms—male, female, phallic, pregnant belly, androgynous, fluid, and non-binary—are portrayed through the creation of slip clay ceramics and other softer materials using an inverse cast of the original urinal cast.

 

 

 

 

Other parts of my Degree Show works are based on memories of childhood, fragility and absence. I alternate between the two areas and use humour or oddness in some of the work all the while exploring the body through material play and form.

Chosen materials; soap, expanding foam, crystacast, jesmonite, slip-casting clays, clear acrylic and others.

Dissertation: The Nazi aesthetic that shaped the Degenerate Art Exhibition 1937: the controversy concerning the confiscation of Expressionist Art and rationale behind it. (Nazi psychology: origins and inception).

Invited to take part in the Society of Scottish Artists 126th annual exhibition held at the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) Edinburgh from 23 November – 11 December 2024.

First Class Honours in Fine Art (Painting & Printmaking).

 

 

Pink Urinals

Expanding Foam x 2, Soap, Crystacast

Sitting on the Fire. Warm Glow in the Grate

Jesmonite casts of my own limbs. Soap (three-tone) cast fire fret

Epicene 2

Slip cast clay ceramics (inverse of urinal)

Epicene 3 - Yin and Yang

Slip cast clay ceramics (inverse of urinal)

1. Rejected (by mother age 15), 2. Saturday Mornings (background wall)

1. Soap forearms and fingers (antifreeze coloured), steel rods, designed laser cut clear demountable acrylic plinth. In sunlight. 2. Piano keys cast in pigmented soap (from my brothers unwanted 1960s piano).

Epicene 4

Slip cast clay ceramics (inverse of urinal)

Epicene 1

Slip cast Parian clay ceramics (inverse of urinal)

Epicene 1

Slip cast stained Parian clay ceramics (inverse of urinal)

Neither this nor the Other 1

Gelatine - partial inverse of urinal

Scarred Elbows

Jesmonite, pigment, made to scar

Afternoon Delights

Mixed media nipples taken from the cast of inverse urinals

Epicene 5

Slip cast clay ceramics (inverse of urinal)

Soap (three-tone) cast fire fret

Warm Glow in the Grate
Society of Scottish Artists annual exhibition to be held at the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh in November - December 2024

Pink Urinals exhibited at the SSA exhibition held at the RSA, Edinburgh - November/December 2024

Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh. The End of Art.

Other works

Eventurum

Perspex. lighting gels, tape, card, cord, plastic tubing, copper wire, black foil, acrylic paint, 2017.

Two legged balance, 2023

Two legged balance, 2023

Rhombus 27, 2021

Latex and wire

Torn, 2020

Paper cache, silicon rubber, necklace chain (made to rust), metal bar, clock spring, plastic bag (melted), hessian, clay and acrylic

Weighed down by her Femininity, 2024

Tree Burl Distortion, 2017

Latex, paint

Conjoined Elbows, 2023

Soap

Urinal Unicycle, 2023

Urinal Unicycle, 2023

Urinal Unicycle, 2023

Suffocate, 2020

Tree Burl Distortion, 2017

Latex, paint

Tree Burl Distortion, 2017

Latex

Refraction, 2023

Clear acrylic, laser cut slots, metal, equilibrium.

Untitled Penis, 2019

Mixed media

Self and Other with Vagina, 2021

Oil paint on board

Starting Up, 2020

Latex, wire, oil paint, one staple, doorway, natural light.

Kindness, 2021

Jesmonite, packaging made to burst, gifted daffs.

Vertebrae Teeth, 2021

Me Myself I.

Vertebrae Teeth, 2021

Vertebrae Teeth, 2021

Vertebrae Teeth, 2021

Vertebrae Teeth, (Temporomandibular disorder), on moving old record player, 2021

Degree Show works – Process

The silicon urinal mould that is never seen unless you cast a urinal. This interesting looking cast inspired me to inverse the cast of the original urinal.

The weird reverse thinking of mould-making in order to inverse the original urinal mould

Leaving it to firm up then trimming the underside before leather stage

De-plugging stoneware slip casting clay 12 kilos.