Meeting Team Recoat during Freaky Fridays

Posted by Camilla MacIntosh - 22:58 on 08 December 2011

Grey skies, grey buildings, grey uniform…on work filled winter days it’s easy to forget there are other colours! I wish I was brave enough to take Betty, my little Ka, to get a rainbow makeover. Why are we afraid to stick out from the masses? Kudos to the motorists who trusted their vehicles to IOTA to be spray painted by Team Recoat (five cars were decorated but three times as many volunteered), and why wouldn’t they? Judging by their pieces displayed on the walls of the IG:LU studio and on each level of the Rose Street car park, these are people with real talent.

During her slideshow on Thursday night, was particularly struck by Kirsty Whiten’s work - the way she captures the curves and proportions of the human body, the level of detail in the forest floor, the life in the faces of her figures. The images are aching to jump off the page, or suck you into their world. And yet every piece is imbued with the surreal - the teenage estate boys are instantly recognizable and frighteningly real, but they have the bodies of ponies. The naked figures with their infants are as believable as you and me, but they are placed within otherworldly environments and in disconcerting poses. The couple are working out their issues, but they are riding atop a cartoonish horse in bizarre outfits. The harem women are like those you imagine from stories, but rather than passive they seem to shout ‘yeah this is what I am, what you gonna do about it?’ Ian in Off the Shoulder Sweater and Wig, the artist’s friend in cross-dress, at first makes you chuckle, then you notice his expression…,’I’m not messing around’. Kirsty said she likes to have tension in her work, and she certainly achieves that. These are life drawings with a major twist. Real enough to believe the characters (most of which were based on friends of the artist) but weird enough to make you wonder and scratch your head, make you feel unsettled or unsure whether or not to laugh, to ask why they have that look on their face, what’s going on their minds, what’s the story here? It stays in your head, that’s for sure.

Amy’s presentation took a more practical approach as she explained about setting up Recoat, a small gallery in Glasgow. Equally inspiring as Kirsty - she emphasized the need in life to promote, pester, bang on those doors til your knuckles bleed. Confidence is key, and kicking butt is the way. I admire those with that level of self-assurance in their own work; being unafraid to shout it to the world. It’s something that I would love to achieve one day.

The work of the other members of Team Recoat was intriguing - FiST’s Sassy Wee Lassie with her dufflecoat made of spaceship, Rue Five’s Jesus-like Jackie Paper with his knobbly knees and hands clasped in prayer, crown floating above his head like a halo. Not to mention Amy Whiten’s (a.k.a Syrkus) Resourceful Hunters; weapon wielding Ninja-grannies in swimsuits and goggles in an underwater world of weirdness. But Kirsty Whiten’s Feral Family (In the Open) caught my attention the most - a couple crouch naked on some grassy plain, shielding their young one from something or someone just off the edge of the paper. Is it a general portrayal of the primal fear and parents’ anxiety for their children, or is their some real sinister presence there just beyond our gaze? I so wanted to know what it was and wish I’d asked, but I’m sure the point is to use our own imagination.

The group on Thursday was compact and it was a good mixture of folk – new faces, Team Recoat, local artists, some of the skateboarding gang who took part in one of IOTA’s previous projects and Advanced Higher students who seemed to be lapping up Amy’s advice.; invaluable face-to-face guidance from a real artist who has got herself out there, carved her own niche and made her way.

On display at IG:LU were zines created during the earlier workshop led by legendary graphic artist Elph who was part of the project in the multi-storey too. Was impressed by the level of talent and creativity of the young artists who contributed to the low-fi magazine, designed and produced in an hour and half!

Been away from the goings-on of IOTA for a while and was great to be back; we all need a dose of colour and incongruous imagery from time to time to jolt us out of the everyday. Given the demand, Team Recoat might be back next year, and maybe Betty and I will be ready for the rainbow.

Image: Kirsty Whiten at work in the car park, December 2011

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