France-Lise McGurn
In late summer, we will present a major new exhibition by Scottish artist France-Lise McGurn. McGurn studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD) and this exhibition will mark the first time her work has been exhibited in Dundee. Working predominantly in painting installation McGurn creates fluid, layered works which express facets of human experience including sexuality, intimacy, loss, ecstasy and memory. McGurn's shorthand calligraphic lines recall various states of living and communion; clubbing, family life, sex, sobriety, abandon, pop culture, cartoons and advertising all creep into the work fleetingly as they do on audiences’ own visual and emotional registers.
Across both galleries at DCA, McGurn’s large scale paintings will spill out from canvases directly onto the walls and floors. Painted and printed furniture, including seating and rugs for visitors to sit and walk on will work to dissolve the preciousness of the fine art context, encouraging a more intimate relationship to the work. New large scale collage works will bring some of the artist’s reference archive into the space as part of the installation, toying with the familiar to evoke and recall our latent and lived individual experiences.
About France-Lise McGurn
France-Lise McGurn was born 1983, Glasgow. She lives and works between London and Glasgow. She studied her BA at Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee in 2005, her MA in London at the Royal College of Art, London and her MA painting Exchange at Hunter College of Art, New York in 2012.
McGurn predominantly works with painting to create layered installations that incorporate the gallery walls, floors and ceilings. Her calligraphic brushstrokes are made intuitively and swiftly, prioritising rhythm and movement which convey a relationship to themes of intimacy, ecstasy and memory.
She works indirectly from a collected archive of imagery which forms the shapes, lines and shorthand that spill across canvases and surfaces. These collected materials form the body of her own research and include celebrity autographs, classical sculpture, photography, women’s magazines, 70s film, advertisements, flyers, figurines, found objects and furniture.
A selection of solo exhibitions include: Strawberry, MASSIMODECARLO, London (2024); What Everyone Wants, The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2024); Studio Voltaire, London (2023); Aloud, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museums, Glasgow (2022); In Emotia, Tramway, Glasgow (2020); Bodytronic, Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel (2020) and Sleepless, Tate Britain, London (2019). She has a forthcoming solo exhibition at MASSIMODECARLO Hong Kong in November 2025.
France-Lise McGurn is represented by MassimodeCarlo, London and The Modern Institute, Glasgow.