Staff

Calum Colvin DA MA(RCA) RSA OBE

Course Director, Art Philosophy & Contemporary Practices

Tel: 01382 345364
Email: c.colvin@dundee.ac.uk
514B Crawford Building, DJCAD 13 Perth Road DD1 4HT

Biography

A practitioner of painting, sculpture and photography, Calum Colvin brings these disciplines together, utilizing the fixed-point perspective of the camera, towards his unique style of 'constructed photography': assembled tableaux of objects, which are then painted and photographed. These elaborately constructed scenarios present a complex narrative tableau, rich in association and spatial ambiguities, which are exhibited as large-scale photographic prints. This process involves the creation of a three-dimensional stage set of an ordinary domestic scenario, upon which he paints across the various diverse elements within the set to make a unified image, viewed and photographed via a large format camera.

Colvin is interested in the process of transformation that occurs when everyday objects are juxtaposed with appropriated painted imagery. In this process the viewer is engaged in a kind of visual dialogue: layers of meaning are gradually discerned and themes of politics, sexuality and belief are encountered in a dark and humorous manner.

These complex narratives have the quality of being both open and closed. They are closed in that they clearly refer to given icons and archetypes of Western culture, but open in that they accommodate any number of potential readings. These readings, in turn, reflect the contemporary cultural climate and the unique authorial role of the viewer.

His work is held in numerous prestigious collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Museum of Fine Art, Houston; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London as well as the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh and the Tate Gallery. 

REF Outputs

1993: ’The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things’ international touring exhibition of thirteen large scale computer manipulated photo works, based on the painting of the same name by the 15^th cent. Flemish painter Hieronymous Bosch, the work explores aspects of Scotland’s’ history and culture, incorporating broader themes relating to global exploitation, pollution and morality in the late 20^th century.

Exhibited world-wide including venues in Edinburgh, London, Athens, Istanbul, Munich, Milan, Dundee, Zagreb, Stockholm, Helsinki and Kawasaki, awarded in 1997 the 13th Higashikawa Overseas Photographer Prize, sponsored and financed by Portfolio Gallery, Edinburgh, B+S Visual Technologies, Glasgow, The British Council, and The Scottish Arts Council, works in collection of Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, Ferens Art Gallery, Hull and City Art Centre Edinburgh. Exhibition catalogue by Tom Normand, University of St. Andrews.

1998:‘Sacred and Profane’, exhibition of eight large-scale photographic artworks commissioned by the National Galleries of Scotland. The works are investigations of well known paintings in the collection such as Titian, Rubens and Canova using techniques from painting, sculpture and photography to create complex compositions which question and comment on the status and narrative of the original artworks. A prominent and recurrent theme in this work is Scotland as artifact and environment.

Exhibited in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, National Machado de Castro Museum, Coimbra, Portugal in 1998, and in 1999 Martha Schneider Gallery, Chicago. 47-page catalogue published by The National Galleries of Scotland, essay by James Lawson, University of Edinburgh.

2002:‘Ossian Fragments of Ancient Poetry’ an exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery of a series of twenty-five 40”x50” digital prints on canvas based on James Macphersons’ fact and/or fictional account of ancient Celtic mythology, ‘The Poems of Ossian and Related Works’ (1765). My intention with the work was to combine traditional photographic techniques with new digital technology in order to create a series of artworks that further blur the distinctions between painting and photography. Through this route, I sought to explore notions and ideas around history and identity (and, as a sub-theme, photography itself) which would question the role of ‘truth’ associated with these areas. The accompanying 64-page publication ‘Ossian Fragments of Ancient Poetry’ (ISBN 1 903278 35 X) contains a 10,000-word essay by Dr Tom Normand, University of St. Andrews.

2009: ‘Natural Magic’ An AHRC sponsored project ( AHRC Research Leave Award 2007) relating to stereoscopic photography in collaboration with Professor Nicholas Wade, a visual psychologist at the University of Dundee.

The project is an interdisciplinary investigation into two-dimensional and three-dimensional awareness. It investigates areas of commonality between visual science and visual art in order to present a series of stereoscopic images which reflect on a series of visual and psychological phenomena, whilst referring to themes relating to art, science, photography and optics.

Exhibited as a series of large-scale photographic images which can be viewed stereoscopically in a solo exhibition in The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, March 2009. Publication documenting the research Natural Magic. Edinburgh: RSA. ISBN.978-0-905783-18-5.

Website

www.calumcolvin.com