Scotland’s visual artists in New York and Amsterdam

Each year the Scottish Arts Council provides support for two visual artists’ residencies based in New York and Amsterdam, providing artists with the opportunity to meet and work with key figures and organisations and spend time developing new work.

This year artists Rob Kennedy and Karen Cunningham were selected to take part in the residencies. Rob has been in New York for the last two months and is half way through the residency, while Karen is four months into a year-long residency in Amsterdam.

Rob Kennedy

Rob is taking part in an international residency programme with leading arts organisation Location One, and since arriving in New York has been overwhelmed by the wide range of events, exhibitions, screenings and activities taking place in the city.

Through Location One he has met curators, gallerists, funders and a host of fellow artists, and has come across a range of interesting spaces and groups including Anthology Archive, Eyebeam, Art in General and Creative Time.

Before leaving for New York Rob had been working with composer and improviser Peter Dowling on a video piece Hapless, helpless, hopeless, part of a trilogy supported by a Scottish Arts Council/Scottish Screen Film and Video Award.  The film will be screened at Roulette Space in New York and at Backup Festival in Weimar in June.  As part of the residency Rob has also screened some of his previous work at a co-curated event with other Location One artists.

Karen Cunningham

Since arriving in Amsterdam Karen Cunningham has visited galleries in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Haarlem, and spent time researching and developing work for a three person exhibition with Swedish artist Luca Frei and London based Babak Ghazi which was featured at Glasgow International last month.

Karen is currently contacting artists, galleries and groups to source artists for a new video work commission for The Open Eye Club, a series of one off video/art events which she co-curates with Glasgow based artist Leonora Hennessy.  The next event will take place at Tramway in November and will feature new work by three Glasgow artists and three artists based outside of the UK.

In the coming months Karen is planning a trip to Berlin for the Biennale and research visits to various prehistoric settlements and sites of land art in the north of the Netherlands.