ABOUT!
Education:
2008- 10 MFA, Glasgow School of Art
2003- 06 BA (Hons) Fine Art, Falmouth College of Art
Forthcoming solo presentations:
2012 My Five New Friends, The Royal Standard, Liverpool
Previous solo presentations:
2011 I’ll Look Forward To It (for New Work Scotland Programme) Collective, Edinburgh
2011 I’m 26 & I’ve Got Nothing, BBC Scotland, Glasgow
2011 Love Made Easy, The Mutual, Glasgow
2009 You’re A Voigin Who Can’t Droive, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow (film screening)
2009 Jamie Radcliffe: The Exhibition, SWG3, Glasgow
2008 Straight From The Juggler, Southport Arts Centre, Southport
2007 A Proper Horrorshow, Redwire Gallery, Liverpool (with Roxy Topia)
Selected group presentations:
2012 Art Lending Library, Market Gallery/Mitchell Library (A project by Zoe Walker & Neil Bromwich), Glasgow and National Tour
2011 Vault Art Fair, The Briggait, Glasgow
2011 The Great Nations of Europe, WP8, Dusseldorf
2010 Southampton Film Week, Bargate Monument Gallery, Southampton
2010 Definite Article, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin
2010 Show in a Shoe, The Hidden Lane (curated by Jim Lambie & Nicolas Party), Glasgow
2010 Tapestries: A New Interpretation, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow
2009 Nil Desperandum, Knill House, Cornwall
2009 Frieze Art Fair, Regents Park, London
2009 Climate for Change, FACT, Liverpool (with Roxy Topia)
2008 Next Up: Liverpool Art Now, The Bluecoat, Liverpool
2006 Posers, Falmouth Art Gallery, Falmouth
Publications:
2012 a-n: The Artists Information Company, www.a-n.co.uk (career profile)
2011 The Skinny, September 2011 Issue (double page artist feature)
2010 Dragmag issue no.0 (essay and artwork contributor)
2010 Victor & Hester journal no.5 (Alex Impey and Camillo Paravicini) (essay contributor)
2008 Next Up: Liverpool Art Now (exhibition catalogue)
2008 Wrongteous: Curated by Leo Fitzmaurice and Paul Rooney (hardcover book)
Awards:
2011 Glasgow Visual Artist Grant
2011 New Work Scotland Programme
2011 Hope Scott Trust
2011 Arts Trust Scotland
Additional Experience:
2012 Visiting Lecturer, BA (Hons) Fine Art Practice, Glasgow City College
2012 The Ellie and Oliver Show, www.ellieandoliver.co.uk & Culture Lab, Newcastle (Weekly radio host)
2012 New Work Symposium, Tramway, Glasgow (Symposium contributor)
2012 T-Shirt Design Commission for Collective Gallery Online Shop (T-shirt design)
2011 Christmas Window Project, Collective, Edinburgh (Christmas Window design)
2011 I’ll Look Forward To It: Live Music Evening, Collective, Edinburgh (Event Co-ordinator)
2011 Christmas Card Showcase, The Skinny (Christmas card design)
2011 Pecha Kucha, Tramway, Glasgow (Speaker)
2011 Wunderbar Festival, Newcastle (Radio broadcast)
2011 New Work Scotland Artist Residency, Studio Voltaire, London
2011 Artists Anonymous: An Artist’s Support Group, Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow
2010 Elena Bajo/p.a.s.t. Projects, The Woodmill, London (archive contributor)
2010 Keeping on top/Making creativity sustainable, Educational film (participant)
2007 Wunderkammer, Bluecoat Display Centre, Liverpool (curatorial)
2007 Shining Cliff Artists Residency, Derbyshire, My House Projects (participant)
Text by Oliver Braid:
With my recent work I am aiming to advance under the guise of an artist who uses practical tactics to handle the study of happiness.
Stimuli for these soundings come from affection, buoyancy and camaraderie – accentuating these themes to evaluate their contribution to the production and motivation of creative inspiration, and explore their conceivable critical currency.
Formerly I have partitioned my practice through two divergent strategies: ‘objects’- static artworks attempting to articulate social situations through representation - and ‘projects’ - a more candidly engaged approach, such as a collaboration or curatorial enterprise.
Currently I am investigating fresh routines to reconcile these segregated procedures.
This concern to combine derives from my attempts to unpick a puzzle set forth by Quentin Crisp, probing the potential problematic sway of object-making on artist’s lifestyles;
“Well, it’s all right if you’re going to learn how to sing or dance. People who have learnt to sing always have richer, rounder voices. People who have learnt to dance always have bigger, bolder gestures. But as for pottery and basket weaving – what good are these? As soon as the doors of the evening institution clang shut behind you, you’re back where you started. On the way home you might get into an argument on a street corner and you’re left saying “Well I can’t express myself – you’ll have to see my baskets.”
(from ‘An Evening with Quentin Crisp’ 1981)
The cultural context for my consideration is substantiated through renewed curiosity for the subject of Happiness from assorted areas of life.
My collaborative and curatorial creation methods sanction a chance based ‘
Aesthetic of Indifference’, historically employed by artists such as John Cage and noted by critic Moira Roth.
The anecdotal capacity available through my co-operative construction engenders a model of manufacture I am cultivating from Len Lye’s original principles of the
‘Aesthetic of Happiness’ – a sensibility speculatively stimulated by the evolutionary experiences enmeshed in artistic assembly and acceptance.
Conceptually I align indifference with happiness, suggesting both as covert destabilizing strategies.
Text by John Calcutt:
Oliver Braid is, in my opinion, a very interesting and unique young artist. I cannot think of anyone else whose work is quite as distinctive and idiosyncratic, or whose purpose is quite so particular. Although highly conversant with contemporary art practice and theory, Oliver often makes use of and reference to visual sources that appear wilfully innocent and untutored: snapshots of friends, ‘amateur’ drawing styles and techniques, Martha Stewart-style decorative crafts, etc. In terms of subject matter his points of reference are also often equally recherché: the party lifestyle of his friends, his mum’s observations on life, schlock horror films, the world of Harry Potter, etc.
Underlying all of this activity is Oliver Braid’s desire to make art that brings people together. In his work as a solo artist he often initiates projects that allow various individuals to share their creativity. His overall project as an artist offers a valuable opportunity, I believe, for him to further develop his proposal that art can perhaps do more than simply sit in a gallery to be admired: it has the capability to recapture some of the magical power that has gradually faded from it, the magical power to transform relationships. Writing about his work “Predictions” (2010), Braid says, “Being so involved in the Harry Potter series at the time meant that a lot of the time I was thinking about magical spells and subsequently how great it would be to perform these spells in real life in front of people I fancied.”
Charming and annoying, profound and trivial, sophisticated and naïve: Oliver Braid’s work is beginning to explore territory that is still largely uncharted. He has to make up the rules as he goes along: this, I suggest, is why he promises to be such an original voice within contemporary art. Despite his apparent immersion in a private fantasy world, he is, in fact, a serious and thoughtful individual who is thoroughly professional and who has a track record of delivering memorable projects.
I have included below a text that elaborates on some of the ideas suggested above: I feel it may help to offer further insight into an art practice that may appear at first sight to be slightly perplexing.
As a person, as an artist, as a thinker, Oliver Braid approaches life from a slightly different angle. Whilst he is highly informed in terms of contemporary art practice and theory, he does not use this knowledge as a gene pool enabling him to fashion himself as a clone of the contemporary artist; on the contrary, he uses it as a source from which to construct something distinctive and original. The results are often witty, humorous and irreverent, but they may also occasionally appear mystifying and obscure. Dissatisfied with conventional understandings of the procedures governing the making and reception of art, Oliver is searching for alternatives. He believes in the antagonistic potential of art, but he also believes that such antagonism may be achieved through unlikely and improbable strategies such as happiness. Sincerity is a key issue here: when faced with an apparently joyful, innocent, naïve and enthusiastic work of art (brightly coloured, decorative, slightly ‘amateurish’ and DIY in its approach), how is the viewer likely to respond?
In an age of near universal cynicism and irony, is the sincerity of the art work (and the artist) to be believed? Yes and no: the work presents an uncomfortable challenge, daring the viewer to decide. Is it a celebration, a critique – or does it simply not know any better?
Often, there are images of people enjoying themselves in these works: laughing, dressing up, playing games, partying. But who are they? It can often feel as if we are on the outside looking in on a private world. Once again, it seems as if Oliver Braid is presenting us with a challenge. Should we attempt to identify and empathise with these figures, or should we simply accept their distance and difference from us. Are we interested viewers, or disinterested voyeurs? In fact, the majority of these characters are Oliver Braid’s close friends, and many of the subjects of his works are derived from his private social life. Do we care? Should we care? Yes and no: Oliver Braid is an artist of the Facebook era, an era in which it makes less and less sense to distinguish the public from the private – an era, perhaps, in which the private aspires to the public, and in which the public desperately wants to appear as the private. Beneath its veneer of artless simplicity, there are aspects of Oliver Braid’s work that revise and update the critique of the Society of the Spectacle to meet the conditions of the 21st century. How are we to evaluate the minutiae of other people’s lives: as worthless trivia, as evidence of a democratic impulse, or simply as yet more online information to add to the rest?
Oliver Braid is unquestionably idiosyncratic, but he is not to be mistaken for a professional eccentric who cultivates oddity for its own sake. He understands that the value of art is in encouraging us to see life slightly differently. In order to do this, art necessarily presents its audience with a challenge, and Braid’s work asks awkward questions.
John Calcutt, MFA Programme Leader, Glasgow School of Art
Text by Rosamund West:
Oliver Braid makes work which is a true rarity in the art world: it is actually enjoyable to experience. It could be perceived, sometimes, at first glance, as a little silly; yet it subtly asks bold questions of the contemporary world and forces us to address the weirdness of our ‘normal’ behaviour. He uses subject matter drawn from daily life, and twists it to create multi-layered artworks that can be appreciated for both their superficiality and their profundity. They can inspire questions about the ethics of social networking, of love and obsession in the modern age. They can arouse a cringe at the artist’s unashamed self-exposure, and a laugh at the sheer audacity of, for example, bringing together 100 artists to make work inspired by information gleaned from Facebook stalking a high school crush.
Rosamund West, Editor, The Skinny
