Each month, we’re sitting down with an artist to discuss their practice, influences and upcoming projects. Today, we’re speaking to Edward Summerton RSA about Art Angel, collaborative experiences and a big wobbly thumb.
You were born in Dundee, studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and now work as a Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the university. Could you tell us a bit about your love for the city?
DJCAD is the gem in the city, and it’s been an absolute pleasure knowing that I’ve contributed to the success of the college and its influence on the creative force of the sunny city. But I’m going to kick this off with acknowledging one of our countries most amazing art projects, which is also based in the centre of Dundee, Art Angel. It runs as an alternative Art School, offering over 200 free places to participants each week who suffer from poor mental health. Free studio space, free tuition in photography, painting, sculpture, theatre writing and film. Once enrolled, participants can come for as long as they wish. Some have been for years. Others only require a few weeks. The project has proven to not only transform lives, but save lives. Art Angel is run by my wife Rosalie, who is the director, and one of the cleaners. Where else could you find such a democratic work ethic? She is one of the biggest employers of art graduates in the city and has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for mental health in Dundee. The project has attracted researchers from all over the world, fascinated in its model of using imagination as an aid to healing. If the unwell (and most likely poor) don’t have access to imagination and a way to see a way through this situation, to a better world, then it’s going to be even more difficult for them to continue. I do wonder if this is the government masterplan.
The beavers will make everything better, mixed media
Your practice spans painting, sculpture, print, film, sound and performance. Is there a particular medium you find yourself drawn to at this point of your career?
I studied painting, graduating in 1985 with a series of works highlighting the recent concern of global warming. That was almost 40 years ago! Decades before there was really an art interest or focus on the situation. The paintings were in a sense, as most are, paintings of objects. You could say I was making paintings of sculptures. Interestingly it was receiving an RSA Gillies Travelling Scholarship in 1999 to travel west from the Russian border along the north coast of Norway by bicycle and tent, amongst the Sami, which gave me the liberty to expand outwards from painting. I went on this journey as a painter, returning with an exhibition of paintings, but more importantly, a small self-published book - Line Controller - depicting imagined worlds as photographs, text and objects. Line Controller subsequently traveled the world the following year in an artists' books exhibition, ending up in the collection of MOMA.
Hide for watching standing stones, printed polycotton, wooden frame.
My work is revealed to me as ideas, not art works, but as images, hovering somewhere between my head and heart. And through an improvisation, predominantly with material I have never used before, I try to understand and pull this work into focus. This encourages me to be light enough on my feet to sidestep the heavyweights moving forward, quite often dropping the interesting ideas along the way. Rich pickings.
Over the past year alone these works have materialised as paintings, objects, film, performance, photography and publications.
Collaboration has been a strong theme in your work and something you’ve come back to for a number of projects: Blind Sight, where 50 visual artists were invited to submit sound works to be exhibited as a jukebox installation; Doctor Skin, a unique public art event where artists designed temporary tattoos to be worn by the public; Bird of the Devil, a publication collaborating with 17 writers. Is there a patictular artist that you’ve worked with that you admire?
I’m currently “working” with the brilliant Alan Grieve, having just launched the Fluid on a Druid publication. I love it when we sit down to discuss ideas (mostly when he’s cutting my hair) and we both end up with tears running down our cheeks. Hopefully not at my bad hair-do? I’ve been really privileged to collaborate with and continue working with so many incredible artists. Michael Marra, Graham Fagen RSA, Derrick Guild RSA, Don Paterson, Norman Shaw, Andrew Wasylyk, to name just a few. All of them open to interpreting the collaborative idea I’m sharing. Knowing they will be richer for the collaborative experience. But definitely poorer.
Edward Summerton RSA and Alan Grieve, Fluid on a Druid poster publication cover.
Do you have a favourite work that you’ve made over the years?
Always the future works. I’m currently obsessed with three new works I am making for the 198th Annual Exhibition. Let’s Swap Children, My Life in a Bush in a Hole in The Ground and The Long Walk. Also a billboard and publication project in Dundee The Magic Circle which looks at Dundonian James Keillors’ involvement with resetting Avebury Stone Circle and its effect on the neolithic sites around us. I’m also working with the Michael Marra archive to install a display in Dundees’ McManus Museum from June. A Can of Mind and A Tin of Think So will exist as a boxed set of previously unreleased recordings and related ephemera, along with publications celebrating his remarkable collection of drawings, paintings and handwritten lyrics. All fascinating stuff. I am currently in discussion with a brilliant artist about a possible line of outdoor clothing and tent designs and working with a shoemaker to make a pair of clown’s brogues.
All previous works I have put in the world become part of the world to me and are as amazing and as ordinary as everything else existing. It’s the works ahead that leads me on. The stuff that possesses me. Keeps me awake at night. Hovers between my face and the person trying to speak to me. That beautiful cosmic plane artists have tapped into for thousands of years. The magic stuff. It’s the opposite of depression. Everyone should go in.
You were elected as an Academician in 2005, becoming Secretary in 2022. Is there an exhibition you’ve seen at the Academy during your time as a Member that has stuck out to you as significant?
New Contemporaries is an optimistic sound for sure. I love the opportunities RSA Members have in proposing to curate exhibitions and projects. I’ll have to admit, Between The Late And Early, the show I curated in 2013 for the 187th Annual Exhibition, is still one of the most interesting shows I’ve seen in the building. The exhibition explored a European aesthetic of art as magical offerings with historic and contemporary works ranging from the neolithic to the neon. I’ve seen its influence percolate across several other shows. The catalogue had an original print by Graham Fagen RSA and a CD of sound works from artists in the show, ranging from Gabriela Fridriksdottir and Sheila Stewart, to Graeme Todd. Andrew Cranston designed the poster. It’s been on my wall for these past 10 years.
Wicker Words, neon on basket
And finally, as we look forward to our 200th anniversary in 2026, what are you most excited about?
Interesting exhibitions in the gallery and across Scotland celebrating the work and history of the RSA Members are in the planning, which will be fascinating. But I’m hoping that, as Scotland’s longest running artist and architect collective, who have supported thousands of creative individuals, from school children, to students, to late career artists and architects with exhibition opportunities, bursaries, scholarships, residencies, mentoring and financial assistance, they can all pause for a minute in 2026 and raise a thumb in thanks to the support they received. All the thumbs on top of each other. A big wobbly thumb. Casting a big shadow over the shit show constantly trying to drag creativity and positivity down.
Explore Edward Summerton RSA's work further
