Advice-giver

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities, 2 Marsham Street

The Glasgow Women’s Library is a unique archive in Scotland, that holds artworks, archives and other ephemera collected since the 1970s that provide a rich history of international feminism, and women’s and equalities campaigns. 

Ciara Phillips' print was made in response to some of the motifs and graphics that she found in the Library’s poster archive including Don’t Call Me Girl! by the Chicago Women’s Graphics Collective (c.1975) and It’s Even Worse in Europe by the Guerrilla Girls (1989). Her print features a toucan that she photographed at an urban greenhouse in Zurich - here with an added speech balloon urging us to ‘Give a Damn.’ Challenging tired and outdated attitudes to women, the graphic and dynamic style of this print pays homage to the poster designs of Corita Kent (1918-86), a Roman Catholic nun, artist and educator who produced inspiring and engaging educational designs in the 1960s in Boston. 

Born in Ottawa, Canada, Ciara Phillips studied Fine Art at Queen’s University, Kingston (BFA 2000) before completing her Masters in Fine Art at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA, 2004). Currently based in Glasgow, she is a lecturer in painting and printmaking at the GSA and creator of Poster Club, a group of Glasgow-based artists who collaborate on printmaking and event projects. She has exhibited her work extensively in the UK and internationally, with recent shows including '2021 MONO', Glasgow Print Studio (2021); 'Materiality, collaboration and agency', Exhibition Laboratory, Helsinki (2021); 'It's not for you we did it', an online commission in collaboration with Sara Greavu, EVA International, Limerick (2020); and 'Brexit: Mail Art from a Small Island', sipgate, Düsseldorf (2019). In 2020, Phillips was Recipient of The Queen Sonja Print Award, and in 2019, she was awarded the Haugesund Internasjonale Tresnitt Festival Prize, in Norway. She has completed numerous residencies in the UK and abroad, and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2014.

Places

Subjects

plants, birds, toucan

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), print (as object name), screenprint

Artist

Ciara Phillips (1976 - )

Title

Advice-giver

Edition

Number 20 in an edition of 20

Date

2012

Medium

screenprint on paper

Dimensions

height: 76.1 cm; width: 56.7 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Glasgow Women's Library, with funds raised from print sales from the Robson Orr TenTen Award, a GAC/Outset Annual Commission, March 2020

Inscription

verso: inscribed by the artist '20/20, bottom left / 'C.Phillips 2012', bottom right

Provenance

Glasgow Women's Library, Glasgow, UK; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection

GAC number

18886