IF NOT NOW, WHEN?
Christine Borland
Michele Fletcher
Wendy McMurdo
Private View Thu 7th November, 6 - 8 pm
‘If Not Now, When?’ Is an invitation to explore the work of three established women artists, Christine Borland, Michele Fletcher and Wendy McMurdo. Together they remind us of the urgency to implement alternative strategies for thinking about and shaping the world around us.
‘If Not Now, When?’ foregrounds the power of art to communicate the unseen. Perhaps things we choose to ignore because we feel they are not for us - or presented in a way that makes them too complex to engage with. The exhibition is a window into each artist's research and provides a space to reflect on the natural world, new digital tech and the use of AI. The works remind us of the importance of beauty, care, community and love. The exhibition prompts the question: ‘Do we have time to wait on the consequences of not changing course?’
A companion text by Catriona McAra has been commissioned on the occasion of the exhibition. Click here to read.
Christine Borland was born in 1965 in Darvel, Ayrshire, Scotland and lives and works in Kilcreggan on the west coast of Scotland. She studied Environmental Art at Glasgow School of Art from 1983 - 1987 and Master of Fine Art at the University of Ulster in 1988. She was a part of the artist committee of Transmission Gallery, Glasgow from 1989 to 1991. Borland works part-time as a Professor of Fine Art at Northumbria University.
Michele Fletcher (originally from Canada) now lives and works in London. She studied at Goldsmiths (BA Hons Fine Art and Critical Theory) and Chelsea, graduating with an MA in 2007. Fletcher received The Neville Burston Award for Painting (Goldsmiths College) and won the inaugural Marmite Prize for Painting. She was also a Royal Overseas League Scholar at Hospitalfield, via the Patrick Alan Fraser Trust, Scotland. Fletcher was a prize winner in the 2020 John Moores Painting Prize.
Wendy McMurdo was born in Edinburgh where she studied fine art painting. She left the UK in the mid-1980s to study at the Pratt Institute, in New York. While studying there, she turned to photography. After completing an MA at Goldsmiths College, London, she was awarded a two-year fellowship by The Henry Moore Foundation. In 1993, she produced her first major solo exhibition ‘In a Shaded Place - The Digital and the Uncanny’, Site Gallery Touring, UK which saw her working for the first time with the computer, creating a series of works that explored the intersection between autographic photography and the digital image.
Gallery Opening Times: Wed-Sat, 12 - 5 pm
Directions: Patricia Fleming Gallery, Oxford House, 4 Oxford Lane, Glasgow, G51 9EP (Central Station 10 mins walk, Bridge St and St Enoch Subway 5 mins walk)
Access: The gallery threshold has three steps and two grab rails. An alternative front door with two low steps and a temporary ramp is available at 3 Oxford Lane, please call us to use this door, and someone will meet you. There is a wheelchair-accessible restroom.
Image 1 :
Michele Fletcher, various works
Installation shot
Photo by Keith Hunter
Image 2:
Wendy McMurdo, Pollinators (i) 2023,
C-Type Photographic print on Archival Paper
11.3 x 85 cm
Series of 3, Edition of 5
Image 3:
Michele Fletcher, Prelude to Warmth, 2024
Oil on Linen, 100 x 90 cm