Exhibition
22nd September – 1st October

Opening and In Conversation Event
22nd September, 6-8pm
In Conversation Starts at 7pm
Listen back below.

Open
Thursday – Saturday, 12 – 6pm

David Dale Gallery Warehouse, 161 Broad Street, Glasgow, G40 2QR

Programmed by Owain Train McGilvary

I’m finally using my body for what I feel like it’s made to do, Owain Train McGilvary, 2022, 26 mins, 56 secs

‘I’m finally using my body for what I feel like it is made to do’ was informed by Owain Train McGilvary’s close connection with a wrestling group for women and non-binary people, in the southside of Glasgow. Owain spent the last two years working closely with the group and has created an intimate video portrait that distills many of their conversations to explore key themes including the role of ‘villain’, gender, kinship and working class lives. Owain’s investigations into queer vernacular – such as Polari or carny – and it’s social purpose to enable queer people  to live in secret and safety, is akin to some of the terminologies and motifs that he discovered in the wrestling community. In this way, he found a link between queer vernacular and the camp aesthetic of wrestling, which he interrogated further via key writing including the feminist text ‘Against Ordinary Language: The Language of The Body’ by Kathy Acker, and in his own writing.

Mm, Margaret Salmon, 2017, 30 mins

Part-feminist linguistic investigation, part-child’s learning tool and celebration of motor sport, a voice-over of words and associations narrates 35mm verité footage of the Berwick Bandits, an all-male Speedway motorcycle team with the mantra ‘No Brakes, No Gears, No Fear’.

Owain Train McGilvary is a Welsh artist working with moving image, painting & drawing. He is interested in modes of communication derived from popular culture and queer vernacular, investigating the subcultures that engage with them. His work seeks to explore communicative intricacies through speech, gesture and images, considering oral history, speculation, found and archival material together via experimental documentary.

Recent solo exhibitions and projects include I’m finally using my body for what I feel like it is made to do, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff (2022) and CARU’N DDWYS, Ty Pawb, Wrexham. He has been the recipient of the Visual Art & Craft Maker Award (2021), Hospitalfield Graduate Residency (2021), Hope Scott Trust Grant (2021) and Arts Council Wales Create Fund (2021). He holds an MFA from The Glasgow School of Art (2019) and a BA Fine Art from Central Saint Martins (2015).

David Dale Gallery and LUX Scotland are excited to present a series of three screenings in collaboration with Owain McGilvary, Joanne Lee and Chizu Anucha, three Scotland-based artists working with moving image. 

More information here.