Artists
Ines Rae
In 'Kurl up 'n' Dye', I think we are squarely in the sights of glamour. Or perhaps, Rae has her sights set on glamour. Either way, we seem more than anything to be looking down the barrel of a gun, which is curious, seeing as the images in ''Kurl up 'n' Dye' ' have been made within the pleasure industry, at the salon. Nobody seems to be having much fun in the peopled interiors that contribute to the work. The salon facades also appear either dreary or shabby. The conventions of documentary photography are assaulted by Rae in 'Kurl up 'n' Dye', not discarded or ignored, so that the private views, the intimate views and the set-up images still seem motivated by a desire to reveal social relationships…
- Simon Grennan in Kurl up n Dye, 2006
The series of photographs and typography from Kurl up n Dye extends into the publicly sited project and bus tour Inbetween Spaces (2007), exploring ideas of marginality on several billboard sites around Manchester and Salford. The bus tour explored the marginal and overlooked in the urban fabric through the rehearsed performance of a tour guide.
Other recent projects include Settling In co-curated with Jo Lansley, part of an event for British Art Show 6. Settling In explores ideas of home and performativity. Using a tradition of artist-led initiatives the research aimed to reassess the diversity of artistic practice funded by the Arts Council in Manchester and to introduce new artists and work to the region, particularly female practitioners. The exhibition was intended as a comment on the corporate extravaganza that is the British Art Show.
In A Real Work of Art (shown at International 3 in Manchester, Folly Gallery, Lancaster and The Lowry Centre) Rae’s work aims to analyse the labour of femininity in a contemporary photographic culture where this still remains largely invisible. A Real Work of Art uses a model of image-making which is largely dialogic and interactive in its involvement of participants. Central to this is the relationship between photographer and sitter. A Real Work of Art explores the business of surface appearances through portraits of women whose job it is to create a façade. The work visually describes a number of retail sites as consisting of both consumption and production.
Working behind a counter in a Department Store may well mean drudgery but it also means living in close proximity to a flood of powerful dreams. The capital that buys your labour also pays for this abundance of jewellery, clothes, shoes, food, cosmetics, of everything you desire, to be brought together in row after row right before your eyes. To look at this excess with desire is to wish for a better life, which is why the Department Store is the arena of a kind of utopian thinking. Jeff Wall sets up realist-looking photographs of “unconscious class resistance” and Rae’s portraits may contain such moments but they do not occlude the utopian longings embedded in and projected onto commodity culture. Shop workers may well be alienated but that doesn’t mean that they are upset about it. Quite the opposite. Alienation is a distortion of happiness, not its erasure. And there is genuine happiness lurking within the commodities and the consumer culture that pervades the working life of Christine Peace and her workmates.
- Dave Beech in A Real Work of Art, 2003
Ines Rae is currently Senior Lecturer at University of Central Lancashire.
Education:
1993 MA Social History of Art, University of Leeds
1991 BA (Hons) Fine Art, Brighton Polytechnic
90-91 School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Solo Exhibitions:
1999 Remote Imago-Lucis Gallery, Porto, Portugal & Culture House, Estarreja, Portugal
Sponsored by The British Council, Lisbon
1996 Ideal Home, Site Gallery, Sheffield (with Fran Hegarty). Sponsored by CPL, Yorkshire & Humberside Arts
1994 Spaces of Difference/Memories of Place Lanchester Gallery, Coventry. Sponsored by Geonex UK. Catalogue essay by Griselda Pollock
1993 Project 10 00 22, Selen-Oldenstrand, Stockholm
1993 Voices of Fury, Pavilion Photography Centre, Leeds
Group Exhibitions:
1999 Travel Bag, University Of Central Lancashire Research Centre, Preston
1997 Domus:North and South, Art Gallery Too: a nomadic artspace for NEW ART, Private residencies in York and London
1997 I dont want to play house, Zone Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne
1995 Imagining the unimaginable, Pankhurst Centre, Manchester
1994 Indications, Impressions Gallery, York. Commissioned by Impressions
1993 Absent Bodies/ Present Lives, Leeds City Art Gallery. Catalogue available
1992 BT New Contemporaries, Manchester, Belfast, ICA London
Bibliography:
2005 AN magazine Rob Vale July 05 p8
2003 Guardian Unlimited. Thermo 03, Alfred Hickling
2000 Granada Tonight as part of Year of the Artist, 15th December
1997 Review of "I don’t want to play house", Helen Smith, Paint it Red
1996 Voices Play Nicky Bird, Womens Art Magazine May
1996 Unheard Voices Robert Clark, Artists Newsletter April
1994 Into the market (Digging up the English Rose), Ursula Szulakowska, Versus Jan/April
Publications:
2006 ResourceCITE Tour Documentary, Sideshow, Nottingham 2006 DVD
2004 Flux Space for Flux Magazine February Issue
2000 Website as part of YOTA at www.irate.shadylady.org
1998 NEW ART CD Rom including Domus exhibition
1995 Artists pages, Versus Contemporary Arts Magazine no. 2
1994 Spaces of Difference/ Memories of Place catalogue essay by Griselda Pollock
1993 Absent Bodies/ Present Lives, Leeds City Art Gallery
1992 BT New Contemporaries ISBN 0951555626
Writing:
2004 Everything’s Gone Green at NMPFT, Bradford; Review for Source Magazine
2004 Tracey Holland, Folly Gallery, Lancaster for Source
2004 Francisco Jodice at Open Eye Gallery Liverpool for Source
Conference Papers:
2008 Some will pay (for what others will pay to avoid): Vernacular typography and the irreverence of popular culture. Networks of Design, University College Falmouth
2008 Kurl up n Dye; the vernacular in British High street culture. The Street, University of California at Irvine
2006 Towards an Ethics of Generosity in Contemporary Photographic practice. North West Art and Design Research Seminar, Liverpool John Moores University (Speaker)
2004 AHRB and A Real Work of Art; Practice as Research. NW Art and Design Research Seminar, Cumbria Institute of the Arts, Carlisle (Speaker)
Current Research / Publications:
2007 BBC Radio 4 Interview for Womans Hour Thursday 17th May 2007
2007 Invitation to speak at Instituto Politechnico de Porto
2007 Look 07 International Photography Festival Inbetween Spaces billboard launch and bus tour map ISBN 978 1 901922 63 9
2006 Kurl up n Dye
2006 Monograph, Exhibition, Bus Tour, Brochure
2006 Kurl up n Dye. Monograph. Critical essay by Simon Grennan. Designed by Axis Graphic Design. Published by Chris Taylor at Wild Pansy Press ISBN 1 900687 23 2 Distribution through Artdata.
2006 Exhibition and book launch at Cube Gallery , Manchester
2007 Ag International Journal of Photographic Art and Practice Spring 2007 Number 47
2007 10th International Contemporary Artists Book Fair, University of Leeds
2006 1st Manchester Artists Book Fair
2006 Settling In - Exhibition, Publication, Interview, Talk. Exhibition co-curated with Jo Lansley in a house in Manchester to coincide with the British Art Show 06. Publication; essay by Jane Tormey from University of Loughborough currently available on www.lulu.com Isbn 9781901922653
2003 A Real Work of Art. Exhibitions, Publications, Conference paper
2003 A Real Work of Art Folly Gallery, Lancaster
2003 Catalogue essay by Dave Beech ISBN 1 901922 49 9 Carrie, Miranda & Christine Peace
2003 PureScreen 2 at Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, Sampler: DVD Produced by Castlefield Gallery
2003 Guardian Unlimited. Review of Thermo 03, Alfred Hickling
2003 Group exhibition Thermo 03, The Lowry, Manchester
Residency, Exhibitions, Publication:
2005 Mind Where You Look, Gallery Oldham
2004 Joy, International 3, Manchester
2001 Venture Year of the Artist Exhibition, BBC Manchester
2001 Breaking the Barriers Year of the Artist National Publication ISBN: 0-9540627-0-1
2001 Permutations, Installation as part of YOTA Residency, New Image Salon, Preston
2000 National Launch of Year of the Artist,The Lux, Hoxton Square London
Awards:
2007, 2005, 2003, 2000 Arts Council England
2005, 2001 Arts and Humanities Research Council, Small Grants in the Creative & Performing Arts
2000 Year of the Artist Award, North West Arts
1994, 1993, 1992 Yorkshire and Humberside Arts Award
1992 Yorkshire and Humberside Arts Publication Award
