Elgin artist wins Glenfiddich Residency Award
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AN Elgin-based artist whose work is inspired by walks around the town has been chosen as the winner of one of Scotland's top art prizes.
Rachel McClure has won this year's Glenfiddich Residency Award worth £10,000 - the largest award given to an emerging artist in Scotland.
The award is made every year at the RSA New Contemporaries exhibition in Edinburgh, which showcases the work of recent graduates from all five Scottish art schools.
Rachel is the first artist from the University of Highlands and Islands (UHI) to win the award.
She says her work "explores urban walking as an artistic practice in the centre of Elgin."
She added: "Taking repeated walks around the town, using familiar and unfamiliar routes, listening and experiencing, I notice differences, record sounds, take Polaroid photographs.
"Then, using sound recordings, concrete and plaster, I capture instances of the walk, the seen and unseen.
"As walkers we contribute to the fabric of everyday life in an individual manner, creating a meshwork of individual maps, creating our own rhythms which contribute to the rhythm of the city.
"The work expanded during 2020 to encompass the lockdown experience of dislocation to the countryside and walking there during the global pandemic."
Rachel graduated from Moray College of Art (UHI) in 2020 with a First Class BA Hons in Fine Art Textiles.
She has also received the Grampian Hospital Art Trust (GHAT) exhibition award, and won the Highland Arts Society Prize in 2018.
Andy Fairgrieve, Artists in Residence (AiR) programme co-rdinator, said: "There was a unanimous appreciation on the judging panel for the professional presentation of Rachel's work, which brought a taste of Elgin to Edinburgh.
"Her ability to capture a sense of place in such a simple yet effective way marks her as an ideal choice for the Glenfiddich award."
For the first time in the award's history the judges decided to offer two residency places with Fanny Arnesen, a Swedish artist based in Glasgow, also being awarded £10,000.
Both artists will join others from around the world on the prestigious Glenfiddich Artists in Residence (AiR) programme at the distillery in Dufftown this summer.
Mr Fairgrieve added: "We are delighted to be able to offer Fanny and Rachel the chance to take part in this major international programme.
"We look forward to welcoming them to Glenfiddich and to finding out how they respond to its unique rural and industrial environment."
