Featured Artist: Jennie Bates

Seats of Learning is a body of work catalysed by tuition from Rosalind Lawless at Glasgow Print Studio and developed on a year-long fellowship at Birmingham School of Art. Starting with the ubiquitous molded plastic chairs favoured by institutions for their cheapness, stackability and wipe-clean properties, Bates has utilised intuitive mono-print techniques to create screen prints that feel like diagrams but resist didacticism, to explore different stages of (her) education. She's been thinking about the rigidity of educational settings, contrasting this with the individual freedom that can be afforded by learning and knowledge. The works track different stages of her life in education, and question the idea of "progress" - based on what, and measured by who?

 

Jennie Bates (b. Edinburgh, 1995) is a contemporary visual artist whose practice investigates often difficult feelings of alienation and disconnection - from other people, from institutions, from herself - with a sense of playfulness. She has a particular interest in language, performance, and communication, explored through mixed media sculptural and installation work. Layering print, drawing and sculpture, Bates creates environments that simultaneously intrigue and disorientate the viewer, giving an insight into how she often feels navigating institutions and their spoken and unspoken rules.