Isabella Widger: Etchings: Ground Floor Gallery

Isabella Widger and Glasgow Print Studio present a series of new etchings.

"There is an atmosphere of activity and inertia, sleeping bodies wrestle with shoes and ribbons. Mannequins get dressed and redressed. Beauty, elegance and restlessness contribute to a complex mix of arousal and rebuttal; a private inner world or an ideal vision that rests beyond.

In the work, figures and objects often appear in pairs, like tightly wound strands starting to unravel. The act of splitting creates distance, like holding an object up to a mirror to see if it reveals something you hadn't noticed before. A new angle or perspective can give the illusion of something real. A generative delusion, absorbed into the whole."

Text by Roisin Rowe

Isabella Widger (b. 1989) lives and works in Glasgow. Widger completed an MFA at the Ruskin School of Art, graduating in 2017 having previously attended Glasgow School of Art, graduating from Fine Art: Painting and Printmaking, in 2014.

Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including Art Isn't Fair at Clementin Seedorf, Cologne (with Ivory Tars, di volta in volta, and P.E.O.P.L.E.) and Mary Mary Mary at 6 Ardbeg Street, Glasgow (with Roisin Rowe and Victoria Smith), both in 2024. Other recent group shows include Would you be worried if one of these Scottish people ceased to exist? at Charity at Govan Project Space, Glasgow (2024) and Sick Of It at Charity, Glasgow (2023, with Michael Fullerton, Gallery Malmo, and Roisin Rowe). Widger's solo exhibitions include Platform at the Edinburgh International Art Festival, Institut Français d'Ecosse (2021), Every Bond is a Bond to Sorrow at Intermedia Gallery, CCA Glasgow (2020), and After the Verdict at Glasgow Project Room (2019). In 2022, she launched BEET RED with A-M-G5, a publication of drawings and writing.