This month’s blog is written by Print Clan member Rosie Trevill, a Glasgow based interdisciplinary artist specialising in writing, textile screen-printing and performance. Rosie’s practice centres around language and embodiment, examining how new vocabularies offer potential for resilience and resistance.

At the beginning of the new year I spent four days screen printing at Print Clan, to create a series of textile hangings for my work as part of the Royal Scottish Academy’s New Contemporaries exhibition.

57 artists were selected from each Scottish art school through our 2020 graduate showcases to take part in the show. Usually the exhibition takes place in the spring after you graduate, however it was postponed an extra year due to the pandemic.

After not having an in-person degree show because of Covid-19, I was really excited to take part in New Contemporaries and reimagine some of my planned degree show work for exhibiting. The Mound (the venue where the RSA is based) has really high ceilings, and I wanted to make the most out of the space with some custom-sized textile hangings.

Hanging textiles by Rosie Trevill; floor work by Gaia Tretmanis. Photograph by Julie Howden

My three hangings, titled Series of Provocations (i, ii and iii), used excerpts from a body of writing I have worked on over two years. It’s a mixture of my own writing and text taken from other sources, which I have developed in fragments, slowly accumulating more and more writing over time. The content and themes of the text overlaps, but for these works I separated it into three main themes. The first focuses on the self, the body and performance. The second, systemic institutions and ideas that embody the world. Finally, the third focuses on mythologies, particularly Greek mythology, and women’s learnt histories. Whilst they could be read in any order, they are intended to show how our self and learnt histories influence our view of the world, and our view of the world influences our self, and so on.

The text overall reflects a lot on healing and a critique of systems that hurt us from a feminist viewpoint. For these works I was really inspired by religious and institutional scripture and hangings, and ways we look to others or institutions for guidance, and I wanted to replicate and question this through the hangings of the work. The text is both very personal and open and I wanted to embody this visually within the text using handwritten lettering to reflect the personal nature of the work, as well as the long making processes being a form of healing within itself.

“Rosie Trevill’s multi-media practice uses text and image to embody acts of resistance and resilience, informed by queer and feminist discourse. Her Provocations initially seduce the viewer through their craft and meticulous construction, to then challenge and critique oppression and redundant social systems as a subversive incitement and rallying call for change.”
- Dr Roddy Hunter

Printing with Arianna and the rest of the team at Print Clan was a great experience: I’ve wanted to print at this scale for a long time but didn’t have access to a big enough printing table when studying at Glasgow School of Art. Using some of the largest screens and the full length of the table at Print Clan, as well as having the team help me with the printing process, meant I was able to print the three large textiles in only four days and I learnt a lot along the way.

As the hand written text was divided onto each screen and needed to be aligned at different points across the textiles, whilst equally distanced and straight, it took two pairs of eyes to make sure it was lined up properly before printing so having the team there was vital to making the work. I’m so grateful for their support and enthusiasm throughout the project and I can’t wait to come back and create some new works with them!

The New Contemporaries is on at RSA the Mound until 3rd April, and is also available to view online here: royalscottishacademy.org/new-contemporaries

More of Rosie’s work can be viewed on her website: rosietrevill.co.uk and on Instagram: @rosieltstudio

Rosie Trevill at RSA New Contemporaries