25 April 2006

Tokyo trip for Dundee artist

A trainee gallery assistant at the University of Dundee and Dundee Contemporary Arts has been awarded a grant of £1500 to fund a summer research trip to Japan.

Louisa Preston (25), from Dunkeld, has been given the award by the Arts Trust of Scotland to go towards a month-long research trip to Tokyo.

"I applied for the money to develop existing ideas and work and I am absolutely delighted that the Arts Trust of Scotland have supported me in this way," said Louisa, who as well as fulfilling gallery duties is a working artist in her own right.

"A big influence on my work is architecture, the arrangement of buildings in cities and the inner structures to a city. The megalopolis of Tokyo is the perfect place to visit with this in mind. I plan to visit many sites from ancient temples like Senso-Ji to the modern day towering skyscrapers."

The experience of visiting Tokyo and the video footage, photographs and drawings that she will produce on her visit are expected to influence Louisa’s work for future exhibitions. "The huge scale and size of this city will be an amazing shock to my system in relation to Dundee and I plan to use details of both cities in future work," she said.

As well as her individual work, Louisa also works collaboratively with Miranda Blennerhassett. The duo are set to travel to Romania later in the year, where they will work alongside Romanian artist Anca Benera for the Biennial of Young Artists 2nd Edition, Bucharest, 2006, an event which is co-curated by University of Dundee Exhibitions Department's curator Jenny Brownrigg.

The Romanian trip, which takes place in late September, has been partly funded by a bursary of £500 from artist’s newsletter NAN, through Dundee's artist-led group GENERATORprojects, of which both Louisa and Miranda are committee members.

The award will be used to extend the network of artists that GENERATOR currently has, and will be followed by an exhibition in the Cooper Gallery at the University of Dundee. The exhibition will include artists from the membership of GENERATORprojects in Dundee and artists from Romania. The hope is that through their visit to Dundee they will learn more about how Generator is run with a view to setting up a similar artist-run gallery and studio spaces in Romania.

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