165 Stars, Found in GWL Lending Library

Location

Country: USA
City: Washington DC
Place: British Embassy

Like a perfect grid of white snowflake crystals, the delicate white forms in Shauna McMullan’s print, 165 Stars Found in GWL Lending Library of 2012, are in fact the shapes of asterisks, doodles or scribbles from the margins of hundreds of donated books to the Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL). When the 165 delicate marks shown in varying densities of white against a pale blue background, are arranged in the grid, they take on subtle shifts of depth, some appearing closer to us than others.

The books from which McMullan selected these marks were made by past readers and users of the books in the Library, the majority, most likely, having been women. The context of this print echoes other work by McMullan including The Blue Spine Collection (2010) in which she created a temporary collection for the GWL, of 520 books with blue spines, donated by women from the local community over a period of eight  months. 

This work is one of 21 prints commissioned in 2012 by the Glasgow Women’s Library to mark the library’s 21st anniversary.

Artist and lecturer, Shauna McMullan’s practice encompasses feminism, geography and participatory practice. She studied Fine Art in Cheltenham, before completing an MFA at Glasgow School of Art and studying at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has received a number of awards including a Scottish Arts Council Scholarship at the British School at Rome, and residencies at the Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art in the Faroe Islands; and Vasl (Triangle Network) in Karachi, Pakistan. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally at major museums and she has produced several works for permanent public commissions.

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), print (as object name), pigment print, digital print

Artist

Shauna McMullan (1971 - )

Title

165 Stars, Found in GWL Lending Library

Edition

One of an edition of 20

Date

2012

Medium

digital pigment fine art print on paper

Dimensions

height: 40.7 cm; width: 65.8 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Glasgow Women's Library, with funds raised from print sales from the Robson Orr TenTen Award, a GAC/Outset Annual Commission, March 2020

Inscription

recto: signed by the artist

Provenance

Glasgow Women's Library, Glasgow, UK; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection

GAC number

18882