Iona Marble Meets Parent Material

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

In her own words, artist Ilana Halperin described these works as follows:
The precious white marbles with yellow-green serpentine veins come from the Isle of Iona. A marble quarry was active on the south-east coast of Iona, closing around 1918. The stone was used in Iona Abbey and in buildings around the world. Locally it was believed to have healing powers and to protect against shipwreck, fire and miscarriage. My drawings, inspired by trace fossils which record the actions of life, were engraved into the surface of each marble by a laser etcher at Dundee Contemporary Arts Print Studio. The lines were then filled with field ink made from a core sample of soil from the farm of James Hutton (1726–1797), known as the “father” of modern geology. The soil is composed of approximately 370 million years old Devonian Old Red Sandstone and comes from the bottom layer of the core sample, usually referred to as the “parent material”. Iona marble began its material journey first as carbonate life forms-such as coral and stromatolites-that over time were crushed and compressed into limestone, and then with heat and pressure, cooked to become marble. As we are also carbonate life forms through our teeth and bones, we can connect to this material in new ways through imagining ourselves as part of a deep time calcium carbonate family tree. These works draw connected geologic stories encountered across Scotland together in one work.

Ilana Halperin was born in New York and lives and works between Glasgow and the Isle of Bute. She received her MFA from the Glasgow School of Art and her BFA from Brown University. Her work explores the relationship between geology and daily life. She combines fieldwork in diverse locations – on volcanoes in Hawaii, caves in France, geothermal springs in Japan, and in museums, archives and laboratories, with an active studio-based practice. Her work has featured in solo exhibitions worldwide including Cairn Centre d’Art in the UNESCO GeoPark of Haute Provence; Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité; Artists Space, New York; Manchester Museum and Akiyoshidai Natural History Museum, Japan. She was the Inaugural Artist Fellow at National Museums Scotland and Artist-Curator of Geology for Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery. The Library of Earth Anatomy, a permanent commission at The Exploratorium in San Francisco opened 2017. Halperin’s solo exhibition Minerals of New York opened at Leeds Arts University in 2019 and toured to The Hunterian, Glasgow and recently to Governors Island in New York. Her work has featured in numerous group exhibitions including: Hollow Earth: Art, Caves and The Subterranean Imaginary, Nottingham Contemporary/Hayward Touring; A Meeting with Eldfell, Safnahús Vestmannaeyja, Iceland; The Power of Wonder - The New Materialism in Current Art, Museum unter Tage, Bochum, Germany; The Forces Behind the Forms, Kunstmuseum Thun, Switzerland and touring; Cristallisations - la naissance d'un ordre caché, Centre Pompidou Metz/Musée du Cristal Saint-Louis, France; Allegory of the Cave Painting, Extra City, Antwerp; Estratos curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, PAC Murcia, Spain; Sharjah Biennial 8, UAE; Experimental Geography (touring 2008-11), Independent Curators International. Her exhibition There is a Volcano Behind My House at Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute was on view Summer 2021. She is artist in residence with St. Andrews University and is represented by Patricia Fleming Gallery, Glasgow. An in-depth volume on her work entitled 'Felt Events', edited by Dr. Catriona McAra, was published by Strange Attractor/MIT Press in 2022. Ilana shares her birthday with the Eldfell volcano in Iceland.

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

Artist

Ilana Halperin (1973 - )

Title

Iona Marble Meets Parent Material

Date

2022

Medium

Iona Marbles Meets Parent Material - Engraved Iona marble with ink made from a core sample of soil from James Hutton’s farm, and rippled Scottish sycamore stands (Set of Five)

Dimensions

width: 130cm depth: 20cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Patricia Fleming Gallery, April 2024, Art XUK project 2023-24

Provenance

Patricia Fleming Gallery, Glasgow UK; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 5 April 2024

GAC number

19301