(1973 - )
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.
