elizabeth ogilvie
“My obsessive interest in water lies deep within my personality and ancestral background. My mother’s people, the Fergusons, came from the remote archipelago of St Kilda.
This seminal island and its grouping of stacs far out in the Atlantic fired my imagination from early childhood as did my mother’s striking accounts of living there off and on as a child, often left with relatives by her father who came from the island but had emigrated to Glasgow and continued to travel back and forth in his yacht.
Owing to this personal history, my inbuilt compass always points me North and to remote locations.
While this island within directly influenced earlier stages of the work shown at the Arnolfini and Talbot Rice Gallery, for example, I can still identify its power within my current practice.”
— Elizabeth Ogilvie
always follow the work
The concluding statement in the above text by Elizabeth Ogilvie on her environmental practice, a text first published in 2017 in the book about the artist’s project OUT OF ICE, describes the means by which the work moves forward naturally, leading the artist and directing her meditations on the natural world.
Over the years this flow of thinking and production has generated the theoretical framework which has lead Ogilvie unconsciously from ocean and its kelp forests, to water cycle to ice to rivers and their ecosystems conveying her unknowingly full circle back to our revered ocean and its vital ecosystems, and with the outputs themselves always moving onward.
INTO THE OCEANIC is a long-term collaboration with the ocean and scientists and one acting as a catalyst for new research, creativity and invention, and a visceral meditation on our marine world.
related projects + previous collaborations
MEANDER
Ogilvie & Page
Commission awarded by Perth & Kinross Council/Culture Perth & Kinross
Meander honours the River Tay. In a stunning and dramatic transformation of a Perth city-centre façade, it invites the public to explore/reflect on their magnificent river. The massive projection incorporates fluctuating abstract imagery providing a meditative, ever-changing spectacle. Ogilvie and Page gained inspiration from Patrick Geddes, renowned thinker, environmentalist, planner, who, during his formative years, lived on Kinnoull Hillside overlooking Perth. Geddes continued to develop his understanding of place, and this location was where he began to formulate his ideas, widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability and the arts.
OUT OF ICE: THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF ICE
Ogilvie
Ambika P3, London
In her 2014 exhibition Out of Ice, Ogilvie portrayed the psychological, physical and poetic dimensions of ice and water – a vast immersive installation specially created for the subterranean spaces of Ambika P3. Fusing art, architecture and science in an experiential artwork comprising ice, water, video projections and film, Ogilvie’s dramatic large-scale work is a portal to the hidden extremes of our planet. This ambitious work has two new dimensions, with a book and film both launched in 2018.
THE BOOK
Ogilvie & Tim Bremner
Black Dog Publishing, London
This cutting-edge publication records, investigates, and illustrates the project Out of Ice. Its studio and field dialogues, collaboration with Inuit in Northern Greenland, exhibition and research imagery, diagrams and films, alongside writings ranging across experimental, critical and accessible.
180-page hardback publication with texts by: Joan Naviyuk Kane, poet, Alaska; Karo Thomson/Ono Fleischer, Greenlandic Inuit explorers; Robert MacFarlane, author/academic; Tim Ingold, anthropologist/author; Astrid Ogilvie, scientist/author, Stefansson Arctic Institute, Iceland; Julie Decker, Director, Anchorage Museum; Andrew Patrizio/author; Jo Vergunst/anthropologist; Katharine Heron, Architect/Director, P3, London.
The project was previously exhibited at P3 London, Contemporary Art Space Osaka, Japan. More can be explored on the dedicated website.
INTO THE FLOW
Ogilvie & Page
Edinburgh New Haematology Centre, Western General Hospital
CLOUDGATE
Ogilvie & Page
Forth Valley Royal Hospital
The initial thinking for the installation in this location was inspired by the first visit to the Forth Valley Royal Hospital site with its enormous skies. And through research, experimentation and development of the concept, the final work here is a more conceptual notion of the whole water cycle: ice crystals/snow clouds rain mist and distribution as raindrops splash into a river and then the whole cycle starts again – a life cycle, a continuum. Cloud Gate provides a meditative and quiet moment for hospital patients visitors and staff and also hopefully, an affirming one.
LAND THROUGH WHICH OUR DREAMS FLOW
Ogilvie & Page
Forth Valley Royal Hospital
BODIES OF WATER
Ogilvie
Dundee Contemporary Arts
Two pools formed with rubber pool liners, timber, electronic controls, plumbing, water, theatre lights, decking, video projection, benches | 5x23.5x5.5m
In her stunning transformation of DCA’s galleries, Ogilvie invited us to explore/reflect on water, in live and recorded ‘events’. In an ambitious and technically challenging installation, DCA’s large main gallery was darkened and converted into two large pools, surrounded and connected by simple, walk-able paths. One remained still, the other was animated by various mechanisms, creating live light drawings on the wall through physics principles.
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“Ogilvie is one of the most significant artists of her generation in Scotland with a compelling vision and strong track record in realizing projects of scale and critical public engagement. The success of Bodies of Water lies with Ogilvie’s commitment to her audience enabling them to interact with, experience/explore one of our most precious natural resources. Through series of installations viewer is offered opportunity to share in Ogilvie’s experience of sensorial engagement within environment. The effect of the work is then to affect.”
Dundee Contemporary Arts
OCEANUS
Ogilvie (1993)
Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Center
EARLY WORK
SEA PAPERS
Ogilvie (1984)
Talbot Rice Gallery
THE ART MACHINE
Ogilvie (1993)
Galleri Nicolai Wallner
“It was no surprise that [Ogilvie’s] early work consisted of exquisite drawings of the effect of light upon waves. Within a few years she had diversified into similarly themed works on handmade paper which focused on the passage of time and timelessness.”
— Kenneth White