Tag Archives: Alan Johnston

Daniel Gottin

This month we will be visiting Sleeper to see the work of Switzerland-based artist Daniel Gottin. For the past twenty years, Gottin has focused on making temporary, site-specific interventions that examine the subjective nature of perception. His installations, always consisting of common industrial materials, such as tape, carpet, and paint, playfully respond to the specific characteristics of an architectural site and activate the viewers relationship to it.

Gottin has made the work in direct response to Sleeper’s one-room exhibition space, which is located in the basement of the offices of Reiach and Hall Architects. Sleeper was founded in 2000 by visual artist Alan Johnston and architect Neil Gillespie, to bring together a rich diversity of national and international art and as a way to continue a dialogue between contemporary art and architecture. Previous artists have included Bruce Nauman, Lesley Foxcrot, Charles Avery, Douglas Gordon, Alan Charlton, Martina Klein, Adam Barker-Mill, Thomas A Clark and Roger Ackling.

We will have the pleasure of the company of Neil Gillespie, Director of Reiach and Hall Architects, who will join us in discussions about the influence of contemporary art on their architecture and about their collaborations with the artists.

Neil Gillespie’s architectural projects include The Pier Arts Centre, Stromness which was winner of the 2007 RIAS Doolan Building of the Year Scotland Award; the competition design for Dunfermline Museum and Art Gallery; and the Beatson Institute, University of Glasgow. Gillespie is also a tutor at the Architecture Department of Edinburgh College of Art.

Craig Richardson

We will be talking to Neil Gillespie about Sleeper’s new exhibition of work by Craig Richardson.

Born in Scotland, Craig has been working on a series of paintings that utilise techniques in reprographics and fine art. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Oxford Brookes University, but is also recognised as an established writer and curator. He is at present working on an exhibition which pairs contemporary artist Ross Sinclair with the Victorian painter Sir Edwin Landseer.

Neil Gillespie is one of the Principal Architects at Reiach & Hall and was co-founder of Sleeper alongside established artist Alan Johnston. He has recently received the prestigious Scottish Design Award as Architect of the Year. The discussion will also provide an insight into how an architect perceives arts environments, which is significant considering that Neil has designed a number of galleries, including Stills and the Collective Gallery, here in Edinburgh.