A catalogue text written to accompany an exhibition of artworks by France-Lise and rota McGurn at Margot Samel Gallery, New York, in September 2023.

This catalogue text explored the affinities between artworks made by the Scottish painter France-Lise McGurn (b.1983) and those produced by her mother Rita McGurn (1940-2015). This text was produced to accompany the first joint display of their artwork, and focused on how biography shapes an individual's cultural outlook.

This was developed in conversation with France-Lise McGurn and following visits to an archive of Rita McGurn's paintings and crocheted sculptures held by her estate. Resisting the simplistic concept of a shared aesthetic sensibility joining mother and daughter, the text instead reflected on how care and familial structures exist in relation to individuals' creative vocabularies. What this text proposed was that both artists looked to the environments around them –Glasgow’s Barras Market during the 1980s, or its Sub-Club of the early noughts– as a way of figuring or otherwise giving form to a more universal representation of collective congregation.

This text catalogue contributes to a small but growing body of scholarship on Rita McGurn, and could be situated as part of a broader enquiry into overlooked Scottish women artists. It also contributes to conversations around contemporary Scottish painting.

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