Helen de Main & Mandy McIntosh: Repeat Patterns
Gallery 3
4 March – 15 October 2023

Repeat Patterns is an exhibition of work commissioned from Glasgow-based artists Helen de Main and Mandy McIntosh. It emerged from research and conversations about feminism and social reproduction – how inequalities persist through generations – addressed through radical printmaking practices. With print as a starting point for making, the commission has developed to include works on paper, fabric, and sculpture. These are informed by the artists’ research into the social history collections of Glasgow Museums.

Mandy McIntosh said “I am really pleased to have the chance at GOMA to platform some of the practice led and community informed  research I have been undertaking in Ward 17, including Sighthill. In a city undergoing such rapid pockets of redevelopment this provides an opportunity to reflect on specific histories and experiences which feel crucial to record and print into memory, aligning with other artefacts throughout the museum collections which articulate a crucial history of working class experience.”

Helen de Main said “Having access to Glasgow Museum’s extensive collections to carry out research for this project has been fascinating. I have delved into social history, education and art collections; seeing objects and finding out about their stories has informed and inspired the making of new work for the exhibition. The commission to make new work has enabled me to create large-scale works drawing on this research and working closely with some of the excellent production facilities in the city”.

Helen de Main and Mandy McIntosh are both artists who work with community groups towards raising consciousness and the imagination to change conditions, and their research examined care, planning, housing, displacement, class, and the demand for equality.

Referencing the second-wave feminist argument that ‘the personal is the political’ – which asserts experiences in women’s personal lives are directly linked to the social and political conditions within society – Repeat Patterns contributes to current conversations about the core pillars of the welfare state provisions in housing, care, work, and public spaces.

Repeat Patterns has been supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.

Helen de Main is a visual artist and printmaker whose practice investigates contemporary and historical depictions of women’s lives. She often works with groups in the community, using discursive models to explore personal experience and reflect on social and political conditions.

She is currently completing a PhD at The Glasgow School of Art investigating feminist participatory printmaking. Her work has been shown widely in the UK and internationally. Recent exhibitions and projects include The Love of Print, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, (2022); Consciously Rising, Glasgow Women’s Library (2021); Graphic Impact, Glasgow Print Studio (2020); PROCESSIONS, 14-18 NOW, Artichoke (2018); Coming Out: Sexuality, Identity & Gender, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (2017); and You Know, Things Like That, Platform, Glasgow (2017).

Mandy McIntosh’s multi-faceted work spans over 25 years of practice and includes fashion and textiles, film, community arts, public realm sculpture, writing, puppetry, and other art forms. She has been employed by both KENZO and the NHS, and in the last five years has focussed the core of her practice on longitudinal, ongoing relationships with specific communities in North-East Glasgow and Ferguslie Park.

McIntosh’s work has exhibited, screened, and broadcast nationally and internationally, and in 2004 she was the recipient of a BAFTA award for interactive technology. Solo and group exhibitions include: Domestic Bliss, Gallery of Modern Art, GOMA, Glasgow (2019 -); PROCESSIONS, 14-18 NOW, Artichoke (2018); Hap Up Easterhouse, Platform, Easterhouse for Glasgow International (2016); Metal Magazine/Vivid Womens Group, Glasgow Women’s Library (2015); GENERATION, Travelling Gallery (2014); Running Time, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (2009). Ongoing projects and public realm sculpture include: CREATIVE COMMUNITIES, Resident artist for Ward 17 Glasgow (2019- ); The Tale O The Feegie Flood, Ferguslie Library – artist in residence (2022) Tall Oaks from Little Acorns, Ferguslie Park Public Realm, Bronze re-siting (2018-2021). ARBROATH 2021, Lead Artist, Community pageant procession, Hospitalfield (2021); “FEGS URNY MUGS” co-authored sculptural commission for Domestic Bliss, GoMA (2019); Dear Duty; A monument to May, civic realm sculpture, Paisley (2018) cast in bronze to commemorate The Duty of Care; Tanahill Threads Lead Artist/Producer, month long community arts festival, Ferguslie Park (2018); The Trail of The Possil Meteorite Lead Artist, A North Glasgow Art Trail (2017).

Image shows:
Left: Helen de Main – We Want the Moon (detail), 2023 courtesy and © Helen de Main
Right: Mandy McIntosh – The Family of Ten(detail), 2023 courtesy and © Mandy McIntosh