Use as Much Pressure as Possible (2020 – 2023)
Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA)

Use as Much Pressure as Possible is an exciting new collaborative artwork installed in the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) by artists Sam Ainsley, Scott Myles and Ciara Phillips. Invited by Glasgow Life Museums to think how they could create a work together that referenced their interests in print as a medium, they have been in conversation since March 2020. Since then, they have been sharing ideas, their experiences of teaching in art schools, and what is important to them about making art. These conversations (2020 -2023) have taken place online during the pandemic, but also allowed the artists chance to meet in person and work together creating and making art. 

The result is Use as Much Pressure as Possible (2023) – a unique and large-scale collaborative artwork that cuts through three floors of the museum building. Working with screen printing and collage this exciting new work will be celebrated on Saturday 25 November and be installed in GoMA for 12 months whilst the three solo shows by the artists unfold in Gallery 3. Sam Ainsley’s show Wednesday is Cobalt blue, Friday is Cadmium red is the first show to open, followed by exhibitions by Scott Myles and Ciara Phillips in 2024.

Huge thanks to Sara Pinto, Jennifer Olley and Lynsey Wells for immense sewing; Simon Ainsley and Van with a Dave Man for organising Transport and storage; and install by Glasgow Life Museums Logistics and Conservation

Touching the edges of everything
A proposal was made, 
that grew into a dialogue, 
that sustained us through a pandemic, 
that gave rise to an artwork,
that hangs before you.
What do artists talk about when they are the only audience? 
They share, they gossip, they commiserate, they encourage, they challenge, they imagine, they think laterally together. They talk about what they love, finding shared interests and discovering points of friction and divergence. 
And if they commit to making something together? 
They slip-slide their way along an uncertain path hoping to come up with something that is more than each of them. 

In 2019, GoMA invited us to work together – an invitation to develop something new, something tangible. We were known to each other (through parties and shared friends, through the Art School and the art scene in Glasgow) so it was easy to find common ground. Collaboration is about finding a way to trust one another, a relinquishing of absolute control and a way into honest feedback from others that are equally invested.  

It is about trusting one another and giving up something of one’s ego. It’s also about total honesty. The early formative period of this collaboration occurred during the Covid 19 pandemic when the world was locked down. The impetus to meet, and have a shared goal to make something, a context (GoMA) and some funding (Creative Scotland), was powerful and motivating. The delayed nature and slowing down of time allowed us to think about what our motivations as visual artists are – could we push for a collaboration within a model of good practice?

Over the last three years we’ve developed many different strands of thinking and enquiry. We exchanged texts that meant something to us – subjects included art making, art criticism, art theory, poetry, literature, hierarchies, the function of art, humour and sabotage. Our shared document questioned the purpose of a museum, critical programming, the state of Art Schools in the UK and beyond, how to convey what artists do – to politicians and to viewers visiting GoMA- how to sustain one’s practice, fair pay, bureaucracy, architecture; stability and instability. 

Apart from many Zoom meetings and using our Google doc as an archive of all our thinking, individually and collaboratively, many other means of production and thinking were employed; screen printing, drawing, the computer – photoshop and illustrator, teaching, diagramming, freedom, sharing economies, collage, use of images and text, literature, and critical art theory. We each came up with ten qualities that were important to us, and the joy of making was clearly paramount.  

It is perhaps interesting to note that many meetings were held in Sam’s flat, the banner was printed in Scott’s Glasgow studio, and the stickers in an art school in Bergen – Ciara’s -which describes one of the many ways we were able to collaborate.

The title for our artwork ‘Use as Much Pressure as Possible’ was lifted from a sticker on the reverse side of the masonry saw we chose to enlarge and print up into a banner. It’s from the other side of the saw – and for us speaks to an idea of art as potential Trojan horse (what’s visible and invisible), an attempt to effect real change – and an observation of the limitations that come into play as we engage as artists. 

We also liked the idea of ‘cutting through the building” with the image of the saw; yet another reference was to Gordon Matta Clark’s actual cuts in buildings. 

The collaboration has been amazingly fruitful and enjoyable for we three artists and despite the difficulties, including the practical, we want to thank GoMA and Creative Scotland for supporting this ambitious collaboration.

Sam Ainsley RSA is an artist and teacher and until 2005 was Head of the Master of Fine Art (MFA) programme at Glasgow School of Art (GSA). She has forged a remarkable career within the visual arts sector nationally and internationally. From 1985 to 1991 she taught on the Environmental Art programme when she then co-founded the MFA course.  She is a respected and published spokeswoman for the visual arts and her own artwork is held by of public and private collections nationally and internationally. Ainsley has contributed to a broad range of visual art initiatives in Scotland and has served as a Board member for many arts organisations. She has exhibited in and curated independent exhibitions and undertaken residencies in numerous institutions and arts organisations across the USA, Australasia, Europe and the UK. In 2017 Ainsley was inducted into the ‘Outstanding Women of Scotland’ by the Saltire Society. GSA awarded her an Honorary Doctorate (D.Litt) for her contribution to art and art education in 2018.

Scott Myles’ practice is strongly gestural and consists of sculpture, painting, printmaking, artist’s books, photography and performance-based projects: a kind of reactivation of ideas relating to the value of art and social reality by means of reusing already established codes. Early works explored circulation, exchange and value. In the wake of the global recession, Myles has produced a number of projects and sculptures wherein he allegorizes symbols which have become ruins. These have ranged from large-scale sculptural works to dematerialized artworks within site-specific locations. Additionally, Myles has appropriated and adapted works by other artists, exploring gift-exchange while continually deviating from the original reference point in a way that not only reflects the original idea but is also an authentic presentation of something else, something personal. 

Ciara Phillips practice recognises the links between printing, propaganda, and social activism where she uses printmaking to prompt discussion around current social and political concerns. Her prints are not rigidly designed; though she sets out with ideas in mind, she allows the process of making to develop or interrupt these. Using a range of techniques – including screen printing, photoetching, woodcut, and relief printing – she combines non-figurative elements with text, figurative motifs, and her own photographs. Phillips also creates context-specific installations which foreground exhibition spaces as places for collective making, as well as discussion and display. Her work has been exhibited in public institutions, artist-run spaces and private galleries worldwide.  In 2014 Phillips was nominated for the Turner Prize, and in 2020 she was awarded the Queen Sonja Print Award in Oslo. She is a Professor at the University of Bergen, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design