Beth Shapeero

+

Fraser Taylor

Two-Step is a collaborative project between two Glasgow based artists: Beth Shapeero and Fraser Taylor

Two-Step Woodside Terrace, Glasgow 2020
Two-Step, Govan Project Space, Glasgow 2019
Two-Step Big Four, The Beacon Art Centre, Greenock 2020
Two-Step Woodside Terrace, Glasgow 2020
Two-Step at The Loading Bay, Glasgow 2020-ongoing
Lockdown Drawing 86

Beth 

Shapeero

+

Fraser

Taylor

Beth Shapeero and Fraser Taylor have been painting, drawing and printmaking together since 2018 as part of their collaborative project Two-Step.

Both living and working in Glasgow, they were drawn to one another’s work after noticing a distinctly shared aesthetic and process.

Since meeting they have produced 100’s of monotypes, a number of ambitious installations and undertaken postal collaborations during COVID-19 lockdown periods – a way of connecting throughout the disruption. The collaboration has become an important part of their creative practices and continues to grow.

Beth is an emerging artist from Nottingham who has lived and worked in Glasgow since 2011. Beth graduated her BA in Fine Art (Hons) at Nottingham Trent University in 2008 before relocating to Glasgow for the M.Litt in Fine Art Practice in 2011. 

Fraser, originally from Glasgow, is an established artist and has spent a significant part of his career working in Chicago where he was a faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Fraser graduated from GSA in 1981 with a BA in Printed Textiles and an MA in 1983 from the RCA in London. He returned to live and work in Glasgow in 2017.  

www.bethshapeero.com

www.haxtonstudio.com

 

To Stand in the Full Sun

by Beth Shapeero

Freedom in Abstraction, Power in Creativity was a participatory project developed with 16 Nicholson Street Gallery and with women from Empower Women for Change which culminated in a coproduced exhibition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

16nicholsonstreet.org

empowerwomenforchangeglasgow

work produced at Print Clan

 

Panting

by Gwenan Danvies

Panting was commissioned as a companion piece for the exhibition ‘Turned the Wrong Way’ at Studio Pavilion

Panting

71. I treat colour concepts like the concepts of sensation.

________________________

It’s Tuesday, I think the 28th September,

I’m sitting on the riverside with some lovely warm afternoon sun hitting my right cheek. I’m abroad; and in new environments I like to see things and myself anew- colour, scale and affectations- almost like the new place gives me new eyes, fresh each time. I lean into it, letting the days linger and plans loosen as I unravel and flop, my melting body drooping onto and absorbing new surfaces.

Today’s been quite a multi-sensory experience. My ears have been picking up all of these new things- bottles clinking on an old man’s trolley as he collects empties, the light rain of earlier against the cobblers- an in-between rain, the heaviest of it creating globules against the ground. Slow and soft.

How would I write about a blob? And about time? Maybe with the Pitch Drop experiment? It’s the process of suspense, the speculative as definitive, an assertive mystery. The abstraction of a whodunnit, of traces of action becoming clues.

_________________

_________________

84. A colour which would be ‘dirty’ if it were the colour of a wall, needn’t be so in a painting.

_________________

17 November 2021,

It’s all smears, sludge, dragging residue, drips.  As we spoke I just kept on thinking about a text from a friend that I’d received on my way to the studio, telling me about finding drying puke clumped in her baby’s hair. I couldn’t stop picturing it clumping, how it would stick together, glueing to his face with his clammy sweat- actually wetter than sweat, a bit more like spit as it relates to the vomit.. Water-wet, not oil.

It’s a coating, swiped and dragged back and forth, smeared across, wiped into and off of the skin simultaneously.

Sometimes that brow wipe causes chills and a shudder as the body resets. And there’s panting. I could talk about puke for hours.

When my achalasia was bad, a deep bottom of the stomach bile chuck would be a sign my spasms were ending, they had reached the bottom. This was the most satisfying part and the most painful. If I see yellow I know it’s the end. There’s a dark optimism; everything is still in place and yes I’m alive. And yes I feel good. Fuck I feel good.

         ____________________________

101. We have prejudices with respect to the use of words.

102. When we’re asked “what do ‘red’, ‘blue’, ‘black’, ‘white’ mean?” we can, of course, immediately point to things which have these colours, – but that’s all we can do: our ability to explain their meaning goes no further.

_____________________________

It was Christmas Day 2018, about 7pm, with the family. The atmosphere was quite tense, at the edge of exhaustion and exacerbation, but still trying to convince ourselves that we were having fun and that life’s problems had gone away for that one day.

Maybe at this time other families would play games, or perhaps take time out for themselves. I decided that it would be a good time for us to walk to the beach, to watch the stars and take in the sea air. We packed a tote bag with a bottle of red wine, plastic cups and a tube of Pringles, and off we went.

On the dark beach we poured out the wine into the cups and sat in silence letting the sea air settle us. One of us commented it could be nicer to go closer to the sea so we could hear the waves better, rather than the constant hum of cars on the A55. We gathered our things and slowly moved over, lit by the golden road lights and white phone torches. The beach in Abergele is cobbled, and as it slopes down to the sea it creates these steps. We reached a step that was too steep to traverse, so decided instead it was a good place to sit. Again we topped up the wine and passed around the Pringles.

Through the darkness I could see the outline of my hand cupping the wine, the dark volume lessening with each sip to reveal the yellow plastic. I heard mum breathing, I heard Sam’s fingers tapping against her phone. The stars shone above, on the horizon lights from the wind farm twinkled and we all went silent again, listening attentively to the sea and smelling the salty air.

I rested my eyes on the shoreline, scanning the smooth barrier line between pebbles and water. I became aware of the stillness and calm water. It was a nice moment.

But then I got confused about the sound. If it wasn’t the A55, and if the sea was still, what were we hearing? Examining the shoreline again, my eyes followed west. I began to make out a shape, some kind of large dark mass that crossed the line from pebble to sea. I finished my wine and began to gather my things to leave.

“Guys. What we’re hearing isn’t waves. That dark shadow there to the left? That’s the sewage pipe draining out to the sea.”

_____________________

by Gwenan Davies

Numbered quotes are from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Colour

Get Your Skates On

by Jan Patience

The Shape of Things

Beth Shapeero

In collaboration with learners from Leeds City College, ‘The Shape of Things’ is exploration of abstract gestures inspired by slowing down and noticing our everyday surroundings. Funded by the Alexandra Reinhardt Memorial Award (ARMA 2020), this participatory project is framed as a way to equip young people with mindful techniques for coping with the stresses of life.  

The Tetley, Leeds 2021-2022

thetetley.org/exhibition/the-shape-of-things/

Turned the Wrong Way

by Beth Shapeero

Solo show at studio Pavilion at House for an Art Lover

December 2021

 

Turned the Wrong Way

Studio Pavilion at House for an Art Lover, Glasgow

17th December 2021  – 30th January 2022

Thursday – Sunday 11am – 3pm

Closed 24 – 26 December and 31 December – 2 January

studiopavilion.co.uk/turned-the-wrong-way/

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Shape of Things

The Tetley, Leeds

19 Nov 2021 – 6 Mar 2022

Wednesday – Sunday, 10am – 5pm

thetetley.org/exhibition/the-shape-of-things

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two-Step at The Loading Bay

The Loading Bay, Glasgow

March 2021 – March 20222

Monday – Sunday, 10am – 10pm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two-Step Big Four

By Beth Shapeero and Fraser Taylor

Four large-scale works installed at Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock in June 2021.

Made in the Scottish Opera production workshops during Covid closures.

Two-Step at The Hidden Door Festival

by Beth Shapeero and Fraser Taylor

Six hanging textile works combining screen print and painting commissioned for The Hidden Door Festival in Edinburgh

September 2021

Selvedge to Selvedge

An installation of screen-printed fabric at The Briggait, Glasgow.

Displayed in the window spaces of the gallery, the work could be viewed from the street even during Covid closures.

April 2021, in collaboration with Fraser Taylor