In May 2022 we welcomed artist Jesse Wine as the inaugural resident to our Roberts Institute of Art Residency.
Jesse used his time in residence to explore materials and techniques new to his practice, including working with wood and bronze casting.
Jesse Wine
May–June 2022
Using the wood from a variety of trees in the grounds of the residency that were felled by the hurricane that hit Scotland at the beginning of 2022, Jesse experimented on site with different techniques in carving using chainsaws, chisels and other woodworking tools. Jesse continued his explorations in bronze casting by visiting the Scottish Sculpture Workshop in Lumsden, Aberdeenshire. Here he, made casts of leaves, twigs and shoelaces to develop starting points for future bronze sculptures.
Throughout his residency Jesse’s material experiments were guided by his interest in how the category of the ‘natural’ is defined and controlled, particularly in relation to hybrids and the monstrous. To explore these questions we facilitated a number of discussions and research trips with local practitioners in Scotland. Jesse also looked at spaces where distinctions of wild and cultivated, design and accident are maintained, such as in gardens and estates.
We connected Jesse with Greg Kenicer, botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, to discuss the issues surrounding ‘native’ and ‘invasive’ species as well as the many ways in which plants have been used in folklore in Scotland. A seminar at St Andrews University organised with historian Stephanie O’Rourke, focused on a transhistorical and interdisciplinary look at hybrids and monsters, from medieval maps to post-war British public art. As part of this investigation, Jesse joined archaeologist James Rae on a search for ancient trees, whose imprints are fossilised on the St Andrews’ coast as ‘casts’ of branches and foliage — appearing in some ways like an ancient form of a sculptural cast.
Through an in-conversation event hosted at Cortachy Castle between Jesse and Aberdeen-based anthropologist Tim Ingold. Jesse talked about how he plays with gravity, grace, bodily feeling and surfaces in his sculptures. Another conversation between Jesse and Aude Campmas, an academic from Southampton University, rooted Jesse’s practice within a history of artistic approaches to hybrids, in particular literary texts of mid-19th-century French authors. You can read the full conversation here.
Following his residency, Jesse Wine presented Both, his second solo exhibition at The Modern Institute in Glasgow (18 November 2022—25 February 2023). The exhibition displays a new body of work that continues Jesse’s interest in material, physical and psychological states, particularly as they relate to domestic space.
The bronze casts of leaves and branches in his works, 75 Heath Lane and 2 North Street were developed during his RIA residency. The installation is composed of various fragments and sculptural forms — miniature houses, limbs, branches, a slice of mattress — which offer glimpses of the artist’s personal history.