The Tooth of History

This exhibition centres on a major new body of work by the Glasgow-based artist, Roger Palmer.

Bloodstream comprises a series of 32 photographic prints and 32 accompanying paintings on paper. Many of the photographs were taken during the first Covid lockdowns in 2020. Palmer cycled to various points along the Clyde River where he would make photographs, at first without any over-arching idea or design. Gradually he began to consider these images in tandem with another strand of his lockdown activities, the paintings on paper which had brought him back to much earlier experiments with acrylic paint.

The sequence of the Bloodstream images is determined by the flow of the river beginning closer to the river’s source east of Glasgow and moving west towards the Firth of Clyde. A gradual shift of colour in the paintings can also be traced through the movement of the works around the gallery.

Through the metaphor of bloodstream, Palmer references the importance of the Clyde to the history and growth of Glasgow – its key role in the colonisation and exploitation of Virginia, its centrality to the spread of industrialisation and empire, its nurturing of workers’ rights and its more recent function as a symbol of the post-industrial city. The liminal perspective of the river banks and the sense of isolation that runs through the images also recalls the empty silent days of covid lockdowns, while the title hints at a more ominous physical toll.