Gordon Schmidt’s practice is concerned with the understanding of the correlation between the performance and the document or the experience of the individual and the group. His artworks, which include video, collage and sculpture, reference culturally significant events that he could not have experienced first hand. Yet despite the historical grounding of his subject matter (e.g. WWII, May 1968 and a forged Jackson Pollok paintings) the treatment of his source materials results in an acutely subjective reading of these occurrences.

Recently Schmidt has focused on the development of new video works which draw upon found television and news footage from post war Britain. Through a collaging of material Schmidt edits a new perspective on pivotal historic and cultural moments and comments on the social, cultural and political concerns of the present.

Read the New Writing Scotland text by Laura Edbrook here

Read the New Work Scotland 2011/12 publication here

New Work Scotland Programme was an initiative launched by Collective in 2000. Through an open call, New Work Scotland Programme identified and supported some of the most promising new artists working in Scotland - providing them with the opportunity to create new work and bring it to the attention of a wider public. The 2011/12 participants were Gordon Schmidt,
Rhianna Turnbull, Amelia Bywater & Christian Newby, Florrie James, Oliver Braid, Joey Villemont, Ash Reid and Jack McConville

New Writing Scotland grew out of New Work Scotland Programme and was initiated in 2004 in collaboration with Edinburgh College of Art's Centre for Visual and Cultural Studies, to promote creative writing about the visual arts coupled with targeted support to the exhibiting artists - providing them with them with their first artists text.