Artist Eilidh Guthrie features in RSA exhibition

An artist from Kilcreggan has been selected for a prestigious exhibition which opens in Edinburgh today.

Eilidh Guthrie has been chosen for the Royal Scottish Academy’s 2023 New Contemporaries exhibition, which showcases 104 graduates selected from the Scottish art schools’ 2022 and 2023 degree shows.

Eilidh Guthrie studied Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design.

In 2021 she was shortlisted for the quarterly John Bryne Award and the Sustainability First Art Prize.

During 2022 she was shortlisted for the Visual Art Scotland Graduate Prize and the Collaboration with GUCCI Global Design Graduate Show, while her dissertation won the

Alan Woods Memorial Prize and BOOM Publishing Prize, and she won the DJCAD Art, Science and Visual Thinking Prize.

After graduating she had a residency with PeriPlus (Greece) and Roche Continents (France) and won a VACMA Early Career Grant.

“I am so excited for RSA New Contemporaries to be open to the public,” she said.

“I graduated in 2022 and I am honoured to be exhibited alongside students from my year and also the year 2023.

“I am currently studying an MFA in Art, Science and Visual Thinking, now focusing on Scottish peatlands.”

Eilidh says she has had a passion for clay since her dad explained how he dug for fishing worms in Rosneath.

She forages and experiments with natural materials, collecting rocks, plants, shells and soils.

“Currently, I am influenced by the mosses of the Scottish peatlands and rainforests and how they contribute to biodiversity,” she said.

“When using organic matter and pit firing, I feel a sensual connection to our earth and ancestors. Dirty fingernails and clay in my hair, it is pure bliss.”

Selection for the exhibition was made by co-convenors Jennifer McRae RSA and Gareth Fisher PRSA, with assistance from their fellow academicians and representatives from the five main colleges of art.

It runs until April 24 at the Royal Scottish Academy, The Mound in Edinburgh.

Entry is £8 or £5 for concessions and is free on Mondays.

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