Justine Watt received the Glenfiddich Artist in Residence Award at RSA New Contemporaries 2025. Six months on, we’re catching up with her to hear all about her residency, discarded whisky barrels and an upcoming move to Dumfries and Galloway.
We were first introduced to your work when you received a RSA John Kinross Scholarship in 2024. Can you tell us about your time in Florence, and how the city influenced your practice?
The RSA John Kinross Scholarship is structured in a way that you have the freedom to choose the best way to utilise your time in Florence. This allowed me to live in a residential area a couple of miles outside of the city. Each day I would walk into the city, which gave me time to appreciate the architecture and how it changed as you crossed the city walls. I was fascinated by the huge and often ornate wooden doors. Especially how these ancient doors had been repaired over the years, showing visible fixes using time honoured carpentry techniques.
I spent time at ZeroLab, a leather recycling organization situated in Scandicci in the heart of the industrial area, where the majority of Florence’s luxury bags and accessories are made. ZeroLab works to reduce the huge amount of leather waste in Italy and create a more sustainable way of using leather offcuts, which in turn reduces the pollution that is created by the incinerating of the leather waste.
During my stay I visited Museo Sant’Orsola, originally a 14th century Benedict Convent, it is now being transformed into a centre for culture and contemporary art. Although it doesn’t open until 2026, they held a temporary exhibition there with Juliette Minchin who works with sheets of melted wax. This visceral exhibition has stayed with me ever since.
You were invited to exhibit at RSA New Contemporaries 2025. What was that experience like?
It was a privilege to be invited to exhibit in the Royal Scottish Academy. Installing my work in Gallery II, I thought about the many artists that had exhibited within this incredible building. The whole experience was such a positive one - the team at the RSA helped every step of the way and I absolutely loved working with the install team.
I will not forget how it felt to walk in and see my work sitting alongside all of the other amazing emerging artists.
New Contemporaries 2025, photo Julie Howden
At New Contemporaries, you were awarded the Glenfiddich Artist in Residence Award, the largest prize in Scotland for an emerging artist. What did you explore during your residency?
My home for three months was on the Glenfiddich Distillery Estate in Dufftown. I was surrounded by woodland, River Fiddich, both Glenfiddich and Blevennie distilleries - and barrels, hundreds of them!
Watching the coopers make the barrels using age-old methods of craftsmanship was inspiring. I was particularly influenced by Billy McRobbie, a Glenfiddich warehouseman with vast experience in the whisky warehouses. He taught me the practice known as ‘working the clock’, the skilled process of turning and aligning barrels so that the bung rests in exactly the right position to release the whisky. I worked with old oak staves - sections of whisky barrels no longer fit for use due to cracks or splits that were destined for the firewood pile.
I prepared the materials by carrying discarded staves to the nearby River Fiddich, allowing the old oak to soak up the water - a gentle and repetitive process. Once soaked, the wood could be carefully manipulated into simple sculptural forms. The oak sculptures suspend and twist, hanging from the joists of the Glenfiddich gallery, just across from the copper still house.
I also developed natural dyes during my residency using on-site materials from the barrel hoops and char from the staves, these pigments were used to dye the wall-hung works that sit alongside the hanging sculptures.
Justine Watt, photo John Paul
The residency brought together artists from China, Canada, Kenya, Taiwan and Korea. How did working alongside an international group affect your practice?
Arriving in Dufftown, being on my own and away from family was initially daunting, but the friendships I made with the other artists helped me settle in. Asking them for advice or for an impromptu crit was such a valuable experience, especially as since leaving art school I have worked on my own. Working together helped us think about the space we were exhibiting in, and I really enjoyed seeing how all of our work came together and how different our inspirations were, but also how our work spoke and sat with one another.
I am very grateful to have met the other artists, and I ate very well during my residency!
Justine Watt, photo John Paul
Looking ahead, what ideas or projects are you most excited to develop next?
I am looking forward to exhibiting with Nomas Projects in October. It’s an interesting space set in five windows in Dundee. I will be exhibiting some of the work made at Glenfiddich. I’m getting ready for a move with my family from the east coast to Dumfries and Galloway at the end of this year. This means I’ll have a bigger studio space to work in, and I’m really looking forward to making new work at the start of 2026.
