19 September - 31 October 2026
Reid Gallery, Reid Building, The Glasgow School of Art, 164 Renfrew Street, Glasgow G3 6RQ
GSA Exhibitions website
A new commission with artist Josie KO
The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) presents a new commission with Glasgow-based artist Josie KO. KO was an RSA selected artist for New Contemporaries in 2023. She graduated from GSA in 2021.
KO has been invited to respond to an archive of The Jardine Sisters, held by a descendant of the Jardine family. Bridget (1881-1964) and Aeta (1886-1969) Jardine studied at Glasgow School of Art in the early 1900s, going on to exhibit at the Royal Scottish Academy Exhibition between 1918 and 1929. The sisters grew up between Glasgow and Georgetown, Demerara (now Guyana), where their Glaswegian father Charles Kennedy Jardine was the founding owner of newspaper 'The Demerara Chronicle'. Through their father, the sisters were direct descendants of Scipio Kennedy, the formerly enslaved African who lived at Culzean Castle in Ayrshire c.1700 -1774.
Purposely working with non-traditional methods and mediums (such as paper mâché, glitter and found objects), KO uses these materials’ relegated status in the art world and mixed media techniques to present a new reimagined depiction of the Black female body. The scale of her works makes them unavoidably noticeable, counteracting the erasure of Black women in art history and Black female artists.
KO has been invited to respond to an archive of The Jardine Sisters, held by a descendant of the Jardine family. Bridget (1881-1964) and Aeta (1886-1969) Jardine studied at Glasgow School of Art in the early 1900s, going on to exhibit at the Royal Scottish Academy Exhibition between 1918 and 1929. The sisters grew up between Glasgow and Georgetown, Demerara (now Guyana), where their Glaswegian father Charles Kennedy Jardine was the founding owner of newspaper 'The Demerara Chronicle'. Through their father, the sisters were direct descendants of Scipio Kennedy, the formerly enslaved African who lived at Culzean Castle in Ayrshire c.1700 -1774.
Purposely working with non-traditional methods and mediums (such as paper mâché, glitter and found objects), KO uses these materials’ relegated status in the art world and mixed media techniques to present a new reimagined depiction of the Black female body. The scale of her works makes them unavoidably noticeable, counteracting the erasure of Black women in art history and Black female artists.
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