In Pride, In Piety, In Vigilance

In Pride, In Piety, In Vigilance by Irish artist and performer Sgàire Wood will be presented in the Steadings Gallery this Summer, a week ahead of the one-night-only Jupiter Rising x EAF, curated by Wood.

With origins in drag, fashion photography and multi-artform nightlife scenes, Wood’s practice is concerned with the layers of meaning behind everyday images, visual performances of identity, pop-cultural symbolism, authenticity and artifice. Wood is well-known for her humorous performance work combining dance, make-up and costume design. This new commission brings together her multi-faceted practice to create a poignant meditation on identity and inheritance.

In Pride, In Piety, In Vigilance utilises heraldic symbolism and pop-culture iconography to examine notions of heritage, tradition and violence, specifically positioning heraldic ‘beasts’ as representations of the precarity and oppression faced by a population navigating the rise of fascism. By considering the multifarious and conflicting cultural connotations of colour, form and material, large-scale sculpture positions the grave and abject alongside (and often inextricably within) the glamourous, humorous and sensual, prompting audiences to question the significance hiding beneath the ‘decorative’.

Drawing upon her upbringing in the North of Ireland, Wood employs the iconography of sectarianism to strip the relationship between image and ideology to its core. In doing so, she explores the processes by which the most ubiquitous signs and symbols come to be imbued with violence. In Pride, In Piety, In Vigilance constitutes a frank but hopeful look at current political urgencies, all while leaving room for humour and the possibility of solidarity and transcendence.

Alongside this commission, Jupiter Rising x EAF returns on Saturday 22 August with Sgàire Wood as curator. Sgàiraoke, Wood’s hybrid of performance art and karaoke, has been a much-loved feature of Jupiter Rising since the early days of the festival. Wood’s work has often been situated in nightlife spaces – she has performed at clubs, events, galleries and festivals across Europe, as well as co-founding the much-missed Glasgow queer club Bonjour.