Transmission Gallery

I rented a studio in an Edwardian building in what used to be known as Merchant City where I began to teach myself how to paint. I had a degree in graphic design from Glasgow  School of Art,  but realized that a career as a designer/illustrator was never going to be for me.  I made friends with Michelle Baucke, an artist from San Francisco who had a studio next to mine.  She was impressed by artists collectives she’d seen in New York City in the early 1980s, their experimental works, their desire to upset the apple cart.  She knew Glasgow was becoming a cauldron for new art but there was nowhere to show it. So a collective was formed around her idea: Transmission was the result.  The name came about because it signified energy and movement and to us, the communication of art and ideas.

The City of Glasgow offered an empty shopfront on Chisholm Street. It was small and had a cobblestone street running through the main exhibition area and a distinct barnyard smell permeated the entire space.  The first exhibition was called Urban Life and it opened in 1984. Every artist in the collective participated.  There were several group politically-inspired exhibitions that followed, including Winning Hearts and Minds which I curated and participated in.  By the late-eighties the building had fallen into serious disrepair and by 1989 the gallery moved to its current location on King Street. 

Transmission started off as an experiment and we never thought it would last as long as it has. We didn’t think of it as a career path and consciously avoided any attempts to become part of the establishment.  Committee members could only serve for a maximum of two years ensuring a steady turnover of new energy and ideas.   Artists have always controlled all aspects of the running of the gallery and elected committees organized the exhibitions. It has stayed true to this original concept, and as a result, managed to survive and is still operating today. 

Transmission's exhibition space was the only place in the city where young  artists could meet, share ideas and show their work.  Many of those who did  went on to become well known on an international scale: Douglas Gordon, Carol Rhodes, Christine Borland, Eva Rothschild, Lucy Skaer, Martin Boyce, Simon Starling to name but a few former committee members.

Transmission was also part of the beginning of Glasgow’s rise to cultural  prominence - the city’s East End is now home to several contemporary exhibition spaces – the Modern Institute, for example,  has two beautiful galleries only minutes away.

My involvement with the collective came about serendipitously, but it was a formative experience for me, and one that established my belief that artists working together, not only for themselves but for the greater good, can have profound and far-reaching effects.  

https://www.transmissiongallery.org/

The gallery in its second home on King Street, Glasgow in 2019. My studio was a few floors above.