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The Outbye Gallery
Opening on Saturday March 13, 2pm - 6pm: Craig Coulthard
Selected Works. The
gallery will also be open from 12pm - 4pm on Sunday March 14
"Craig Coulthard's work looks and
feels like the noticeboard of your local 'local
history society' - imbued with facts, connections between obscure persons and
events and highly empirical topographical detail. Although imbued with the corrective revisionism of people's history,
such local histories tend to create an 'objective' manageable past (aping the form of pre-war academic histories).
In contrast, Coulthard embraces the popular and oral forms of culture that do not fit the rationalist framework, finding a
more appropriate vehicle for the return of the repressed. Coulthard's works are not 'facts' devoid of value; the
opposite appears to be the case; they are overflowing with subjective cultural associations and implied investment. In this,
Coulthard's works suggest that History is a form of art;
indeed it could be said that it began as such. Historical narratives lay claim, both rhetorically and actually, to a validity
of correspondence to the public processes of the real world. Thus the central reference of an historical work is the past
about which it speaks, which is in some ways subverted as well as furthered by the mode of expression that the author has
chosen. Coulthard reminds us that writing is but one mode in which history might be told and that it is not always the most
effective or appropriate means" Neil Mulholland
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| 'Lucet volare si in tergo aquilae volat (For Neil Landstrumm)' screenprint 2010 |
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| 'Forest Pitch (You Can't Just See it from the Air)' screenprint 2010 |
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| 'Government Gift--Afghan Dust--Old Town Wall' oil, dust on synthetic flag 2008 |
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| 'Convincing the Wolf of the Error in Its Ways' wood, felt, cotton 2004 |
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