deirdre macleod
Section A-B and Record Drawing
South pavilion, ‘Section A-B’ (hand-sanded, laser-cut, acrylic sheet)
Nursery, ‘Record Drawing’ (laser-cut plywood and acrylic sheet)
The starting point for the six acrylic pieces in the South Pavilion was a small technical drawing of Traquair House in cross-section, made in 1943 by Polish soldiers who visited the house from their base in Edinburgh. It is an architectural ‘record’ or ‘measured’ drawing; that is, a drawing of an already realised building, rather than of something yet to be built. I became interested in the idea that the drawing was a record, rather than a plan; retrospective, rather than forward-looking, and wanted to construct something new from it. By using contemporary construction materials and techniques, I wanted to open up the imaginative possibilities of this ‘closed’ document – to use it not as a plan, but as a prompt.
The two small plywood and acrylic constructions in Traquair House nursery were suggested by the frames of housing blocks currently being built in Edinburgh. I find the internal, skeletal construction frames of contemporary building projects visually appealing but also wanted to refer to construction work in Edinburgh as a way of acknowledging the Polish soldiers’ war-time connection to the city. The small plywood and acrylic pieces were my record drawings of the ‘bones’ of contemporary buildings which are lost from view as construction progresses.
Drawing is key part of Deirdre Macleod's practice, in both 2D and 3D forms. The starting points of her current work are the steel frames and scaffolding structures of construction sites, which she encounters through the act of urban walking. Deirdre has degrees in Geography and European Politics from the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh, and worked for 18 years in public policy analysis and development before graduating in Painting from Edinburgh University in 2014. She has exhibited in Edinburgh and London and was selected recently to show work in Shenzhen, China, as a part of a creative exchange organised by the City of Edinburgh Council.