Edinburgh artist Jamie Fitzpatrick launches new exhibition exploring class and authority through city statues

Jamie Fitzpatrick launched his latest exhibition - titled Memorials to Sausage Politics - in Gallery 1 at Edinburgh Printmakers on July 24.

The exhibition, which runs until October 25, showcases new sculptural works and a series of large-scale painted screen prints through which the artist hopes to expose “the theatrical absurdities of authority and class structures”.

Each piece features design elements sourced from existing statues and monuments around Edinburgh, with audiences urged to reflect on the societal messages these structures convey.

Speaking at the opening of the exhibition, Mr Fitzpatrick said: “This city is rammed full of these towering Victorian monuments of idealised men in immortal materials that, over time, we start to pass every day without even noticing them.

“The exhibition asks: What is it telling us about who we are to be surrounded by these objects? Those who commissioned these statues, what do these elites think that we should be thinking of them and of ourselves?

“These works address the drive - both personal and cultural - to make such objects and invest them with totemic authority, highlighting the performative force and systemic choices behind giving shape to one body and not another in a world where only white-male-heterosexual-abled figures are deemed worthy to portray the heroic and fetishised national body.”

Mr Fitzpatrick’s sculptures have often been described as “comic monstrosities” which are designed to magnify and explore social ideas and constructs.

They are created using clays, polyurethane foam and rubber, with signs of the studio process - such as footmarks and other imprints - left visible in an attempt to capture a sense of immediacy in the works.

Described as ‘holding a funfair mirror up to reality’, Mr Fitzpatrick’s work as an artist operates as a social critique, examining how authority, power and historical memory are constructed and destabilised over time.

The artist’s thought-provoking style has gained him international attention and a multitude of prestigious exhibitions including Kunsthall Trondheim, UK/Raine at the Saatchi Gallery and the ‘New Contemporaries’ at the ICA, London.

But the inclusion of printmaking in this latest exhibition marks a departure from his usual style.

He said: “For this exhibition I have scaled up processes developed during my residency at Edinburgh Printmakers in which images of statuary are printed with bronze pigments and collaged and painted into new extravagant and grotesque forms.

“The show is a chance to respond to the scale of the gallery, enabling me to match the monumental size of the city’s statuary, using the 8 metre high walls to create monumental forms.

“I’ve been curious too to explore the link between civic sculpture and printmaking, both visual forms that have been used as statecraft to promote ideologies. You have this image making as propaganda.”

Janet Archer, chief executive of Edinburgh Printmakers, said: “Jamie Fitzpatrick was awarded an RSA Residency Bursary to work at Edinburgh Printmakers studio in 2022.

“His practice in dealing with the rhetoric of image making and his strong desire to explore the relationship between printmaking and sculpture chimes well with Edinburgh Printmakers’ commitment to present work underpinned by a strong research methodology, by artists pushing boundaries to contribute towards the evolution of expanded interdisciplinary print practices.

“We are deeply grateful for the support of the Henry Moore Foundation for the production and documentation of this exhibition. Seeing Jamie’s unique voice fill our triple height gallery promises to be one of the highlights of this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival”.

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