France-Lise McGurn at Dundee Contemporary Arts

We’re delighted to present The Charm Offensive, a major new exhibition by Scottish artist France-Lise McGurn and her most significant presentation in a UK institution to date. Filling both galleries at DCA, the exhibition brings together paintings alongside drawing, furniture, objects and ephemera from McGurn’s studio. Having studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD), the exhibition marks McGurn’s return to the formative city of Dundee, and a distinct evolution in her practice.

In The Charm Offensive, McGurn’s paintings spill from the canvas to walls, creating a site-specific installation where paintings created in the studio have a new life.  Her wall paintings make ‘new’ of works already made – recontextualising them in the gallery space. She assembles varied images and exiled objects from the studio and city in constellations – implying location, time or feeling, and creating a sense of immediacy. This new development in her work is made possible by the scale of DCA galleries and the accompanying events programme, including her Artist’s Choice Screenings, films selected by McGurn to expand on and complement the exhibition.