Anne Bevan
Anne Bevan often makes work connected to the sea – thinking about things we cannot see – underwater, submerged, hidden, stories and histories. She develops her ideas through a range of media and including sculpture, photography and video. Her interest in interdisciplinary and collaborative practices has seen her working with many people from different specialisms, including archaeology, anthropology, geology, marine science, creative writing, film and music. This dialogue brings new connections and conversations, along with new ways of understanding our relationship to place and the environment.
She has developed several collaborative works with the writer Janice Galloway, composers Pete Stollery and Gemma McGregor, marine scientist Kate Darling from University of Edinburgh and archaeologist Mark Edmonds.
She is currently collaborating with archaeologist Mark Edmonds on a project – Light Erratic – which focuses on a haul of labradorite boulders, brought to Orkney as ballast in the late 19th century. Named for the Canadian coast on which it is found, labradorite has a spectacular iridescence, an effect that evokes the Aurora Borealis. These boulders are a point of departure for exploring connections: between land, sea and sky, and between people on either side of the Atlantic.
Anne Bevan was born in 1965 in Orkney where she now lives and works. She studied Fine Art and Sculpture at Edinburgh University and Edinburgh College of Art and has undertaken numerous national and international exhibitions, residencies and commissions. This includes solo exhibitions at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2000), Hunterian Museum, Glasgow (2004) and the Pier Arts Centre, Orkney (1997, 2017); group exhibitions include Ocean Imaginaries at RMIT Melbourne, Australia (2017); Here and Now, Scottish Art 1990 – 2001, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Dundee Contemporary Arts (2001).
Residencies include the IAAB International Artists Residency Programme in Basel (2000), Hoherweg Studios Dusseldorf (2004) and RSA residencies for Scotland in Shetland (2010) and Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop (2025). Public art commissions include Source, Pier Art Centre (2001), Moon Pool, Tyrebagger Forrest, Aberdeen (2002), and Tang, Stromness Primary School (2015). She is Academician of the Royal Scottish Academy.
