Bobby Niven

Bobby Niven (b.1981) lives and works in Edinburgh, UK. He studied at the Glasgow School of Art and the University of British Columbia, Canada. Bobby works with prop, moving image, artefact and sculpture to explore and construct places. He sometimes works with an existing place, drawing on the context and history as a starting point for new projected narratives. At other times, the place is constructed through an installation of assembled sculptures which become implicated into an unknown scenario. His sculptures bring together anthropomorphic objects with more solemn, abstract structures, finding humour in the tension between animate and inert forms. Bobby is interested in giving self-awareness to material and the process of undoing objects. Layering motifs between prop, artefact and sculpture that are repeated and distorted in scale and form making it hard to distinguish between these different types of objects.

Projects

NEO NEO // Extreme Past

NEO NEO // Extreme Past, was an offsite ATLAS project. An exhibition featuring artists In the Shadow of the Hand, Niall Macdonald, Sophie Morrish, Bobby Niven and Hanna Tuulikki, the project built on a curatorial relationship between Emma Nicolson, ATLAS director, and artist/curator Gayle Meikle.

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Broad Reach

Broad Reach was a two-year curatorial residency, led by ATLAS Arts director Emma Nicolson at Taigh Chearsabhagh in North Uist. The project was initiated to develop a range of cross-island programming which would bring work of an international standing to a broader audience in the Hebrides.