Biography
British artist Emily Bates graduated from Glasgow School of Art, Scotland.
She currently lives and works in Amsterdam.
Bates became recognised for a body of work, or ‘impossible’ dresses, made during the 1990’s, that were constructed from knitted human hair, such as Dress, Depilator and Sibilla. These works have been exhibited extensively in Europe as well as in the USA and Japan, including in Revelation at the Barbican Centre Curve Gallery, London and the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, 1997; Addressing the Century: 100 Years of Art and Fashion at the Hayward Gallery, London and Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg, 1998; Weaving the World at Yokohama Museum of Art, 1999; Out of the Closet and The Unexpected, at Sotheby’s Auctioneers in London, 2000 and New York, 2001; and Body Extensions at Mudac – Musée de design et d’arts appliqués contemporains, Lausanne, 2004.
In 1997, she was awarded the prestigious Scottish Arts Council artists residency in Amsterdam, where photography became a large focus of her working practice.
She received further artist residency and fellowship awards, notably from the Pier Arts Centre, Orkney, 2000; Nordiska Akvarellmuseet, Sweden, 2000; S-Air in Sapporo, Japan, 2002-3; Lijiang Studio, China, 2006 and 2007; and as the Dutch Affiliated Visual Arts Fellow at the American Academy in Rome in 2008.
During 2013-14 she undertook a nomadic residency as part of Il Ventre di Napoli in Italy, with support from the Mondriaan Fund.
In 2017 she was selected by the Mondriaan Fund and MMCA Seoul to undertake a 4 month artist in residence at MMCA Changdong, South Korea.
During the summer of 2021 she was resident with Van Gogh Huis museum in Brabant, the Netherlands on the estate of De Moeren, weaving narratives and histories of the land into a new series of works with photography, peat and black ink.
Her work has been exhibited at Galerie Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam; Transmission Gallery, Glasgow; Stills, Edinburgh; Flatland Gallery, Utrecht; DCA Dundee Contemporary Arts / McManus Galleries, Dundee; Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn; Paisley Museum and Art Gallery; Nottingham Castle Museum; CCA Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow; the American Academy in Rome; Officine Fotografiche, Rome; C-Space, Beijing; FRAC Fonds regional d’art contemporain, Poitou-Charentes; MAC’s Musée des arts contemporains, Grand Hornu; Smart Project Space, Amsterdam; Site Gallery, Sheffield; MMCA Changdong, Seoul; Seelevel Gallery and Galerie Caroline O’Breen, Amsterdam; Centre d’art et photographie de Lectoure and Chabram in Touzac, France; Collegium Artisticum, Sarajevo; Droog Design and with the Gallery Club, both in Amsterdam.
Solo exhibitions and publications include: Casino Forum d’art contemporain, Luxembourg; Arendt & Medernach photography collection, Luxembourg; MUDAM Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg.
Acquisitions of her work have been made for the collections of MUDAM Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg; Arendt & Medernach photography collection, Luxembourg; MAC’s Musée des Arts Contemporains, Grand Hornu, Belgium; FRAC Fonds régional d’art contemporain Poitou-Charentes, Angouleme, France; Nottingham Castle Museum, England; Paisley Art Gallery and Museum, Scotland; and for private collections in Austria, Belgium, Britain, China, Italy, Japan, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, South Korea, Switzerland, USA and the Netherlands, including the private collection of Paul Andriesse.
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