About this Event
Fresh from opening her major solo show The Charm Offensive at Dundee Contemporary Arts (until 15 November), McGurn will share the thinking, references and techniques behind the expansive painting practice which she has developed over a career spanning international exhibitions and commissions.
The Astaire Lecture is an annual public lecture hosted by the Art subject area at Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh. It complements the Astaire Art Prize which is awarded in the second semester in recognition of outstanding work by penultimate and final-year undergraduates at Edinburgh College of Art.
Timings:
10.30am – Doors open, refreshments available
11.00am – Lecture begins
11.40am – In-conversation and audience questions
12.30am – Refreshments available
1.00pm – Event ends
Speaker bio:
France-Lise McGurn was born in 1983 in Glasgow and now lives and works between Glasgow and London. She studied for her BA at Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee, in 2005; her MA in London at the Royal College of Art, London; and her MA in painting Exchange at Hunter College of Art, New York, in 2012.
McGurn predominantly works with painting to create layered installations that incorporate the gallery walls, floors, and ceilings. Her calligraphic brushstrokes are made intuitively and swiftly, prioritising rhythm and movement, which convey a relationship to themes of intimacy, ecstasy, and memory.
She works indirectly from a collected archive of imagery, which forms the shapes, lines, and shorthand that spill across canvases and surfaces. These collected materials form the body of her own research and include celebrity autographs, classical sculpture, photography, women’s magazines, 70s film, advertisements, flyers, figurines, found objects, and furniture.
Selected solo exhibitions include: The Charm Offensive, Dundee Contemporary Arts (2026); DEE-TOUR, MASSIMODECARLO, Domus Haus, Basel (2026); Bad TV, Strawberry, MASSIMODECARLO, London (2024); What Everyone Wants, The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2024); Aloud, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museums, Glasgow (2022); In Emotia, Tramway, Glasgow (2020); Bodytronic, Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel (2020); and Sleepless, Tate Britain, London (2019).
Image credit: The Charm Offensive, Dundee Contemporary Arts (2026)
Access
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Event venue & nearby stays
West Court, Edinburgh College of Art, 74 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
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