Bio

Jill Martin Boualaxai (b.1976, South Shields) is a multi-media Edinburgh Based Artist who’s process led practice explores the archaeological imaginary.  As a founding member of Hidden Door Festival Boualaxai has been instrumental in the development of the festival from its early beginnings in 2010.  She is currently involved as the visual art curator as well as a board member.

Boualaxai has a wealth of experience working as an educator. Following on from a two year residency with George Watson's College in 2012, she established  a small art school Look and Draw Workshops  which runs a year-round program of events.  In addition she has facilitated workshops with a number of institutions such as Leith School of Art, National Galleries of Scotland and the Dovecot Studios. She will complete an MA in Contemporary Art Practice from Edinburgh Collage of Art in August 2022.

Artist Statement

Working across various media, my work is led by  an attraction to experimentation and a curiosity of adaptability across extremes of scale, often through modular construction. Creating puzzles of the past from fictional futures, my practice explores our sense of space and imagined archaeologies.

The focus of my recent work has been researching the role art plays in presenting an alternative archaeology of the recent past, referencing modern subcultures such as Rave. For contemporary archaeologists, ancient cultures and their worldly rituals leave little trace and have historically been shrouded in mystery; existing in the present, we can only eavesdrop on the past. If we fast forward a few thousand years, we may consider what ‘The Archaeology of Rave’ may become, and how this rave phenomena may be interpreted by future generations. The snippets of rave era footage could be mistaken for collective tribalistic movements and euphoric behaviour, and could be viewed in the future as comparative to religion, with the frenzied dance often associated with religious rituals.

Using glass, bronze, and clay, I have begun to depict a mythology of rave; these materials themselves have a dense history that stretches back through archaeological contexts. Taking the aesthetic of traffic control signage, ‘Triangles Exist within the Circle’ incorporates iconography of dancing figures and the smiley face of acid house into ritualistic totems. These sculptural forms delineate a sacred space for rave and echo the form of neolithic henge monuments. The appropriation of road signage is a nod to the London M25 orbital, which was newly completed in 1986 and carved out new routes into the English countryside; facilitating the early rave scene. Pilgrims seeking out the location of a Rave would often gather at motorway service stations, where cryptic messages were left in telephone boxes; or they could be found circling the M25 merry-go-round to intercept pirate radio transmissions.

In taking something as iconic as the smiley face of acid house and creating a ‘religion’ around this, my work highlights the difficulties of interpreting the ancient past. Our present day archives are destined to be viewed by a future society through the context in which they live; we cannot predict which elements may become incorporated into a narrative which misinterprets these artefacts, as is the case with present day archaeologists and the artefacts left by ancient civilisations.

Exhibitions

August 2022 ‘Triangles Exist Within the Circle’ Degree Show, Edinburgh College of Art
May 2022 - ‘Tough Crowd’ Group Show MA CAP, Whitespace Gallery
March 2021 - ‘An Unraveling’, Group Show MA CAP, Embassy Gallery
October 2021 - ‘ First Marks’, Group Show MA CAP Embassy
September 2018  - ‘NewFangled >OldFangled’, Colony of Artists
September 2018 - ‘Fun of the Fair’, Art Walk Porty
October 2018 - ‘ Seeing the Unseen’, Watermill Gallery, Aberfeldy
May 2018 - Ghost Lines, Hidden Door Festival
September 2017 – ‘Re/covered < > Re/formed’, Edgelands Project, Art Walk Porty
June 2017 – ‘Fossil’, Hidden Door Festival
May 2016 -  ‘E.R.R.R.’ (EJECT RELOAD REWIND REPLAY), Hidden Door Festival
February 2016 – Stratigraphic, Gayfield Creative Spaces
May 2015 – 'The Space in between’, Hidden Door Festival
April 2014 - 'Spadework' Vault 5, Hidden Door FestivalSeptember 2014  – Colony of Artists
June 2013 - Leith Late Festival- 'Composite Landscapes', The Old Ambulance Depot
June 2012 - ‘Clang Clang Goes The Last Tram’, George Watson’s College
February 2012 – Society of Scottish Artists / Visual Art Scotland, RSA
November 2011 – Royal Scottish Academy Open, RSA
June 2011 – ‘East’ George Watson’s College, Edinburgh
October 2010 – Hidden Door, Roxy Art House, Edinburgh
May 2010 – Dr Neil’s Garden Exhibition, Duddingston
March 2010 – Art Space2let, Edinburgh
February 2010 – Visual Art Scotland Annual Exhibition, RSA
January 2010 – Hidden Door, Roxy Art House, Edinburgh
April 2009 – Leith School of Art 20th Anniversary Exhibition, Edinburgh
December 2008 – The Henderson Gallery Christmas Exhibition, Edinburgh
October 2008 – ‘Temple’ Leith School of Art, Edinburgh

Awards / Residencies

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop Graduate Residency 2022

Hopescott Trust Award, 2018

Anne Redpath Award, Visual Art Scotland 2012

George Watsons Residence 2012 - 12

Eliza Clifford Prize 2007