Professor Ciara Phillips Returns to Glasgow with her exhibition ‘Undoing It’

Internationally recognized for her experimental and collaborative approach to printmaking, Phillips invites visitors into a space where the focus is on the creative process itself. Her work blends aesthetic exploration with subtle political commentary, brought to life through hands-on making.

A Homecoming

Phillips’ ties to Glasgow are personal and profound. After relocating from New York in 2002 to study at the Glasgow School of Art, she spent nearly 20 years in the city, developing a practice grounded in feminist thinking and approaches. Undoing It marks a return to the city that helped shape her artistic voice.

Process as Practice

The exhibition transforms the gallery into a printed environment. Large-scale woodcuts, etchings, and The exhibition transforms the gallery into a printed environment. Phillips’ work shifts between expressive abstraction and intricate drawing, guided by improvisation and experimentation. Large-scale woodcuts, etchings, and screen-prints hang on silvery mono-printed paper that Phillips made on the floor of KMD's print workshop using the weight of her body to transfer the ink. Phillips’ work shifts between expressive abstraction and intricate drawing, guided by improvisation and experimentation.

Her process embraces unpredictability. By scraping, rubbing, and pressing materials like wood, copper, and nylon, she creates a dynamic interplay between control and chance—between doing and undoing.

Collaboration and Community

Collaboration is central to Phillips’ practice. Since 2010, her ongoing project Workshop has brought people from diverse backgrounds into the creative process, emphasizing the idea of “thinking-through-making” With her. This philosophy also shapes her teaching at the Art Academy, where she has been based since 2022.

Her collaborative ethos extends to projects like Poster Club and Good Bad Press, a publishing project involving students and staff at the University of Bergen’s Faculty of Art, Music and Design. These projects reflect her commitment to art as a social practice—one that encourages dialogue, access, and shared authorship.

Recognition and Influence

Phillips’ work has earned international acclaim. She was shortlisted for the UK's prestigious Turner Prize in 2014 and received the Queen Sonja Print Award in 2020. Her art has been exhibited in major institutionsand biennales around the world.

A Space for Reflection

Undoing it is an exhibition that invites reflection on what it means to think and make - what it means to be a human being in the world at this moment in time. A large woodcut in first room of the exhibition, 'Being a Human Being' refers to a poem by the same name by the Scottish poet, Tom Leonard. Leonard's poem invites us to think about our rights as responsibilities as citizens, who and what we prioritise and why. For Phillips, an exhibition is an opportunity to do the same while also being a moment to share in the joy that can come from making.

Undoing It runs at GoMA until October 26, 2025.