↑ Recoat Gallery.

Myself and Alex headed down to the Recoat Gallery to catch up with the owners, Ali Wyllie and Amy Whiten. Ali was framing two of his Futura prints and Amy cracked open a vintage malt. The glasses clinked and the chat flowed. Recoat opened in July 2007 and was the first, and currently, only gallery to exclusively feature contemporary urban art, pop surrealism and lowbrow. They have exhibited work from many talented artisits, including big names in street art such as Insa, Crash and Daze. They are currently exhibiting the work of New York artist Matt Mignanelli. They also sell a range of prints, jewellery, zines and books from celebrated artists from around the world. Read on to hear why they started Recoat and how they are a refreshing break in the mould, in comparison to other art galleries.

If you could introduce yourselves and a short summary on how long Recoat has been around and how it was started.

I’m Amy Whiten and my boyfriend’s Ali Wyllie, we run Recoat together. We met at art school in Dundee, I was studying Illustration, Ali, Graphic Design. When we were there we went on an exchange to NZ, was quality, we stopped in Cape Town, Sydney, Melbourne and Tokyo. It gave us a new perspective on our work and our ideas, we saw that there were lots of arts spaces that exhibited artwork like the work we made but when we graduated in 2004 and tried to exhibit our work, it didn’t seem to fit in anywhere. So we tried to see if we could start something that might accomodate the kind of work we liked and made. We opened Recoat Gallery in July 2007. We are the first and currently only space in Scotland to exclusively exhibit work from the genre’s of lowbrow, pop Surrealism and contemporary urban art.

↑ Gallery owners Ali Wyllie and Amy Whiten.

You have had some impressive artists through your doors. Notably Elph, Good Wives and Warriors and more recently, Kirsty Whiten. Who have been the most memorable and succesful artists you’ve featured?

Kirsty is my sister, so its always really special for us to work with her, not many people get the opportunity to do that. She has had an amazing year, featured in loads of mags, including Juxtapoz and a collection of European ones, been picked up by Opus Gallery too and her Monkey Relic Series has been a huge success.
Its been quality to work with Scottish friends like Russell Dempster, Anna King, Lyken, Elph, FiST, Derm, Eleanor Meredith, Susie Wright and so many other folk.
When we were putting together our first ever show I emailed Crash, one of the original graf artists from New York to ask if he’d take part. Amazingly he replied and said yes, and put us in touch with another legend, Daze. They both sent over work. The fact that they did that encouraged other artists to exhibit with us and gave us the courage to contact other big names. They really helped us, we owe them alot. Other heavy hitters from outside of Scotland we’ve brought here to exhibit are people like Insa, Inkie, Will Barras, Sheone, Otwo, Stash, Futura, Matt Mignanelli, ilovedust, and Dave White. The nicest thing for us is meeting or being in contact with people whose work we love, artists we’ve watched and followed for years, often becoming their friends. It feels a real privelidge.

↑ Ali & Amy’s gallery is a one of a kind in Scotland.

What are your links to Red Bull and what support have they provided you?

They support Insa, so when he approached us to do a show, they paid for all his travel and accomodation and one of their reps came with him. After that they decided to start supporting us too. For our first birthday they helped and paid for Sheone, Otwo and Stef Plaetz to come up and paint our archway, they also help us out with bars once in a while.

How do you link to local artists and what can you provide the local community in terms of support?

I guess mainly through networking and artists coming to us with their work. I think we’d like to think we’re approachable and friendly and that the gallery is accessible, so we hope we offer opportunities for exhibition, inspiration for creative people, chances to see artists other people are interested in and advice and information for people on similar paths to ourselves.

If a local artist is looking for an opportunity to exhibit, are you open to submissions or do you prefer to curate your own work?

Yes we are always open to seeing new work. Its hard on top of everything else to go to a bunch of other shows and trawl through lots of websites, so if anyone out there thinks their work would suit the gallery just drop us an email (info@recoatdesign.com) with a few low res images and a CV or a link to their website.

↑ Window mural by Good Wives & Warriors

What ideas do you have planned for the future? How would you like to see the studio develop?

We really want to do some shows outside of Scotland, so we hope to put together a collective and to take them to exhibit down south or abroad. We’d also like to start representing artists and producing print releases. In the summer we are doing a project with Amnesty International with a group of Scottish artists where we are all painting big murals based on real life cases that will be on show in Edinburgh during the Festival.
We’re also in the process of pulling together a massive road trip to Poland with two big artists to do a show in Warsaw. More info to follow….

↑ Recoat’s colourful toilet. There are some very famous names gracing these walls.

Lastly, any thanks or props you’d like to give?

Obviously all the artists that have shown with us, all the supporters who have come down to see the shows, the buyers who have kept us in business and the sponsors who have made the launches, products and parties possible. Thanks guys!