Risa Tsunegi was selected as the Gordon Foundation Graduate Fellow in 2009 based on her minimalist work Girder, presented in the MFA Degree Show at Tramway. The work balanced, seemingly impossibly, on a diagonal without any means of support.

The 2009 selection panel included Kitty Anderson, Associate Director, The Modern Institute Communications Manager, The Common Guild; Michael Stumpf, Artist, Amy Sales, Programme Development Manager, Glasgow Sculpture Studios; Alexandra P. Spaulding, Artist, GSS Artist Member & Studio Holder, Eddie Stewart, Artist, GSS Artist Member & Studio Holder; Douglas Morland, Artist, GSS Artist Member & Studio Holder, Co-Director of Washington Garcia; and Lorraine Wilson, Curator, Tramway.

Tsunegi is interested in the relationship between force and form and their subject to gravity. Her work is heavily influenced by architecture and the function and possibilities of the materials used in architectural structures. Tsunegi has said “The Gordon Foundation Graduate Fellowship has undoubtedly been beneficial in providing me with the opportunity to concentrate on developing my ideas, expanding my research and producing new work.”

Risa Tsunegi was born in Japan in 1982 and currently lives and works in Glasgow. She graduated with an MFA from Glasgow School of Art in 2009, after studying Painting and Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design, London 2003-6. Recent exhibitions have included RAW in a Restless Point, MOIN Creative Space, Seoul, Another Opening, Nomi’s Kitchen, Glasgow, abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz, David Dale Gallery Glasgow, 2010 and Set It Up and Go, Arts News Projects, Berlin, 2009. Forthcoming exhibitions include a two person show with Amelia Bywater, Glasgow Project Room, Glasgow 2011. Tsunegi was awarded a Creative Scotland Creative & Professional Development Grant and Arts Trust Grant in 2010.

The 2009 Graduate Fellowship was supported by The Gordon Foundation and The Hope Scott Trust.