Together Apart: Meet The Artist
My name is Isabella Luciani, I am a Welsh-born, Edinburgh-based artist. My creative practice is inspired by the stories, events, and environments that surround us, often drawing on contemporary culture, public life, and the ways images and narratives shape how we understand the world.
What does the theme Together Apart mean to you?
To me, Together / Apart speaks to the shifting ways we experience connection and distance at the same time. It can describe relationships between people, but also broader ways of being in the world and how we are shaped by shared experiences while still interpreting them individually.
I’m interested in that in-between space where things overlap or sit in tension: closeness and separation, presence and absence. These states are rarely fixed, and often exist alongside one another rather than as opposites.
The painting that I’m showing in this exhibition emerged from a dream in which I was hiking with my late grandfather, moving together through a landscape that felt both familiar and imagined. It explores the space between presence and absence, where connection can continue through memory and the subconscious, even when someone is no longer physically present. Embracing distortion, slippage, and fragmented memory. It reflects on ‘remembering forward’ imagining futures shaped by those no longer here and sits within the space between togetherness and distance, memory and anticipation.
What do you like about being part of Neuk collective?
Being part of a collective offers the chance to genuinely share ideas in a way that feels open and ongoing, rather than working in isolation. I really value being able to connect with like-minded people who are all approaching their practice in different ways, and seeing how those conversations naturally influence and shape my own thinking.
It also brings a lot of opportunity not just in terms of visibility, but in learning from others, exchanging skills, and being part of something that feels active and evolving. There’s a real benefit in working alongside people who are equally invested, where ideas can develop through discussion and shared experience rather than staying fixed.
That kind of environment often pushes my work further than it would go on its own, and creates space for experimentation and growth in a really organic way.
What else should someone do in Glasgow when they come to see the show?
Glasgow has such a strong cultural energy, so I’d definitely encourage people to explore beyond the exhibition. The city has a brilliant range of galleries I’d recommend simply spending time walking around and just popping in to gallery spaces