Exhibition: Low Life

Low Life

Edu Gil Alsina
with a text by Ewan Pearce

EMBASSY is delighted to present Low Life, an exhibition by Edu Gil Alsina. Images from the history of painting are rearticulated as unresolved elements; quotations are posed as questions, fragmented and enlarged. The works in Low Life respond to the street scenes, workshops and markets depicted in 18th century Scottish genre painting. Initially derided by the academy for its lack of religious, historical or moralising content, genre painting focused on the everyday, representing a recognisable world centred on labour and sociality.

Of particular interest is the work of David Allan (1744-1796). His series ‘Lead Processing at Leadhills’ (circa 1780) consists of four canvases depicting the pounding, smelting, washing and weighing of lead ingots at a South Lanarkshire mine. The 3rd Earl of Hopetoun, the owner of the mine who commissioned the paintings, is depicted observing young children at work breaking and sorting the lead ore.

Now thoroughly absorbed by the institution, the Scottish genre painters are reassessed by Gil Alsina as puncturing the museum’s grand narrative of culture, making explicit the exploitative social relations that upheld divisions between high and low. By dissolving and disassembling their compositions while following their lead out onto the street, the works in Low Life posit an ethic of observation that is intuitive and open to interruption: a sudden burst of rain, the drilling of construction, a finger left in front of the lens.

Edu Gil Alsina (Barcelona, 2002) graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona in 2024. Recent solo exhibitions include: ‘El mico blau’, Gallery Néboa, Lugo (2026); ‘Pit Roig’, Espai 19, Barcelona (2025); and ‘Màquina, mirada’ with Proyecto REME as part of Art Nou 2025. He has also participated in the group exhibitions ‘Plec ple’, 200cent, Barcelona (2025); ‘Entre pròpies i estranyes’, Halfhouse, Barcelona (2024); and ‘Esquinçar superfícies’, Sala d’Art Jove, Barcelona (2023). He was a recipient of the Travel Exchange bursary from the Ramon Amigó Cuyàs Foundation (2024), which allowed the trip to Edinburgh that became the basis of ‘Low Life’. In Autumn 2026, he will go on to study a Masters in Painting at the EHU in Bilbao.

All photography by Andrew Perry.