McAlpine produced the first works in her Ends series in late 2013. The series transforms the discarded materials of film production into new works. ‘Ends’ are the last frames of a reel of 35mm moving image film stock which have been exposed to incidental light in the darkroom developing process. McAlpine has cut, collaged and layered these sections of film to create abstract compositions and has used these to produce photographic prints which amplify the traces of the human hand in the surface texture of scratches and dust.
When embarking on this acquisition, Rugby Art Gallery & Museum expressed a desire to establish a photography collection which could resonate with other parts of their collection, in particular The Trilogy (2005-10), an important work by Lindsay Seers, also acquired through the Contemporary Art Society. McAlpine’s Ends (Sprayed Sound) is the foundational work for this photographic branch of Rugby’s collection.