kateabbey.co.uk / @kateabbey_

My enquiry looked into why girls’ confidence fell more steeply than boys’ when in adolescence; why this should happen and what impact it had on females into adulthood.

I studied feminist theory through theorists such as Cordelia Fine; representation by Stuart Hall; Art theory by John Berger and also the role photography plays in representation, historically and currently, influenced by the work of artists such as Pixy Liao and Justine Kurland.

Through these studies I felt that gender stereotypes that are placed on young people greatly influence confidence. The ‘corridor’ in which girls are allowed to exist in is much narrower than the boys’ space and so my aim was to explore - through photographs - these stereotypes by observing different behaviours and representation and then recreating activities but with reverse stereotypes.

Using the tableau format and moving image, I created large scale ‘stories’ of girls going about their business dressed and appearing as stereotypical girls and yet creating tension by means of their activity being seen as male orientated. My view is that females can also fill the space that males fill and my imagery gives an alternative gaze to one that has been dominated by men.

@ahafifa / hafifa.ahmed@googlemail.com

My work is concerned with memory and narrative, using text and objects from my personal history. My practice is material led and pushes me to continually develop novel approaches thorough material exploration. The work is concerned with the
very personal (relationship with my father) and the social (language, text, cultural memory). A personal interest in calligraphy has developed into a subtle interweaving of word and matter. This is explored in copper through patination and the pieces are evocative of words appearing and disappearing. The objects are the hookah heads and they convey a sense of the importance of objects as cultural markers, as well as things that are touched and cherished.

Calligraphy is explored in the paintings and “water” has a strong gestural quality to the gold lettering that gives the words a physical presence beyond the surface.

The geometric patterns were developed as a result of lockdown and integrate abstract form and calligraphy. By reusing certain repeated elements (objects, texts, visual references) that hold historical, social or personal significance, the practice cumulatively conveys some meaning to the viewer and exists to record a memory.

lewisarnold.photo

Born and bred by the sea, I am a lifelong surfer and my bond with our marine environment inspires my exploration of surfing photography and film as art.

My practice interrogates the environmental responsibility of surfing and the clash of surfing’s counterculture roots with commercial and corporate interests prevalent today.

Often my work experiments with levels of representation to build an aesthetic and narrative that engages and asks questions of the viewer.

After a career in photojournalism, the MA in Creative Practice at Leeds Arts University has enabled me to underpin the theory, creativity and depth of my practice. I am now an award-winning independent creative practitioner using photography to examine evolving surf culture and its relevance in the wider world.

“Death Alley” is a semi-abstract investigation of how surfing is connected to environmental racism, exposing the human and environmental cost of Neoprene production in the US.

Throughout this project, my aim has been to create a dialogical, yet coherent work that opens debate around this “guilty secret” of the surf industry in a conceptual way.

patbradbury.co.uk

My practice and research centres around experimental image making and blurring the boundaries between  a studio experiment and a ‘final image.’ My research and making used Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) concept of the rhizome to frame experimental  image-making practice. 

@spun_kids / achalmovska@hotmail.com

I am a fashion designer with over ten years’ experience of working in the industry. As a native of the Slovak Republic I am interested in using my experience to explore my heritage by producing an ethical, sustainable and gender-neutral children’s collection. This range is entirely hand spun and hand knitted and explores traditional- but dying- stitching techniques used in Slovak Kroj (a traditional costume in Slovak heritage).

The collection uses ethical and sustainable raw materials, with wool being sourced from some local Yorkshire farms but also from a connection in Slovakia who does not farm sheep for meat but keeps them for grazing her land and for wool. This was important to me as I learned more and more about the mistreatment of animals in the wool trade.

These garments are made to be cherished and passed down, an antidote to unsustainable fast fashion. I am also collating my own knitting patterns and considering publishing a pattern book that will also emphasise the importance of keeping dying Slovak craft skills alive and documented for the future.

I am currently in talks with a curator for Armley Mills in Leeds about conducting an exhibition there.

@_cloudseed

A Dubai based songwriter, I studied audio-visual communication. In my creative life I composed romantic, positive, 60s inspired folk music, paired with psychedelic animation. Themes of love, nostalgia and family, ‘sticking to my lane’. This was my planned Masters direction but, as for all, 2020 brought new visions, feelings and questions: A world in mourning, is this really the time for romantic folk music? Is it right to exclude my thoughts on police brutality from my creative repertoire? And, is it just me that is really enjoying this isolation?

With the benefit of hindsight, I look forward to reflecting on this work. Did 2020 live happily ever after? We vaccinated, redeemed protesters, and each learned something from isolation. Time will tell, for now: Blame Game - No Justice No Peace – Paradise.

@hollymaytextiles

I am a printed textiles designer specialising in designing textiles for individuals on the autistic spectrum. I research how to stimulate the senses through materials to help sensory processing.

My creative practice is inspired by nature and biophilia. Nature always informs me on new ideas and creates the root concepts for my projects. I am interested in the therapeutic values of being outside in the natural world, this is a noticeable theme running throughout most of my designs.

My sensory collection is an interior collection for individuals on the autistic spectrum. It is inspired by my walks on the moors at Ilkley. The imagery is based on the playful and whimsical landscape drawings I had jotted down when walking there. The collection consists of abstract large-scale fabrics which create impact, a repeat wallpaper design and a playful sensory book. The fabrics are all digitally printed and then manipulated using screen printing methodologies or collaged, to create a new landscape print. The methodologies to my work are research based and follow a certain set of rules which have been trialled and tested.

I am an oil painter, whose primary research at Leeds Arts was concerned with storytelling, both as a cultural phenomena and as a tool in my practice. I’m fascinated by history, anthropology and philosophy, particularly when interpreted through the lens of narrative. I believe that the act of telling and hearing stories is fundamental to how we interact with each other and the wider context of the world.

During my time at Leeds, I focussed on analysing my long standing interest in these subjects; their origin and potential application to my work. However, I soon learned to appreciate the value and enjoyment in sharing my practice with my cohort. Critique became immeasurably important to me. I grew to celebrate the process of art-making as much, if not more, than the end results, and I soon saw development in the artwork I was producing.

My paintings are otherworldly. They are stories and also meditations: small windows into the imagination but also portals to escape the confines of the individualist ego. Rebuilding spiritual and cultural ties to our natural environment has never been more vital. My goal is to present a strong and intoxicating narrative of the interdependence between human identity and the wilderness.

@littlered.moon

Islamic geometric art has always been a part of my life, through my childhood and upbringing and across my adult life. The spiritual connections I have with Islamic geometric art are deeply rooted, it is a reminder for me of Allah’s (God’s) wholeness, how craftsmen over 1000 years ago or more created these remarkable patterns without the use of a compass and ruler. How is that psychologically and physiologically possible? But it was, and it is evident when you visit the Middle East, Asia and some parts of Europe.

Through my practice, I am devoting myself, submitting myself to my art, I am finding my Allah within my art, I am learning about Him and becoming closer to Him because of this art. I use a mix of traditional and new materials and methods to create my art; Watercolour, Cyanotype, Lino, Screenprint and Resin. Each medium allows me to create for a particular space I want to work with. Through my work I want to show that Islamic art is not just for the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula or for Muslims but rather it is art which is accessible for all.

My work is sculptural, and explores transitions between the inner-outer space of a form. These pieces are cast in concrete, a material I enjoy working and interacting with, for its weight, texture and tone. They are purely abstract, unladen with metaphor or narrative.

The making process has resulted in an opening up and deconstruction of the cuboid form, resulting in sculptures in which there is a spatial fluidity, with open, transitional layers on each of the vertical planes. Layers can be seen more as space-dividing elements which give equal weight to space and matter, than simply layers of concrete. These are ‘impossible’ spaces, visible, yet unreachable. The architectural language of Gerrit Rietveld, as evidenced in the Rietveldt-Schröder house in Utrecht has been influential in my process.

Photography has started to play an increasingly important role in considering how we view the work. It has enabled a different viewing experience, adding another layer of complexity through the consideration of light and shade.

@project.intertwined

I am a 24 years old visual communication designer from Cyprus and am interested in various forms of visual arts. As a Cypriot, my main source of inspiration is my homeland, as it has always been very rich in history and culture due to its geographical position. I aim to contemporise traditions and cultural heritages of Cyprus to sustain the Cypriot culture.

The word ‘Intertwined’ represents the connections of past and present culture and the cultural heritages that have been adapted and integrated into our lives.

Cultures and cultural heritages are being diminished due to various reasons. My project ‘Intertwined’ is based on culture and history with the aim to raise awareness of the significance of cultural diversities. Intertwined is based on the Cypriot culture but the idea behind it is to set an example of how cultures and their heritages can be preserved through the use of visual arts.

Visual arts is a powerful tool that can embody the intangible in various forms. Many aspects of culture can be reflected with the use of different media, where each medium contributes to the unfolding of the story in a specific way.

The form of grid and mesh is the most vital element in my current practice. Their physical and metaphysical meanings of compartmentalisation, disruption and reconnection of physical and psychological space seem a meeting point of my primary interests: abstraction of trauma in landscape and the psyche – the themes of destruction and recreation; and the significance of line. I strive to represent dynamic lines that thrum with energy, embodying the moving forward and grasping of “life”.

The medium of collagraph is a syntonic process, building layers of landscape and cutting lines into the printing plate then crushing the ink into the printing paper under the press, and repeating.

Being in landscape is an access point to my internal space. The contours of landscape that I connect to become disembodied in my mind and hands whilst making and the current place my work sits is a hovering between external and internal reality. The quality of the line is the thread between these two spaces. The abstraction of perspective offers distance and silence. Detail falls away and what is left is the flow and illumination of the line and the new spaces that disruption in the landscape and psyche recreates.

I am a mixed-media artist following a personal, intimate heuristic research method underpinned by my Hungarian Catholic upbringing and the fascination with fairy tales. I am also intrigued by binary oppositions, such as beauty and ugliness, vulnerability and empowerment and the human condition, the obstacles we face and the different ways we overcome them.

These personal narratives are embedded into the small sculptural objects, artefacts I create. The laborious art process always starts with finding discarded objects, toys and other materials which then get embedded, covered or entwined using hand-sewing, wrapping and needle-weaving techniques. These textile techniques I combine in my art are highly influenced by my Hungarian heritage and my grandmother.

While subjects can vary of exploring feminist or taboo themes, such as religion, sexuality or suppression, there is a certain playfulness which link the works together focusing on rich tactile and visual qualities in an experimental and quirky way.

www.thomasshaneohara.co.uk / @is_art_a_lie

Humanity has a presence within the environment; there is always a tension between our shaping of nature and respecting it.

Last year over a thousand arrests were made after environmentalists disrupted traffic routes in London. In April 2019 another urgent Environmental and Sustainability Conference was held in Paris. The impact humans are having on the environment affect our species and the eco system we live in. If our eco system is damaged beyond repair, it is suggested, and probable, that our species will become extinct.

Are we accountable to maintain the health of our ecological system? Is what we are doing to the landscape damaging and unnatural? And to what extent are human’s actions natural?

My creative practice focuses on questions like these. On human-made structures interacting and creating incongruity (something out of place), forming a disturbance within the environment. My work is an exploration of the physical affect we are having on nature through our aesthetic forms, and the ecological impact we are having on the environment.

@janeclairewilson / janeclairewilson@hotmail.com

I am a contemporary textile artist creating artwork to share stories about places and people. Through my artwork I research how creating a sense of place in a creative practice engages audiences and makers in social, political and global discussions.

I have walking at the heart of my practice; exploring new places by walking alone, with artists and members of the local community; gathering stories and memories of a place. I am inspired by the visual language of the place and create abstract pieces responding to the conversations and experiences I have during my explorations.

During the MA my practice based research resulted in a textile installation called A Walk Along Cod Beck. It reflects and maps out my journey along a local river and the people I met along the way. It raises awareness of the local social context; in particular the central role the river has in the lives of the local community. It shares the importance of walking along rivers for physical and mental health, especially during lock down and reflects national conversations. As the audience walks alongside the installation they too can join in the debate; creating their own stories and memories.