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Kalika Aloni
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
tracinghomes.squarespace.com / @a.foxwithsocks
Tracing home; a photobook series exploring how home exists through poetry, photography and paper. The books rewrite my personal relationship with the ephemeral home, inviting viewers to rewrite theirs. The materiality and nature of the work translates the experience of my multiple homes. This is predominantly done through the various locations, as the photographs included were taken in India, the UAE and the UK. The use of tracing paper, ink paper and canvas papers transpires ideas of generational and cultural transfers.
In response to my grandmother’s writings, my work uses text to express and relay my sentiments of home. As speculated by Ann Atwood – the words of poetry and image alike, act as windows for interpretation to the audience. Using poetry, the series abstracts the landscape of home in all its combined moments, to extend an invitation into a nameless narrative.
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Kingston Amaechi*
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Forever Black'
I wanted to make a film that was a true depiction of the issues of stigma and prejudice within the US and UK even though my nationality is British. I believe that it is important to not only have my artwork be responsive to British culture and issues but to also represent other parts of the globe as well, as the issue of stereotypes is a global impact, a virus in some sense that injects itself into different countries, cultures backgrounds and even religions. I collated videos from online websites such as YouTube, news outlets (CNN) and Instagram Posts.
The work also used sound/music from Kanye West's album ‘Ye’ the song “violent crimes” which fit in with the ideology behind the work which was the violence in the United States against Black citizens vs a White power infrastructure. I enabled the music to fit in with some of the more graphic videos in that Way the audience doesn’t feel totally disgusted in the video but more so drawn into the film In ways to allow them/enable themselves to have a visual representation of the truth of police and in most cases violence against minorities.
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Phoebe Armstrong
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
phoebearmstrongart.wixsite.com/mysite / @phoebe_armstrong_art
Through my paintings and digital works I explore the point where mundanity and existentialism converge, scrutinising the ordinary, lacklustre way in which we live our daily lives, when the very nature of being is nothing short of extraordinary. The collection ’Ordinary Chaos’ captures those moments of intrusive existential confusion that arise when performing a monotonous task or going about daily life, moments where you are suddenly interrupted with the absurdity of your own existence; why am I here? Why am I doing this? Why do we fall into a quotidian when we are free to do as we please?
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Zoe Austin
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Art About Art'
Primarily working with domestic objects whilst considering their functional uses and aesthetic appeal, I utilise them to convey narratives which tell my story in various unconventional ways. A part of my ‘Packed and Ready to Go’ series, ‘Art About Art’ is a single shot film in which I am sitting in a suitcase whilst reading, engaging in conversation with a person behind the camera about the book being read. The physical action of reading a book is mundane by nature, the waterfall becoming a focus during moments of relative stillness. Waterfalls symbolic of persistence and regularity, they unapologetically exist in a state of continuous motion. A metaphor for life I am basking in its presence, no longer waiting for the future but living in the moment. My suitcase is reclaiming its original purpose of aiding travel, I am therefore comfortable with being its only contents if it is to provide a sense of freedom. Concerned with issues surrounding the impact of personal environments on mental health and self-reflection, by relocating my performative practice outside of the domestic environment and into the outdoors I have illustrated my personal discovery of comfort in the unlikeliest of places.
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Gabryelle Jac Ayrey
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
artsteps.com/view / @gabryellejac
'Connected' is based around reliance on technology for human interaction. More than ever, as a result of the Covid- 19 pandemic, people are turning to screens for distraction and entertainment as a form of escapism. These paintings reflect a deteriorating sense of physical connection which has been replaced with a connection to devices. This work is created in oils on canvas.
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Ofunne Azinge
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
ofunneazinge.com / @ofunneazinge / @OfunneAzinge / ofunneazinge@gmail.com
Ofunne Azinge is a Nigerian – British painter currently based in Leeds, United Kingdom. Over the past year, her work has developed from the documentation of black men and black masculinity in painting, to unravelling the socio-economic effects of Nigeria’s governance across the diaspora. Driven by Nostalgia and her complex upbringing, elements of her large-scale paintings continuously shift through generations and cultures, inviting the viewer to come closer and unravel the details.
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Chelsea Binns
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
‘Can You Read This?’
Through repetitive line drawing, I investigate the relationship between Meares-Irlen Syndrome / Visual Stress and Dyslexia. In Visual Stress the brain is unable to process the full spectrum of light when reading black text from a white background. Filtering out the problem wavelength makes text become much clearer, reducing strain and allowing the brain to process visual information correctly. This can be achieved through coloured overlays or tinted glasses.
Amongst the key theoretical ideas behind my work, I aim to reflect on my time spent in the education system as an undiagnosed dyslexic until the age of twenty-one. I was often mislabelled as disruptive, when I should have been receiving additional support for my difficulties / disabilities. As I progressed through school I found that doodling aided my ability to concentrate and retain information. Despite this I still received a negative reaction from teachers, being disciplined for doing so. I was told it was a form of ‘low level disruption’ and that ‘I couldn’t possibly be listening if I was drawing.’ I took my ‘doodles’ and began reworking them into more refined line drawings.
My series titled ‘Can You Read This?’ magnifies the experience of individuals with dyslexia experiencing visual stress as a result of reading. My drawings should be viewed as a ‘piece of text’ with educational benefits for the non-dyslexic viewer with purposefully wonky lines that are difficult to look at displaying an element of ambiguity.
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Georgina Bond*
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
@lovesexandsuffering / @the.naughty.peach
Georgina Bond’s practice is rooted within the study of sex, pleasure and the taboo. Using her personal interests of female sexual pleasure, stigmas associated with female sexual anatomy, presentation of sex as shameful, portrayal of BDSM and ‘kink’ in artwork and manners in which these are socially received.
She is a mixed media artist with a focus on producing moving image, photography and sculpture. The work mentioned is part of a visual work display, intended to immerse the viewer into the reflection of prejudices, beliefs and views around the discourse of sex and female pleasure
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Isabelle Carey
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Movements of Natural Wonders v5'
Photography, ink and water
ic281258.wixsite.com/website-1 / @bellelcarey
My practice explores mankind's tenuous relationship with the ocean. By investigating the sculptural qualities of water (one of the ocean’s abiotic features), I materialise the unknown and mystery which so often surrounds the biome, creating ‘other’ dreamlike worlds. As shown in Movements of 'Natural Wonders v5' (2021) (one photograph part of a photographic series), I embrace beauty, seducing the viewer with imagery only dreamt of.
To create this series, I took an open-ended approach. After dropping ink into water, I simply recorded the kinetic qualities which would normally go unseen, but which the ink highlighted. Giving water the space to transform the ink into immersive compositions left me very much aware of agency outside the human realm. Due to the ephemeral nature of the materials, preservation of a final product was a conceit. As such, 'Movements of Natural Wonders' (2021) documents the process of the materials interacting with each other, immortalising it via photography. By photographing the water’s movement, I am elongating the captured moment, creating a space for pause and reflection. By creating scenes where the imagination runs wild, I hope to re-engage the viewer with the ocean and hopefully establish some care as to how we treat it.
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Daisy Chadwick
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
I create abstract paintings that focus on texture and colour. At its core, my practice explores nature and geological forms – more specifically, the areas of botany and geology in the landscape, and I consider these to be the fundamental aspects of nature. I create pieces that transcend the more traditional representations of nature through both abstraction and the use of relatively unconventional materials and methods. When I think of nature, I immediately think of the plethora of colours and textures that inhabit the landscape, and this is what I wanted to capitalise on in my work. Many people will only briefly admire the colour or form of a flower, overlooking the breath-taking intricacies of the folds of a petal or the deeply coloured veins running through them, but I base my pieces around those details that I feel best encapsulate the wonders of nature. ‘Flores Aestate’ is a depiction of this; the painting exudes liveliness and exuberance: bright colours streak and bleed across the surface, encompassing the floral textures that were previously bereft of colour, depicting the full bloom of the flowers.
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Joseph Clilverd
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
intrinsictide.wixsite.com/intrinsictide / @boston_stump
Having studied media and music prior to this course, my practice uses various recording techniques to explore concepts surrounding our relationships with spaces. Although my concepts stem from an interest in reflections between environments and people, my work has become more concerned with the temporality of fleeting atmospheres, and using them to communicate philosophical and spiritual allegories for the developments of the inner self.
While searching landscapes for characteristics to frame I treat physical subjects as a foundation for which unplanned subtleties can reveal themselves around. This is often in the forms of changing light, background noises, wildlife and candid actions of passers by, although this has also involved performances and interviews. The process of journeying through temporal space in search of these elements is to be considered in terms of a reflection of the self, especially when in natural environments where characteristics of the moment can be read as symbols for the subconscious. At the heart of my work is an intention to bring meaning to the mundane, allowing a contemplative or cathartic experience. By use of visual framing and composition of events I hope to transform the material world into an internal exploration and bring the viewer closer to their own understandings.
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Cian Coleman
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
I have been experimenting with different means of conveying the psyche, broken down to its most universal constituents. I want my work to effectively allow people to place their psyches into perspective as a result of physically beholding a painted analogy representing thus, therefore bringing a higher degree of control and understanding as a result of something which could be described as attempting to become a mirror which corresponds to the integral nature of the whole, displayed before our primary sense organ. This allows not only for a small gain of possible control in integrating the vague structure but also acts as a starting point for a long process of self contemplation
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Rosie Collins
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Male Fantasies'
In my practice I tend to explore the relationship between women and gig culture, focusing on the exclusion and harassment experienced in venue spaces, but due to Covid-19, these spaces ceased to exist. I decided to create a performative video piece addressing the current state of the music scene - virtual gigs taking place in bedrooms around the world, informed by concepts such as 'Bedroom Culture' and 'Sad Girl Theory'.
While creating the video, I intended to "let go" and experience complete safety and joy at a faux-gig as an audience member in my own room. I soon realised I had become the performer. I was obsessed with how I was presenting myself. This completely changed the intention and result of the work, and led me to focus more closely on the idea of false empowerment - the confusion caused by feeling sexy and confident but only under the confines of the male gaze. My final outcome was heavily informed by the famous 'Male Fantasies' quote penned by Margaret Atwood, and attempts to address this paradox head-on.
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Elizabeth Cowen
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
Elizabeth’s most recent work is an exploration of her experience with avolition as a result of mental illness. Using yarn structures reminiscent of spider’s webs, her installations are intended to be representative of the way in which depression engulfs and traps the sufferer. Soft sculpture in her work is suggestive of the artist’s body and mind which is trapped within these webs, thus unable to escape or move whilst also inaccessible to the viewer. These confines placed upon the sculpture affect it as depression does the brain, wherein it prevents the normal function of the individual experiencing it.
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Izzy Currie
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'The Abject Comedy'
theabjectcomedy.com / @fatyarnart / @theabjectcomedy / @gspot_art
'The Abject Comedy' is a long term collaborative project between artists Izzy Currie and Georgia Taylor. Their work emanates strands of dark surrealist satire and traditional Greek theatre genres whilst also reflecting the socio-political time and space in which we inhabit, through the medium of experimental films. 'The Bar', is a short film depicting the continuing story of Jo, a demon that resides in Inferno, who sets out on a journey to bring better living conditions to her world. 'The Abject Comedy' approaches in the form of dreamlike absurdity, abstracted portrayals of the banal everyday whilst also touching on the psychological experience of the 'uncanny'.
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Joe Currie
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
Arranged in formal grids, my painting collections portray the dynamic change in the rural setting of the Lake District. Utilising colour and pattern exaggerated from the landscape, each porcelain tile is unique in capturing moments in time, from an amble along the shore of Derwent Water. As a collective, the subtle lines and shapes create the typical forms of a natural panorama through trees, mountains, and bodies of water. The flow of water present in the lakes can be seen in the glossy sheen of the acrylic varnish coating each tile – the light from the sun reflecting and bending when in contact with both surfaces. With the work in situ, the viewer is encouraged to physically move along with their eyes, to experience each painting. This mirrors our fascination with flowing water that has an organic viscosity that is constantly flowing away from our view. My work became an isolated craft in a world where hands on connections were discouraged. Sat in front of the television crafting stamp size tiles from porcelain became a repetitive comfort in the chaos we were living through. -
Jodie Cutting
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
Jodie Cutting’s practice is an adaptation to the current circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic and social isolation. The photographs are primarily a documentation of life within the boundary of domestic space, the camera being a lens through which the relationship between the artist and their household is explored. The camera acts as an extension of the artist; it is a means to document the world through their eyes as they adopt the position of the photographer behind it. The camera also acts as a third presence, capturing personal moments between the artist and their subjects as they live through this unprecedented time and the household love and support shown towards one another in order to survive through it. Cutting’s documentation of these moments is an exploration of the restriction and isolation felt at this time, resulting in feelings of irritability, depression, and claustrophobia, and the extraordinary ways in which we live and cope through them.
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Teddy de Souza
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
sd286043.wixsite.com/teddydesouza / @teddys_art
At first glance, Teddy de Souza’s paintings appear to be aesthetically pleasing, opposing the dark actualities that they are concerned with, a contemporary climate devastated by human greed and carelessness. Her work represents the toxins present in the modern aerosphere that are both visible and invisible to the naked eye, showing the atmosphere as it truly is - a threatened sky.
Teddy’s paintings are informed by landscape motifs that progressively become more ambiguous. Through the use of Abstractionism, she was able to properly communicate her emotions onto the canvas. Along with this, colour has been used to bring out an emotional response from the spectator. Her palette is based off of the colour- coded Air Quality Index (AQI) that indicates the highest level of toxicity in the air. Her primary goal is to encourage a conversation around the capitalist society that has led to the destruction of our natural world.
Although her paintings are based off of her emotions, these feelings are governed by the knowledge of the capitalist industry that is leading to the destruction of our contemporary climate. Her paintings present the notion that, through capitalism, our vision of the world is polluted.
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Celeste Drouin-Davis
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Thoughts on Being Inside'
celestedrouindavis.wixsite.com/portfolio / @celesteeni
Celeste’s practice has an autobiographical nature, drawing upon her spiritual experience as well as her relationship with her mental health to create poetry videos. She is largely inspired by John Cage’s ideas on space and diegetic sound and fine art film theory. Celeste enjoys using the notions of immateriality to emphasise the emotions within her work, using the disconnect, silence and visible space to create a feeling of melancholy. Inspired by the works of Walter Benjamin around the theory of ‘the aura’, Celeste uses digital media to increase the divide between the viewer and the piece, the method of creating surrounding the process of turning writing, image, and audio into binary code before being presented to the viewer, becoming only a trace of humanity. Thoughts on Being Inside (2021) is a collection of nine poems written from 4 Jan - 4 May 2021, documenting the changes in the artist’s mental health and spiritual health during the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic. The videos used in each poem were filmed as they were written, using only footage I had captured within the two weeks, reflecting my relationship with the domestic as the videos change from being inside to outside.
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Tommy Egan
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
My paintings are evidence to a series of processes that I have developed over the last two years and which find themselves bridging the gap between the action and field paintings of abstract expressionism through a contemporary and European sensibility. Working both as a rejection of - and having been influenced by - the seemingly ever-growing digital world, my works are not a step back into but rather a continuation of the history of paint. This history is one that I find to be more and more valuable as tactility, smell, touch, and true colour are slowly erased from everyday life. It is through this rejection of the digital that I see my practice as one of experimentation within the materiality of paint, with a focus on painting as being a sensory experience for both the creator and the perceiver.
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Zoe Elliot
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Woman as Monster'
I have evolved in my practice by exploring a range of domestic materials and the properties they possess. I categorise domestic materials as things found and used in the home, with an emphasis on products marketed towards women. I then deconstruct and repurpose these materials using them to form my (sometimes) unsettling but humours creatures. I consider the demonisation of women, the laborious nature of domestic work and motherhood and how undervalued this labour is, along with numerous other tasks assigned to women within our western society.
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Abby Frances
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
My pieces are informed by different interpretations of public information released by Boris Johnson and his aides surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. My artwork features bold but vague statements from Government campaigns to make ambiguous monoliths that invite viewers to form their own opinions of what the statement might represent. The focus on different interpretations of a message is influenced by public confusion during the initial weeks and months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when people sought to comply with new laws whilst not fully understanding the guidelines. The shadow plays an integral part in the artwork and exists to be the sinister and manipulative side of each message distributed, the opaque hidden within the supposedly transparent.
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Frankie Fraser*
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Found and Lost' (age-restricted video)
@frankie_fraser_art / @frankiefraserart
Frankie Fraser explores personal aspects of her life and presents them to the viewer with the hope of igniting discussion within the individual and wider society. Through the use of varying representations she aims to aid viewers to gain insight into, and a recognition of, mental health issues by using certain aspects of her life as a beacon of learning.
'Found and Lost' 2021, explores the childhood traumas originating from her experience associated with her adoption; to connect the viewer with the lasting impact of the traumas through an immersive installation. Sensory representation of dual perspectives of the trauma of abandonment for the child and the loss and seeking for parents. Use of historic film and objects which are linked with memories of the era and events that caused the trauma to evoke the “real time” experience for the viewer.
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Emma Garner
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
My practice is based upon the layering of imagery, through different mediums. My fascination in the unpredictability and exploration of woodland landscapes and animals is captured in my natural scenes.
I explore multiple techniques; in my series ‘Raven’ I physically cut out my drawings and get to play with compositions, before I place them over one another. Whereas in my series ‘Going on a walk’ I use experimental expressive brush strokes to represent how plants would outgrow each other in their natural habitats.
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Nicola Garvey
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Durational Madness'
ng259551.wixsite.com/garvey / @garvey_66
My final piece 'Durational Madness' is a 11.31-minute film, shot using my mobile phone. It is based on my "everyday" environment from January 2021-April 2021, another lockdown living alone. I was aware of the oppression that protracted time and duration were having on my state of mind, and how little differentiation between the days had blended and morphed my reality into a depersonalised existence. Incongruity and madness are amplified within the film by a combination of beauty and exhilaration sought from the confines of my lockdown habitat, layers and reverberations from the radio; bird song; and scenes of domesticity, stretched and made strange, emphasising that "all is not quite as it should be."
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Rebecca Gilbert
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
Rebecca Gilbert is a northern based artist, exploring and responding to her environment. Taking the mundane scenes of everyday and putting them to the forefront. Making an impact with colour and mark making is an integral part of her practice, to create a reworked viewing experience of the background that hides in plain sight.
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Talia Gordon
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
My practice chronicles the minutiae of the current circumstances, in which I have created two series; 'The Vaccination' and 'Life Changing Events During Covid-19; Pregnancy In A Pandemic'. Although they are two separate series, they have one main factor in common - Covid-19. Personal stories feed into my body of work and include a level of authenticity and diagnostic insight. With the subject from 'The Vaccination' being me, I ensured an immediate direct response. In contrast to ‘Pregnancy In A Pandemic’ which shows the knock-on effects of Covid-19 and how it has affected normal life-changing events that happen when there isn’t a pandemic, like childbirth and pregnancy. My current practice goes against the conventional norms of resolved works being "complete", as parts of my pieces take on linear outlines that lack detail. I undertake an editing process in which I have had to be very decisive for each individual image. My careful decision-making emphasises specific areas of my drawings which gives considered and more resolved attention.
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Amy Hanks
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Wiping Away the Illusion' and 'Pose'
Oil on canvas
25"x25" and 23.8"x17.9"'Wiping Away the Illusion' and 'Pose' are extracted from a four-part series of paintings surrounding my views around gender stereotyping. As a young activist my work aims to educate my audience on gender through the performance of drag. I converse this through the formation of my paintings in the hope of defeating the ignored negative connotations which are written into our society affecting the way people are still being treated.
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Beatrix Haxby
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
beatrixhaxby.com / @beatrixhaxbyartist_official
The dark elusive shadow
Hangs on your heel,
Festers in the gloom.
You try to hide your shadow
But see it not,
Obscured by the light.
Others see a
shadow theatre,
The inner life laid bare.
Its meaning changes
With different perspectives.
When do fiery Phoenix' wings
Turn to the ashen feathers of vain Icarus?
Toiling Psyche’s push and pull,
She repels resistance,
Yields to desire
Making calloused hands,
While death-driven callous mind
Thanks Thanatos
Now with your purple-prose
tinted spectacles securely on,
observe… -
Holly Herbert
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
If I were to think of life and experience in the form of a painting, it would be a painting with contrasting marks and rhythm, with explosions of large strokes and implosions of small blots, cut through by harsh lines, some of which become blended and scuffed. It would start off as a plain canvas and, as you lived your life, it would fill up with splats, washes, strokes, scumbles, sprays and lines. Each thing that happened to you would influence the canvas, be it large or small, seemingly important or unimportant. This would result in a painting with many twists and turns and pulses of activity/inactivity. I want my memories to be realised in the form of strokes and contours and come together on a canvas to create a visual expression of experience. I want to make a tangible collection of emotions on a surface that exhibits loneliness, excitement, calmness, chaos, and all the other things that stem from human experience, hopefully achieving a connection with others too.
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Katy Hinkley
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
I have taken photos of buildings around Preston and am creating my drawings from these. I have been making digital drawings of buildings and landscapes using Adobe Illustrator, using layers and blocks of shapes to construct the image, and a drawing tablet for the more intricate parts such as shop logos and detailed architecture.
Most of my work to date has been based on building exteriors but I have started creating interior based pieces including large buildings such as shopping malls and train stations.
My work has been affected by the current lockdown world, as many of the buildings in them have shutters closed or are dark inside, and places such as shopping malls are completely empty when usually they would be bustling.
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Sung Lin Hon
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
theresashon.wixsite.com/profile / @_theresahon_
Sung Lin Hon (Theresa) is an artist whose central concerns are light, shades, surface, solitude and ambiguity. Her practice explores silence in a painterly way.
Theresa’s work shows her vision of light and darkness. With a minimal palette, her work pictures and articulates the simultaneous presence and absence that objects suggest. Her artwork tends to reflect her concerns and shows the transformation of emotion within production.
Her art practice showcases introverted interpretation of shadows and aims to engage viewers to interpret the reading of the painting with their backgrounds. Her paintings reflect her concern in illustrating light and shows the transformation of the emotion within production. Her work remains silently humble and aims to be interpreted differently according to the viewer's aesthetic and personal interpretation.
Her practice explores a wide range of subjects surrounding her theme, for instance, nature, interior objects and abstract shadows formed.
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Maya Hood
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'No Room to Feel'
Digital paintings, displayed in a virtual space on virtual screens
In a time where the world outside remains inaccessible, the spaces inside of our own heads are more significant than ever. My paintings are informed by the chaos and irrationality of the anxious mind within a generation cursed with the world at their fingertips, amplified by the worldwide drastic change in our way of life. The paintings are created as a reflection of my own thoughts, using abstraction and colour in a way that produces almost a surreal environment as a personification of the mind. My use of digital media in the style of physical painting is in response to the impact of the digital world in today’s society, and the increase in the virtualisation of everyday things due to the pandemic, also leading me to create a virtual space to exhibit the works. My full exhibition is available to view on my website.
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Phee Jefferies
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Skin'
pheemakesthings.wixsite.com/mysite / @pheemakesthings
My main interests are with the abject and the absurd, mostly situated around the human body and the human condition. In philosophy the absurd refers to the conflict between humanity's tendency to seek meaning in life or to find a reason for our existence, being met with the silent answer of a meaningless and non-rational universe. What fascinates me about this idea is that humans create this contradiction, therefore causing our own existence to be absurd. These works are an exploration of this absurdity and an attempt to reflect this inner human conflict outward onto the skin.
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Jeynikkita Jeyananth
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
With my body of work, I am exploring the concept of identity as a performance. Human beings are a complex string of ideas - constantly changing, learning, identifying and re-identifying ourselves. However, we find the need to portray ourselves as readable characters, a defined set of traits. We choose from pre-existing roles and fit ourselves into it. We then make constant efforts to perform the role of this character, consequently hiding our authentic self. With painting, I am portraying characters who have found comfort in their imagined identities.
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Rachel Johnson*
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Muted Battle'
My work adopts a performative aspect. I translate scenarios encountered by one another and place them on a pedestal, this creates an observational technique by playing with the relationship of spectator and reenactor. Blurring these boundaries between the art and audience distorts the reality in which the conversations exist, I am interested in the honesty of expression and interaction. This video piece, muted battle 1 minute 49 seconds, translates through body language battles amongst the sexes. An ageless conflict embedded in gender identity. An escalation of movement transpires, eventually breaking to a fight. Through visual medium, I am intending to physically describe the emotional battle sex divides us into. Recently, the world is becoming more informed of the conflict individuality induces. Keeping the conversation alive through artwork suffices as a free-thinking space for the reality to be commented on, in hope we can see the harm caused and in turn make it a safer place for acceptance to live.
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Harry Jones
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
Fig. 1 the bushes. No 24, watercolour on cotton hot press paper
Fig. 2 the bushes No.31, oil on canvas, 60cmx56cmMy work presents itself as a metaphor that highlights humanity’s relationship with nature and the social desire to reject the natural world as part of our being and, instead, attempting to distance ourselves from it. The work reflects the beauty in growth and freedom whilst also showing humanity’s desire to create rigid and synthetic forms creating a more balanced composition attempting to reinstate the value in connecting with the freedom that nature brings.
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Rebecca Jones
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
My practise is routed in queer culture, I aim for my art to always have a cause and a comment on society and queer life. This series of work was influenced by the domestic quilt and floor covering making culture mainly in America. The rugs created are made by ‘rug hooking’ or as it is known now, punch needling rather than with machines. The images present in the rugs are inspired by digital drawings of queer spaces and the items that are most prevalent in these spaces. The final work displayed here is a hybrid of craft and fine art, demonstrating fine art images through craft design. The other work in this series remains in the realm of queer spaces, an exploration into what makes queer spaces queer and about those who inhabit them.
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Sophia Kaikitis
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Izolasyon'
The fight for Turkish women to have their own freedom has been a fight ongoing from the Ottoman Empire, to the present day. Through my own personal exploration growing up as a Turkish woman, I have come to understand that tradition and religion has become an excuse for the male population to oppress and abuse females in the culture.
My series 'Annemin hikayesi' presents the oppressive cycle that Turkish women go through due to traditions and culture. I wanted to show the “stages” of a Turkish woman’s life. The birth of the female, to "Görücülük" (courtship), to marriage, to then the same female giving birth to another baby to carry on the cycle. This is their fate. My film 'İzolasyon' is a piece that presents the experience of isolating in Cyprus due to Covid-19, and how the experience was so similar to my mother’s childhood for her. In the same room everyday, with the same view of the window to only look at. 'İzolasyon' helps capture the effects and feelings of an oppressive childhood, the neglect and frustration of the mistreatment she experienced due to being a female.
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Joanne Kelly
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
joannekelly360.wixsite.com/artist / @jokellyart
As my interest and confidence to address politics has grown, I have used my art practice to investigate symbols associated with revolution, resistance and power. Through casting I have rendered objects purposeless; being completely non-functional, they are merely representations that evoke cultural associations. A shoe but not fit for a foot, a gun but with no use of bullets. As well as their ‘otherness’ or materiality, their differences of form are important to acknowledge; the women’s shoe being softly curved can be regarded as feminine which contrasts the angularity and straight, sharp lines of the gun.
Objects have been interesting to relate to feminism as the objectification of women is a major issue in a patriarchal society. The image I have chosen to exhibit depicts two subjects that I have chosen to slip-cast using ceramics. I enjoy the way that the gun is resting on the heel of the shoe, almost propping it up; this leverage helps represent the inequality of genders. It is interesting seeing an accessory of war and a women’s fashion accessory positioned together but I believe this oddness incites political significance.
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Jonathan Kelly
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
My work is the product of process driven activity. It is predominately based around abstracted forms and pattern making in a variety of mediums. I have recently developed my own studio space, to facilitate bronze casting and steel fabrication.
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Daisy Lawler
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'China’s One-Child Policy (1979-2016)'
These hand-sized silhouettes are a visualisation of a Chinese birth mother, in the moment of departure from her daughter’s life, walking away into mystery. She is void of any distinguishing features, her body is composed of demolished Shanghai ‘Nail Houses’ and looming high-speed urbanisation, her identity and environment are irreversibly erased.
Handling these delicate papercuts is not nearly so fragile and fraught as examining the subject of child abandonment in China in the 90s. The chrysanthemum, with its incongruous associations of beauty and prosperity, rests over her head, just as the daughter she gives up may remain in her memory, and her hopes that she may grow and thrive as part of another family, in America perhaps, or the UK?
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Stephanie McWilliams
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
sm283705.wixsite.com/smcfineart / @smcfineart
My current body of work began as an exploration of how image sharing culture in the 21st century has interrupted the way art is consumed. Envisioning how my pieces could interact with an audience led to my investigation of how image sharing platforms and the ‘poor image’ can affect the interpretation of my work. I use the female form as the subject of my work, creating photo composites that include elements of my own body along with appropriated imagery of the female form throughout art history. Reducing these forms into their most basic state through image transferring enabled me to create a more ‘human’ essence in my final imagery. This comments on the nature of digital influence when looking at both the representation of the female body and art consumption in the 21st century.
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Isabelle Mercer
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
As I’ve been studying and photographing my surrounding environment I began to think of more personal spaces that exist within my day to day dwelling, looking more closely on my dwelling space by using a narrative from my everyday life to create a more autobiographical image.
This digital painting is representative of my shower being too hot, leaving me feeling like a lobster boiling in my own juices. Combining this feeling of discomfort and turning it into something absurd allows a bizarre questions to arise... is the lobster huge or the bathroom scaled down? How did the lobster turn on the shower with no hands?
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Jade Miller
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Why Me?'
@j.l.m_artMy 'Dear You,' (2021) series is a sculptural collection of small glazed ceramic figures that I have made during my journey of realisation of the drastic change in mine and other’s mental health over the past year. I had decided that the impact of my mental health had had on me had become too big of an issue to ignore and was something I felt I had to include in my work. The poses of each piece are ones that I believe almost everyone will have experienced at some point in their lives. I would like people to find a sense of comfort and understanding or even learn something new with this series of work as never before has mental health been so important to understand and needed to be brought into the limelight.
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Megan Milner
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Boiling Milk And The Ukraine Fixed Scar Of The Grandfather'
megan-milner.com / @megansofiamilner
Megan Milner’s unflinching oil paintings are primarily concerned with embellishing and fictionalising the little-known information about her Great-Grandad’s Ukrainian upbringing. Harnessing the chaos of the past into a narrative of imagined ‘history’, she constructs scenes through use of family told story, folklore, historical photojournalism, archive photography, Ukrainian folk art, and iconography: working within the landscape of an “older” Ukraine.
Layered painterly techniques and strangely jarring compositional devices expose the way the paintings are that of fantasy; dripping and thinned oil paint keeps the viewer focused on flatness of canvas, reminding of the ways these individual elements have been combined in order to create illusions of real life. The fractured narrative incidents are held together by a unity of painted mark and bright use of unnatural colour, creating place that appears dreamt or remembered, rather than observed or actual. The paintings have been heavily influenced by Fauvism, Post Modernism, and the Byzantine. The compression of histories within her practice, both contextually and visually, have wider sociological value from a contemporary standpoint when considering them against the technological advances of the internet, where everything can exist simultaneously on one screen.
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Rachel Monaghan
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
The work that Rachel creates is intentionally absurd and macabre; seeking to maintain a level of ambiguity and openness. Conflicted by the corporeal fleshy physicality of our bodies, forces of nature and the neatly organised, constructed world in which we try to fit ourselves and its impact on the world around us, her work seeks to blur the borders between earth, body and technology; their relationships to one another and deals with themes of post-humanism and the Anthropocene.
She combines the use of a range of surplus commodity building materials, found and domestic objects and her own body to evoke speculative fiction and create new mythologies. She creates a fictional narrative centred on humankind's relationship to water, blurring the boundaries between time, space, the body, nature and technology. Designed as a conveyor of warning or foreboding, it transports a dream-like state of fusion between the organic and non-organic into our current reality. Anthropomorphised aqueducts sleep; frozen in time, circuited shells of bodies sway; washed ashore, fleshly debris litters the environment; wistfully reminiscing, metamorphose organisms mingle with synthetic members; seemingly symbiotic, each holding the other close into the longest of sleeps.
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Sara Mullender
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Gender Roles and Expectations'
saramullender.wixsite.com/home / @sara.mullender.art / @sara.mullender.art
Within my work, I predominantly deal with political / social issues and constructs through a feminist lense. As an artist, I feel it’s important to highlight issues within society with work that evokes a strong reaction and leaves an impact on the viewer.
My past works have dealt with topics such as female empowerment, body positivity and period poverty. This series of works focuses on investigating the idea of gender roles within the home and family, developing my opinion of whether they are learned or biological.
I find that the use of my digital art and film skills are best suited to accurately express my thoughts and ideas surrounding the subject. My current work relies heavily on a comedic, sarcastic quality in order to highlight how ludicrous and laughable some of the outdated ideals stated in my skits actually are.
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Grace Murphy
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Suture and Stitch'
gm283381.wixsite.com/grace-murphy-art / @gracemurphyartist
Combining sculpture, video and craft, my practice embarks upon a material exploration of the abject and aims to challenge traditional perceptions of craft. Textile art and craft have been historically overlooked and under-appreciated in comparison to painting or traditional sculpture within the history of art, due to their connections with women and the domestic sphere. To challenge this negative perception, I combined traditional quilting techniques with medical textile techniques and created a series of abject 'quilts' that reference the body, using materials such as latex and domestic objects. 'Suture and Stitch' captures the process of me suturing my ‘Sandwich Bag Quilt’ together. Through this documentation of sewing, I aim to bring attention to the often invisible 'labour of love' involved in the craft process. This work explores the contradiction of craft as something that is ‘acceptable’ when used in a medical context and is being performed in hospitals and compares it to the 'out of date' craft, often performed by women in the home. I focus on quilts and blankets as they hold many meanings. They give us warmth and comfort, but can also hide and conceal things, giving them the potential to explore something dark and uncanny.
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Elizabeth Nicholls
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
My work looks at the meaning of flowers, historically and in today’s terms - we don’t send the same intricate messages in the form of bouquets anymore, but the sentiment is still the same. All of my work is photographed and drawn directly from bouquets my family received during lockdown as bereavement/“thinking of you” gifts.
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Madeline Noble
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
madelinenoble.myportfolio.com / @madelinenoble.fineart
My practice is oriented around childhood memory and producing ambiguous paintings that express my own experiences. I isolate family photographs that I find nostalgic and use digital software to reimagine these moments in time, creating shadows or ghosts of the past. I aim to make work that is initially intangible and unclear, but remains familiar enough to trigger feelings of recognition for the observer. Motivated by universal human experiences, I see my paintings as a way to form connections with people I have never met; as a shared experience between strangers over mutually familiar memories. It is this connection formed between strangers and my paintings that I find exciting. I obscure the figures in my pieces which leaves room for viewers to project themselves into my paintings, encouraging reflection of their own histories. Each painting is intended to capture the fleeting shadows cast by the flash of a camera, the residual traces of a memory isolated by the photograph and erased through my reinterpretation of it.
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Megan Oliver
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
Megan Oliver’s practice focuses on the current events taking place in the world, being notably an environment and population that has been plunged into a global pandemic, which without a doubt has had adverse effects across every nation as lives have changed, been put on hold. Control, restriction, imprisonment, lack of motivation and deep subconscious thinking to name a few are terms that have influenced her practice. She creates drawings intending to present the relationship concerns between oneself and her environment, depicting thoughts and feelings which arose during lockdown, whereas as a nation we have been restricted to only our domestic living Spaces. Megan’s practice and drawings are expressed through observational studying within her environment, as she has come to realise the impact and personal value of the major and minor parts to her day to day routine, which has become a more repetitive experience. She manages this through working in a specific allocated time block.
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Anna Maria Palt
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
aniamariart.tumblr.com / @aniamariart
"Memories are patterns inscribed in the connections between the millions of neurons in your brain."
The abstract Home vs Home series focused on building colour palettes from a variety of childhood photos. After extracting my palettes made up of four colours, they were combined and blended using acrylic paint. Each memory has its unique pattern, they may fade a little, blend or merge over time like my pieces, however, they are still there. Each colour in this blended piece represents a unique part of my life with either my first memories in the UK or my first memories in Poland. This series has become a huge aspect of my practice in exploring my own life, and experience as a third culture kid rather than looking at other individuals’ experiences.
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Alex Parmer
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
My practice relates to the subject matter of still life, informed by my identity within the eastern culture. My influences have ranged from autobiographical art to Orientalism as well as painting and drawing. This has enabled me to involve further hybridity within my work, from an introspective and sociological perspective, by thinking of my own Indian heritage and place in society.
I initially explored spiritual objects inspired by Hinduism, festivals and personal life. I aimed to recreate my observations with emphasis on colour harmony, through working in mixed media with acrylic paint and mehndi. I searched in my own household to find artefacts which relate to my childhood and eastern culture. Then I took photos of plates, vessels, candle holders used in Diwali as well as traditional statues of religious deities. I also chose to document fruits and flowers which naturally grow in warmer climates and this has expanded my interest in food and spices.
Still life continues to be an integral part of my art practice; it is a way for me to display conceptual ideas and I want the viewer to experience my work as a contemplative, ceremonial image.
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Hannah Philpott
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
My practice focuses mainly on the expressive potential colour palette and viewpoint can have on achieving certain emotions within a painting, as well as portraying an uncanny familiarity to modern day life. Borrowing images found online depicting mundane, passing moments in life, alongside self portraits I have composed, I depict the notion of feeling physically and mentally trapped within a repetitive routine. Taking advantage of my own experiences of how the current pandemic has affected my everyday life, I am able to create and give a personal and true to life point of view, accurately representing real events.
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Samuel Price
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Hello/Goodbye'
Acrylic on plywood
@samuelreespriceSamuel Price’s practice explores themes of power, unity and individuality within a digital generation. He draws from the history of European portraiture, placing his subjects within empowering frameworks. While his portraits reference the past, they are grounded in the present; they are a response to the feeling of powerlessness that is prevalent during the current pandemic. He aims to make uplifting work, focusing on the positive ways contemporary people are able to stay connected, and celebrating progressive notions of identity.
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Callum Ramsay
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'The Layers Of The Personality Ramsay Callum'
callumramsay.com / @callumramsayartist
I am predominantly a sculptural artist who looks at the notion of feeling within my practice. My work explores the personality as a whole, and how we can objectify each of our eight core emotions through colour, texture and scale of materials. Exploring how materials themselves act as emotions is the main element of my practice; qualities within the materials reflect on the qualities of ourselves within our own personalities. By being critical of the aspects of the materials I was using to portray different emotions within my work, I created characters (masks) out of materials which people would associate to a memory. Our skin does NOT always communicate accurately how we feel, we have to dive within the materiality of someone to know what they are feeling.
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Amelia Recci
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Constellation of Narcissism, Insecurity and Pathos'
Through contemplating the confusion running through my veins, my practice aims to explore, then visualise, influencing factors. Highlighting contrasts in the embedded in society that contribute to an overwhelmed state of being. This installation, ‘Constellation of Narcissism, Insecurity and Pathos’, involves three 2m tall canvas’, hinged together, wearing a transferred digital collage of cultural influences taken from my own memory; ranging from the tragedy of Grenfell to the iconic Mr Blobby - depicting the information overload we are currently immersed within. Projected onto this is a representation of a discomfort in my body, stemming from identity issues birthed by cultural confusion. Includes ceramic work from a previous work, ‘brOKen dialogues’.
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Jesse Rendles
jesserendles.wixsite.com/website / @jesserendlesart
My practice focuses on the ideas and notions around the human relationship with objects; the different ways we can engage with them and the unique ways they can stimulate our senses to create a positive impact on our lives. Using soft sculpture, primarily, my aim is to create a comforting and calming experience, taking inspiration from aspects of sensory play therapy. Physical interaction is the main concern of my practice, and I believe the role of the viewer is just as important as the work itself. I want my work to be felt, touched, and experienced. It is not there to just be looked at; I also want it to fill the purpose of Interactivity. The materiality of my work ranges from sculpture to sculpture. I enjoy finding new materials as the possibilities excite me, and keeps my work engaging. Although I do not have a set materiality, all my works share a common ground and that is soft sculpture. I focus on different forms of texture and how particular materials can help us engage our tactile (touch) sense. Some materials I have used in my sculptures are synthetic stuffing, cotton fabric, plush velvet fabric and yarn. All personally to me, soft and comforting materials to touch and engage with.
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Safia Rezai
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Little Paul'
Li li li li little pool The chicken came to drink water But fell into the little pool! This one saved him. (1)
This one covered him (2)
Someone gave him bread (3)
The same one gave him water to drink (3)
And someone said. "Who threw the chicken into the little pool?" (4)
This one said, "Me! Me: The big-headed one!" (5)Lili Lili Hosak is an Iranian nursery rhyme told to me as a child. My artistic practice is concerned with personal cultural identity, storytelling, and language, culminating in a sculptural adaptation of the Lili Lili Hosak tale. I intend to draw together a fusion of binaries into this fantasy narrative – my work is informed by themes within a binary belief system of which the world is often limitingly framed: The East Vs The West, Modern Vs Tradition, Forbidden Vs Temptation, Religion Vs Secularism, Good Vs Evil. These social constructs also reflect how I see my own identity as consisting of many dualities.
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Annabelle Richmond-Wright
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
annabellerichmondwright.com/work/2021 / @arw.art
Annabelle Richmond-Wright’s multidisciplinary practice revolves around the phenomena of the human condition. Often Annabelle will begin with an idea inspired by the observations and encounters of life and utilises materials or found objects based on its materiality and contextual language it speaks. Her latest work, in 'Harder Faster More More More, 2021' utilises a kinetic snakeskin conveyor belt within a charred wood cubic frame in an installation of a moving image film and various fragmented human forms which articulate the disharmony between human consciousness and the sociopolitical concerns of capitalism, coronavirus, and digital technologies.
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Mo Robertson
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'I MISS YOU/ The serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown'
Although my practise is not secular, the chiaroscuro of 'The serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown' and the projection of 'I MISS YOU' introjects the iconographic religious connotations of a stained glass window in a church or cathedral. I encourage a visceral response with an impactful sense of mourning for my body of work reflects a personal loss.
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Jen Roper
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
Exploring social awkwardness, I work from memory to depict past awkward social encounters. Painting diaristic documentations of being an awkward person; capturing uncomfortable situations that replay over in my mind. My ideas draw from awkward feelings surrounding the uncomfortable social environments of everyday life; expressing the pain you can feel when you are at the centre of an uncomfortable situations. I work to portraying a lack of knowing how to behave or react when witnessing pratfalls and also not knowing how to ignore the event. It’s all these internal battles that allow these memories to live on. Unconcerned with beauty or aesthetics, I paint to capture a likeness and embrace how the memory is not accurately depicted on the canvas.
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Michael Sangster
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
soundcloud.com/michaelsangstersoundart / combatprosthetics@gmail.com
Michael Sangster is an artist and composer from the North East of Scotland who currently resides in Leeds. Beginning as a photographer, Sangster’s work has consistently attempted to capture the dissociated nature of growth and relationships through photographing the incidental. With its genesis in documentation, the work moved towards an abstract collection of images relating to the dysphoric nature of contemporary existence, depicting growth through a personal aesthetic anthropology. His work is currently centred around sound collage, which naturally evolved from a spiralling photographic practice and maintains the lo-fi aesthetic of the early visual work. High fidelity audio is foregone in favour of portability, with an emphasis given on the ability to collect and repurpose audio. The content of the work speaks to the notion of a life made up of minute experiences, viewed from far enough away so as to almost go unnoticed. The work itself is the infinite expansion of those experiences. Though highly personal and drawing influence from literary themes of the existential, Sangster’s work seeks to communicate. Its primary function is an attempt to bridge a gap between the artist and the audience which perhaps words cannot.
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Anna Skinner
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'The Exhibition 'Wash Room''
My practice has grown from my affinity to appreciate the beauty of water. The initial inspiration was the action of swimming with my mum and the immersive feeling a body of water can bring. Our shared experience of swimming brought us both joy and escape from the stresses of everyday life, bringing us closer together and providing catharsis.
In my most recent work water is still prevalent, however now taking a back foot. The installations I create use water in a poetic, symbolic manner. The association between water, the feeling of relaxation, escape and re-gaining control is still prevalent. It has manifested its way into the everyday spaces of the home. Simplified, my medium is light, objects and shadow, and by experimenting with the relationship between the three it has brought about interesting conclusions that create a mood that is thought provoking.
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Dan Smith
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Gender (In A New World)'
danlsmith.myportfolio.com / @danlsmith_photography
'Gender (In A New World)', is a photographic series which expresses ideas of gender performance and coding. Focusing on theories of ambiguity and absurdism, balancing the intriguing and attractive aesthetic my photography holds with more surrealist imagery. Creating recognisable images, that are removed from their original context and resembled in a more ambiguous manner; they are simultaneously familiar yet alien. The series distorts and reflects the reality of societal issues on gender performance, with the images centring around the creation of insular, exaggerated spaces. Through these, I create my own perception of a perfect ‘new world’ in which the performance of gender is ridiculed by reflecting expectations in a hyperbolic manner.
Depicted above is a sole image from each gendered space, with the respective model being carefully crafted to illustrate either a hyper feminised, hyper masculinised or androgynous representation of the human experience. My intention was to create images that spark conversations about gender and, eventually, result in a place where gender is not restricted to a binary; ‘a new world’.
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Olivia Smith
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
My practice focuses on the art of the sublime, to create an experience that engages the viewer's sense of what is beyond the landscape. I have captured the essence of a scene without fixating on too much detail, using simple colour and shape to express the energy of life and nature. This finds the everyday beauty in the landscape of my home, through a lack of human presence providing a moment of peace in aspects of suburban areas. I used a combination of brushwork and palette knives, painting on recyclable found objects. The objects used, raise awareness for ecological issues and material consumption. My paintings show my perspective and experience of the suburban and forested area I walk daily in my village. With the peaceful emptiness I try to replicate into my paintings, my intent is to enable the viewers to imagine the quiet scene created, captured by familiarity from a recognisable relationship to the paintings without ever being present. -
Erin Smyth
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
This image is part of a series entitled 'The Pursuit of the Perfect Breath.'
It consolidates and further explores my avid interest of ‘where’ we as humans breathe in our bodies and more poignantly my concept of visually interpreting and realising the essence of the perfect breath.
I coloured clay with pigment and then hand molded a series of clay sculptures.
Followed by a chase of photographing, videoing, projecting and looping images with use of moving light and a fog generator. A researched and universally intended breathing guide was also developed. To further envision my vision of a sensory immersed exhibition-
‘Try to focus all of your attention on your breath.
Your breath in and your breath out.
Try to do this in silence.
Become aware of where you can feel the breathing sensations within your body.
It will be normal for your mind to tend to wander, just try to come back to the awareness of your breathing.
Allow yourself to breathe in and out whilst gently absorbing this image.
Remember that your ability to be aware of your breathing is with you always.’ -
Sanna Soensteboe
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'And I'm Walking'
ss280124.wixsite.com/fineart / @sa.snart
By creating hyper-focused interpretations of everyday encounters and familiar objects, Soensteboe postulates wider questions about meaning as a concept, and idea as a producer of meaning. Drawing from the theories of Semiotics and Structuralism, the underbelly of the quotidian experience is taken apart and exposed through short, funny, repeated videos. She seeks to place the spectator in the middle of their own connections between things and the way they are understood, ultimately creating a retrospective encounter within the spectator. The film 'And I’m Walking' (2021) emphasises the tension between language and action. Placed inside of an urban landscape, that is further placed inside of a window (,that will be further placed inside of a screening device), the video becomes its own cage. It is a reflection of the third lock down, as the protagonist is forced to walk the same streets again and again. Conventions of the quotidian experience becomes a vehicle that communicates meaning through a familiar format. It is only recognised because it is constantly repeated. Everyday routine is needed, but the very act of something becoming routine makes it forgotten. Art transcends this experience, encouraging people to move through the world with new glasses; Magnifying glasses.
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Imogen Spencer
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
I am an artist, collector, walker, and archivist. My practice is the process of ‘collecting’ my daily walks. I collect textures by using charcoal rubbings or contact prints pressed into the ground. I collect the route I walk using a GPS tracked app on my phone and then hand drawing the journey. I collect imagery by taking photos on my phone. I collect my words by writing them down in a journal straight after the walk. I collect my thoughts by speaking aloud during the walk and recording them. Finally, I collect my personal experiences of the walk such as what I saw, heard, smelt, or touched which are often documented as drawings.
The experience of lockdown restrictions and exercise being limited to one hour a day has impacted my walking practice. I have placed restrictions on my practice to reflect the fact that my walks are being limited to one hour, such as controlling the size of the paper I work on (60x60mm) and limiting the tools that I work with.
My aim is to collect physical memories and translate them into an archive that I can share with others as an artwork.
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Sarah Storey
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
My practice depicts empty abandoned rooms through videos of miniature sculptures. The spaces appear lived-in from the worn furniture, discarded items on the floor and deteriorating walls and ceiling. However, there is no visible inhabitant, the spaces have been deserted, left to fall into disarray. The lived-in nature of the rooms and lack of inhabitant create an eerie feel, as there is an absence where there should be a presence, creating the idea of an invisible agent at work. This creates questions in the minds of the spectator. Who was there, why did they leave, are they still here? The eerie atmosphere cannot be resolved until the enigma of the spaces is understood. However, the spaces reject the viewer from entering, because of the miniature scale of the sculptures and the dislocation from the video, meaning the enigma is unsolvable. When the viewer attempts to enter the fictional spaces they disengage from reality, removed from their surroundings and those around them. Once rejected the spectator is left in a limbo between the fictional room and reality. This all creates the metaphorical concept of my work, which is the deeper theme of depression.
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Lily Susser
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
The focus of my work over the last two years of university has essentially been documenting my own personal journey of self discovery. At the start of these years I was unsure of what direction I wanted my drawing and art practise to take, I was unsure of what direction I wanted my future career path to take, and where I wanted my life to lead. Subsequently, of course, a global pandemic was thrust upon us. As was even more uncertainty, not only for myself but for almost everyone I know, and everyone they know. Like many others, I had no choice (and all the time) to look inside myself and discover what I was truly passionate about, which is when I came upon the (now obvious) fact that mine is tattoos and tattooing. I started getting tattooed at 15 and am now, although not as much as I would like, covered in them. As a young woman I have seen first hand the stigma held against women with tattoos compared to a man with tattoos, and the eradication of these stigmas has been a catalyst for my work over my second and third years of uni. This, along with the celebration of self expression and acceptance being the culminating themes of this project: Women In Tattoos. This explores the hardships that women have felt throughout this pandemic, using them as poignant examples to show how emotions and struggles can be documented on the body as a means of accepting the past and being able to move forwards, onwards and upwards.
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Jessica Swift
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
After being diagnosed with dyslexia, Swift struggled with the idea of possession when it came to writing about her work, and wanted to turn this into a positive, rather than a struggle. In her most recent sculpture series 'Possession', she made work that seemed pointless and radiated uselessness, as its only purpose was to be installed and seen by the public. The idea of making work that only she understood was incredibly appealing, and pairing this with her own opinions of uselessness and possession was the perfect match.
Wanting the audience to value her process, she left marks, dents and scratches so that the observer can ponder her process and understand the skill used in each piece. Texture has always been a very important factor for Swift, as she learns best from visuals and being hands on. Her contemporary pieces see a single large hole in each sculpture, allowing the audience to not only look at her work from the outside, but inside as well. Not hiding the supports used during the manufacturing enforces the value of process and how she wants to highlight this to the public, rather than hide it to allow for a ‘perfectly refined’ finished piece.
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Georgia Taylor
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'My Wife is Trying to Kill Me'
Through creating alternative characters, I use performance and video work in order to present circular narratives and humorous ideas in an absurdist and satirical way. Through short sketches my intention with my work is to not only be amusing and to bring laughter to an audience, but to subtly commentate on people and society in a broader sense whilst experimenting with people's expectations of video art. ‘My wife is trying to kill me’ is a short video I made in response to a poem I wrote about a man infatuated by his wife's passion and obsession in trying to murder him. Although a dark and essentially unappealing topic, I use the ideas and representations of the uncanny to play on whether a woman is even real by using a mannequin in the hope to then turn the storyline more absurdist and humorous. Through absurdity, I believe it enables people to make their own mind up on the work and the world around them though showing the ambiguity of the meaning of anything in life, and by creating alternative characters and realities, it widens the boundaries for my ideas and performances.
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Kay van Blerk
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'high tide'
300cmx90cm, oil on canvas
Kay van Blerk's practice explores her subjective relationship with the sea and nature in relation to its overwhelming existence. Residing on the coast of Cornwall, she uses the local seascapes as her source of inspiration while drawing upon the concepts of the Sublime and the Numinous. van Blerk makes sense of the thoughts and feelings felt when submerged in a seascape using painting, photography, and poetry. While aiming to immerse the viewer and create a space to pause - connect in the moment – a raw connection between the artist and the act of painting is explored. Through captured moments of colour and brushstrokes, these transcendental experiences encountered with the sea are embodied in her paintings. Scale, colour, and composition are important elements in the abstraction found in her practice. Creating large scale paintings, these elements are carefully considered to transform the space the work is in and evoke feelings of submergence.
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Lucy Walters
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'A Really Cool and Funny Quiz name'
Digital film (50min 43sec)
Taking inspiration from late night game shows of the noughties and nineties, I have created my own quiz show. I have used wackiness and comedy to make an art piece that comments on how the pandemic has affected the way we interacted with each other, and considers the measures we have taken to obscure boredom and under stimulation.
As an artist I create self-referential work drawing from my experience of having ADHD and what that means to me. I make this work with the hope that it brings awareness to the disorder and to help break down the stigma of it just being an ‘excuse’ for laziness and naughty children, all whilst acting as a form of catharsis for me. This is why I like to use social media as a platform for my work as I feel it can reach a wider audience.
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Tilly Ward
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
My work explores the beauty within decay, investigating the process of erosion and deterioration on both synthetic and natural materials, interested in this interaction both visually and theoretically. I work to understand and analyse surfaces textures of unfamiliar materials and exhibit them in a way that provokes a thoughtful response from my viewer. My practice questions how impactful humans are to a space, and how powerful nature is to ourselves, investigating how each affects the surroundings that both encounter, my work displays how nature adjusts and responds to our disregard. I enjoy the process of nature physically breaking down and altering objects that are unfamiliar to them, deteriorating synthetic fabrics and the textural reaction that this results in. I surround myself within a scene which has been exposed, becoming subjective and reactive to my surroundings, a process which allows me to investigate and analyse how surfaces have reacted to elements such as: weathering, human interaction or use from animals/insects. All my theoretical thinking correlates with my interest in decay and decomposition, the natural progression of life.
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Maia Wright
Course BA (Hons) Fine Art
'Breath Through Air'
maiawrightdesign.weebly.com / @maiawright_design / @maiawrightart
Maia Wright’s practice revolves around the relationship between art and science with a specific focus on the scientific nature of the human body. The progression to exploring how breath and nature coexist and thrive together was a natural topic to advance into to continue her exploration of the relationship between science and art. With the ongoing circumstances of Covid-19, the topic of breath is more relevant than ever before and was Maia’s initial inspiration for her work.
Nature is constantly supporting mankind through the exchange of oxygen and gases, and as humans we take advantage of the givings of nature that allow us to live. Taking more than we give back to nature, without us it would thrive yet the inequality between the two still exists. Wright’s film 'Breath Through Air' explores "air" and the relationship between manmade air, breath and wind. Bringing the many sides of breath and air together in one piece.
An interest in what our breath is made from led Wright’s work to explore the individuality of breath and using breath as a medium. To highlight the breath's uniqueness, balloons became a presence in her practice to represent the lungs and used to encapsulate a ‘portrait’ of an individual through their breath.
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