Eclipse

'Eclipse' is a poetic, thoughtful curatorial conceit devised by MA Fine Art student Leonard Baske, touching on profound questions about art’s role in the world, and individual capacity for reflection and change. For Baske, 'Eclipse' represents “personal introspections as vital and haunted realities, where disordered experiences are revealed without judgement”. The exhibition centres around two works. The digital video Ghost (2025) combines elements of reality, staged performance and trance-like sequences, drawing the viewer into a “trauma-shadowed narrative that dissolves into dreamlike numbness”; the poem The Colour Purple, presented here as hand-written text blown up to poster-size stanzas, evokes poetic resilience, amidst a landscape haunted by memories that distort reality. Words and entire lines of The Colour Purple are ‘eclipsed’ by black marks, further distorting the ‘reality’ and potential meanings of the poem.

'Eclipse' stems from Baske’s strong reaction to Diane Burko’s 2006 project Visualising Climate Change, which spurred “a moment of personal reflection on art in the shadow of the climate crisis”. Proposing that the shadow of catastrophic climate change will ‘eclipse’ art concerned with the spiritual and the inner self, Baske wonders whether in light of increasing global instability “an era of dreamy and transcendent musing in art is coming to an end”. Baske also invited his course-mates to contribute to 'Eclipse'. Emmy Yeadon’s wall-based ceramic The River suggests a quest for meaning and acceptance, hand-written letters echoing those of Baske’s poem. Like The River, Marilyn Ramsden’s painting Reflection in Purple, which depicts an unfamiliar landscape reflecting alienation and dislocation, uses a purple-hued palette to echo the poem’s subject. Will Burrough’s fragmented sound collage Back and Forth explores the ritual of mundane tasks as a mechanism for distraction, where false importance is assigned to routine, as we try to anchor ourselves amidst uncertainty.

From January to July 2025, B Gallery presents three exhibitions co-curated by MA Fine Art students in dialogue with Senior Lecturer Dr. David Steans and Associate Professor Marianna Tsionki. The three exhibitions were programmed via a live brief, for which students were invited to propose curatorial responses to a 'pre-existing collection, archive or artwork' relevant to their practice.

Location: Leeds Arts University, Blenheim Walk, Leeds LS2 9AQ

This exhibition is available to view from 10:00am - 4:00pm Monday to Friday by appointment only for external visitors. Please email curatorial@leeds-art.ac.uk to make an appointment. Staff and students are not required to make an appointment.

Located on the Basement level behind the Blenheim Walk Gallery, B Gallery is one of several ancillary exhibition spaces across Leeds Arts University, and part of the University's diverse public programme. Since 2022 it has also been embedded in the MA Fine Art course as an ongoing series of collaborative curatorial experiments between staff and students, exploring creative-critical pedagogies, the materialisation of research, and the shifting figure of the artist-curator.