NEVER GOING
B ACK AG AIN
BA Fine Art & BA Painting Show 2021 London Metropolitan University School of Art, Architecture and Design
NEVER GOING B ACK AG AIN The track Never Going Back Again, from Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 Rumours album, chronicles personal disappointment and the desire not to relive the pattern of loss. But it also points at a transformation driven by momentous change. It chimes obliquely with the experience of the creative sector that saw such reversals of fortune over subsequent lockdowns across this past year and counting. For the young artists presented here, being far from their studios, workshops, and separated from friends, peers and supporting staff, has been a severe blow. Yet if the production of artworks has been affected, it is abundantly clear that creativity continues to thrive – indeed, it never went away! Virtual Meeting rooms replaced the studio in art schools across the country and turned a creative community into digital, spectral presences who interacted online as talking heads, but who functioned equally as actors in an endless cinematic experience everybody else was watching. There was never silence online. Their myriad voices resounded throughout the online classrooms in vital exchanges, always framed by the incessant soundtrack of the clacking of fingers on keyboards rushing off additional commentary on the state of things.
And yet, against all the odds, bereft of studios and workshops, these budding artists were making work: streaming work online, blogging tirelessly and creating new things in their homes, in the landscape, on the street, on the hoof. Work that addressed the pandemic, their isolation, their fears and hopes—but also, despite everything—describing experiences of normality that persisted regardless. After all, artists have always made work within their own historical and social context, but also, in spite of it. The online exhibition showcases the work of graduating students from the BA Fine Art and the BA Painting at the School of Art, Architecture and Design and represents a culmination of several years of study, but most importantly, it signals the inception of their future careers and practices. Their works displayed here mourn, critique, celebrate and provoke by turns, echoing the vagaries of an unpredictable time, but always with the knowledge that there will be better days ahead: Been down one time Been down two times I'm never going back again ¹ Nico de Oliveira
1 Never Going Back Again, Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham, Warner Bros. Records, 1977.
OF
CLASS
2021
This final year has been a challenging year for us all for so many reasons. During a time where the world felt like a different place, we've learned what its really like to bring an artist studio into our very own homes. Unable to see anybody outside of our household, many of our social aspects became closed and restricted. This made it difficult for many on the course to motivate themselves. However, our practices started to change; we began to adapt our ways of making, which included a large percentage of working online. We've learned how to work online from attending tutorials, to blog writing, to curating this show. Although challenging, this year has been a year to reflect back on. It is a year that has made us realise how important communication is, whether that is with our tutors, our peers or our family members. Communication is vital. We've learned so much this year, even though it may not have been the way we all wanted it to be. Looking into the future, we hope that we as artists—using our newfound methods of communication—continue to discover new ways of thinking and making. Catherine Mclure and Amy Tyrrell
During this three-year journey, we’ve discovered what it means to be an artist. Whether that’s exploring different media or learning new skills from amazing workshops – all of this has helped us to grow as artists and as people too. In the first year, we were in a period of settling into the course. We got to experience what it was like to have a studio, who the people we were sharing a studio with were and how to progress onto the second year of the course. In the following year we investigated the different components of our practice: What media are we using and why? What are the themes we’re trying to communicate through our work? How do we conduct research for our practice? How do we adapt to change over a short period of time?
Heidi Baines
This work explores the limitations that have been imposed on us in the Covid pandemic. Exploring the space and boundaries that we have been confined to because of lockdowns and social distancing. Using the act of walking as a medium, I have retraced journeys that I took over lockdown and documented them.
This was a time to rediscover the local area that I already knew very well. The social changes that we went through last year are complicated to fully understand and I am exploring the change in our behaviour. This video is a performance of a walk I took regularly, mapping out the new social distancing guidelines.
Dream Land
Video
Alexander Benigni
Past Present Future What unites us all is time, or rather the time that binds us between one event and another. Everything that is present, as we are, on earth is connected by what we may regard as vital or temporal cycles. It often comes from thinking that the passing of time, or that time itself is unique for everyone, but in reality time itself is relative... Relying on this thought, it is also natural to re-evaluate our own convictions, which are part of us from the moment we are born, necessarily having to adapt to what surrounds us, or rather, surrounded us, until the moment we decide to ask more questions, and to question more deeply the doubts of which we are all succumbing. Everything is born, everything is transformed, everything dies. (Death means the end of a life cycle is clear) The idea of the project is born precisely from this thought, in which time itself assumes multiple forms, from the static nature of a buried letter, in which time seems to remain motionless, passing through an excessive flow of time, present during the intervention on the second letter in which it is partially burnt.
Three letters will be shown, the first for the Past, the second for the Present and the last for the Future. Each of them will have attached three videos in which performative interventions will be made on the letters, and what will remain of the letters, will be shown in the form of physical objects. Taking as an example the letter of the Past, after being buried, will turn out to be an agglomeration of soil and paper, being altered completely by its original appearance and form. All this, it highlights, hidden by symbolism created by the artist, the flow of time and the changes and transformations deriving from it. The earth represents what has raised us, our mother, the roots from which (although not wanting) we all come. It is part of our past. Fire burns quickly just as fleeting time in what we can define as the Present. Water is associated with the Future, because once immersed in it, you have no idea of the direction in which it will transport you, unless a certain route is established. It should be remembered, however, that even if we have a destination in mind, we cannot know where the current will push us.
Present: Letter n.2 - Burnt
Ink on paper, fire
Faith Beswick
Faith Amelia’s artistic practice has developed from pencil-based sketches and paintings to mixedmedia compositions, shifting from ‘beautiful’ aesthetics to a braver and more physically expressive form. Using experimentational techniques, her work has progressed to predominantly use found materials and mixed-media elements to push the boundaries and create contemporary collages. Faith draws large amounts of her inspiration from daily life, creating a wide array of works based on themes ranging from current affairs and political issues, to nostalgia and medical issues. Much of her work is stimulated through personal experiences, and supported by extensive research, providing a sense of intimacy within these pieces. She is passionate to promote awareness around subjects that her work directly approaches, provoking conversations and wider understanding. Faith’s current work focuses on ‘invisible’ Chronic Illnesses – Graves’ Disease, in particular – and attempts to communicate and challenge the set of stereotypes
projected upon these individuals by society. Inspired largely by Wangechi Mutu’s collages creating graphic and fairly disturbing hybrid figures, Faith produces these collage pieces almost autonomously, to remove the pressure surrounding stereotypical ‘beauty’. In a similar way to the work of Mutu, Faith juxtaposes medical elements – in this case, pen sketches of diseased Thyroids on acetate – with beautiful images taken from fashion magazines and books, to create larger more sinister looking masses. These compositions also include elements of lino-printing and other materials such as bubble wrap, string and hot glue. Bringing into question her own experiences of living with Chronic Illness, this project has allowed Faith to directly confront these issues. This practice has been a huge learning experience, and by pushing herself out of her comfort zone, to avoid her typical ‘perfectionist’ qualities, she has created pieces that are much more dimensional and effective with displaying the metamorphosis between the Thyroid and its butterfly allegory.
Chronos II
Mixed media on plywood
Yasmin Braunhofer
Soulfully Unaware and Sailing into the Sea The Black and White visual Imagery evokes nostalgia, intertwined with notions exploring memory, loss and the past. Within these curated frames of nature and natural inhabitants, natural sounds distorted merge with musical scores carrying the viewer into a mesmerizing state. The slow pace and minimal camera movements invite a moment of stillness and pause. In this Stillness our minds open to reflection upon which we contemplate. In these precious seconds channels open which allows another passage in our minds. We transcend into a transcendental state. Yasmins visual language resides with the concept of ecopoetics . Her work draws connections between the human spiritual conditions and the natural environment. Wherein the images produced have a configured visual language that transcends a universality as well as poetic accomplices in the narrative of
video. She explores intimacy and the assimilation between nature and human by considered framing and often the use of traditional folk music in the background that brings another layer to her pieces. The videos are short and reminiscent of archived memory flashbacks. They are visual allegorical clips that although short in time carry you on a journey. As a swan sails into the vast oceans, the idea of being lost at sea even if only temporary resonates with Yasmins ideas on the worlds currents affairs and how as an artist this can make one isolated as well as exposed. Water appears as a significant and prominent feature in many of her works. As a metaphor water represents a life force flowing throughout and the constant reflective nature that reminds us. alluding to the never-ending passage of life. In reference to east Asian culture one can take into consideration the Buddhist teachings of Zen with regards to cycles of nature, life, transcendence and the symbolism of nature in those teachings.
Washed up by the Sea
Film, projection, performance, photography
Thomas Breeton
Thomas Breeton’s practice explores a compass which spans the phenomenon of digitality and notions of wilderness. Digitality is defined by the artist as 'humanity’s march toward a complete reliance on digital mechanisms—particularly those connected to the internet— without regard for the social, environmental, economic or political consequences.' Wilderness on the other hand, is defined as a region which is uncultivated, uninhabited and inhospitable. The artist, who is also trained as a visual designer, uses digital media to investigate the field in which he operates. His latest work, Digitality Contra Wilderness is a cinematic display of his research findings via video, audio and motion graphic media. Delving into the environmentalist paradigm perpetuated by movements such as Extinction Rebellion and figures like David Attenborough, Breeton’s research examines the current generational zeitgeist of conservation, rewilding and the ecological footprint. His practice therefore follows the late twentieth
century artists who formerly addressed such topics, namely; Fluxus artist Joseph Beuys (1921– 1986), the Land Art pioneer Richard Long (b.1945), and the Land Art reactionist Hamish Fulton (b.1946). These artists also sought to either explicitly or tacitly communicate the parameters of their work’s analogue exhibition in the gallery. Concerning the contemporary parameters of exhibition, Breeton mirrors film maker John Rogers (b.1962) and 3D animation artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen (b. 1987). These artists challenge convention by employing the social media websites YouTube and Twitch respectively to display their work. Echoing techniques used in rapid prototyping, Breeton generates moving image sketches from content found online. He utilises the latest video-editing software such as Adobe After Effects and Quick Time Screen Recording to translate his visual research into imagery. The artist uploads video sketches at various stages of iteration, enabling an audience to interact with his practice in flux.
Digitality Contra Wilderness
Video
Felix Burnett
Felix's work is expressive and visceral, inviting the viewer into her thoughts and feelings made visual. Using image making and different mediums as investigative tools of self-expression, through selfportraiture and autobiographical storytelling, whilst questioning and reflecting upon society's ideals on issues such as beauty standards and gender bias. Felix's work plays between fiction and reality, contrasting emotions, melancholy, and humour seeking to create an interaction between the work, themselves and the viewer. The artist's practise depends on available space and materials to hand which developed due to time spent travelling between country and apartments during her time working as a fashion model, opting for simple easily transported materials, which allows her to work more freely. Rather than concerning herself
with the finished piece, Felix is more interested in the stories told through her work, which fuels her creative practice. In an increasingly digital world, Felix finds comfort in expressing herself through analogue materials that can be felt and exist in the offline world such as printing, drawing, textiles, and ceramic which are often mixed with written thoughts. Felix's exhibition piece is shared through a digital format in response to Covid19 guidelines. Her work is shown in the hallway of her home displayed in a non-traditional way and filmed on her iPhone embracing a low Tec, handheld camera aesthetic to achieve a sense of intimacy in the artists practise, as well as playfully commenting on social media usage leading to the endless documentation of our lived experiences and our year spent living and interacting through digital screens due to the pandemic.
I saw it on your iPhone
Mixed media, iPhone Footage
James Burrell
There is a dichotomy between our lives in the real world and our existence in thought, where the contingency of reality falls away and imagination takes flight. The creation of art no longer relies on the astonishing technical skills of the Renaissance rather the artist practice is a lonely introspective exercise of pure thought that teeters on the edge of madness. Dissonance is created at the membrane between thought and reality. Eschew craft, technical prowess and arrive blinking into the sunlight with the translation of that thought into a physical or digital reality. We think of ourselves as rational beings and yet our lives are driven by emotion and our impulses and action are dominated by our sensory experiences. Continuing a dialogue between the two parallel careers of architect and artist, the broad context of this work is our relationship with space and the
psychological ramifications of money, power and exclusion. There is an uneasy relationship between the real and imagined with references to renaissance techniques, avant garde architecture and modern figurative painting. Space is explored from a number of viewpoints and genres and the symbolism of the door being both closed and open creates the opportunity and refusal of entry at the same time. The work deals with the wider concerns of divisions in society as a result of colour, race, disability, religion, gender and divisions and differences that seek to divide. The oppression of governments and regimes both around the world and closer to home are constantly in the news, but the speed and voracious appetite for new news does not allow for deeper contemplation of the underlying problems of power and control which adversely impacts so many lives.
The Bothy
Timber, metal and fabric
Christopher Byard
I strive to create work of heightened drama, using high contrast lighting. Using shots from films, historic images and figures, I attempt to make images with cinematic value that can be associated to said influences.
Fireplace' 7ftx5ft
Oil paint and spray paint
Mario Candeias
Since the introduction of the internet, humanity has radically transformed. We are more connected than ever before. The internet revolutionised our communications, to the point that it is now the preferred medium of communication - made possible by using devices connected to the web, but what if we could also connect consciousness? If technology becomes so advanced, our minds could extract from the body and connect to the digital world – where will we go? How would consciousness navigate between the physical and the digital? Mario Candeias creates digital environments exploring human consciousness and computer technology through video and sound. His work investigates the concept of a connected mind, linking consciousness to the virtual realm, and how it could
affect the physical body. The mind resides inside the brain, which reflects the reality sensed on the body. Consciousness, body, and environment are intertwined and provide the continual construction of reality and the self. As of right now, we can distinguish the real from the digital, but as technologies advance, this distinction could be imperceptible, and reality be eternally changed. Inspired by sci-fi motion pictures, electronic music, and hypnosis, Candeias depicts the interlink of the human mind and the virtual world through digitally constructed spaces, the joint of real and virtual. The presented work alludes to a constructed virtual reality presenting various video installations that swathe the viewer on the phenomena of senseperception, or in this case, an imagined altered perception of reality.
CONNECTED CONSCIOUSNESS
Video
Klaudia Chara
Klaudia Chara, is a London based artist, who explores the journey of mental health through the use of site specific and non site specific work. Comparing the differences and similarities between the two settings. The site specific works focus on nature and slow growth. Representing how we physically grow with time and adapt to any changes and new environments that we may face. Whereas, the non site specific works create their own physical space where time doesn’t exist, just an infinite void of nothingness representing the mind. As for the materials and methods to create these works, they differ depending on the scene. For the non site specific work, the artist uses thin metal nails on a cement wall and differently coloured sewing threads, to create a spider web inspired structure. The works are then photographed by a Fuji-film mirrorless camera model XT200 along side two LED ring lights for the dual colour effect. Finally, the photographs are transferred to a graphics software called Procreate,
where the background is blurred and the structures are manipulated and distorted to appear three dimensional. Similarly, for the site specific works, the trees were also photographed with the Fuji-film mirrorless camera and then bought to Procreate, where the digital ‘threads’ were drawn on by hand. Relating the materials to the concept, in the site specific nature scene, the digital ‘thread’ in the trees depicts the physical growth with time, the ageing and development of the artist. While, the non site specific threads represent brain activity, neurones sharing information and communicating with each other. The coloured threads and lights illustrate different emotions, for example blue and green portray depression and sadness, whereas yellow indicates happiness and hope. This shows us that even though our bodies may physically grow and mature with time, our minds can sometimes become trapped in an empty void. Finding it difficult to escape certain emotions, but having the potential to grow out of them.
Intertwined
Thread on concrete
Teagan Charles
Exploring the divine feminine; natural beauty is glorified through the use of acrylic paint on canvas in its most organic form. Enabling the expression of sexuality, the artist captures her closest confidants using bold, contrasting colours suited specifically to the impact they've made on her life, or the energy that they bring with them into a room. The use of colour is unique to every piece and evolves a realm of subtlety in regards to those captured in the paintings. Whilst still including their face to bring identity, making it far more personable. It personifies the paintings, giving the viewer more accountability - in an attempt to reduce conventions of the male gaze. With direct eye contact with the protagonist, it
creates a power dynamic between viewer and muse, regardless of the non-animate muse - she is in control of the visual exchange. The work takes on the satirisation of commercialised, sexualised pin up by instead evolving what the artist believes is the true essence of womanhood; that being the sheer exude of confidence, selfworth, an abundance of strength, and effortless beauty inside and out. The idea of a safe space for women to express themselves freely and openly is an integral part of the work due to the growing concerns for women's safety in today’s social climate. The art is about reclaiming our bodies and our sexuality as women, feeling beautiful, tranquil and protected as intended, in a safe space portrayed through paint.
bella 2021
Acrylic on canvas
Gabriela Cociasi
I make mixed media perfumes where everything can be an ingredient with an emotional end or beginning. Essential oils, thread, wood, waste, video, sound, image, embroidery, drawings, paintings, ceramic sculptures… The elements commingle in creating a new reality for the sense of smell. In the end, my art work may only be a word. Or an empty container.
Respir Ă (Breathe) – The Smell Of My Thought
Video, photography, voice over
Roudolf Dimov
Roudolf Dimov's work is composed of a mixture between realistic and surrealistic paintings and drawings. The artist often works in series, and almost in all of his pieces is visible a particular fascination with the human body, like portraits, hands, etc. His current body of work is heavily influenced by the work of the old masters from a technical point of view. Still, the artist uses modern technologies and tools such as an iPad to collage his projects, incorporating contemporary techniques into his practice to recreate his ideas before putting them into the canvas surface. The artist's paintings seem to be connected in a way, and although they are pretty different from one and other, if you look at them for a while, you can find a lot of similarities in the creation and execution. In his latest work, we see the artist's biggest usage of the
canvas, which makes us think that he experiments with size among techniques and compositions. From what we see in his artworks, it's hard to describe a particular painting style. We recognize the realistic elements in Dimov's paintings, such are the images from his latest and largest piece to date. But when we look at the colours in some of them, like The Face of … and his surreal NoLove series, we also see that he is influenced by the vibrance of pop art. When we get introduced to the making of the paintings and the artist's idea behind them, we see that he uses the collage technique to recreate them, and there is something almost surrealistic in all of their base. Roudolf Dimov is a real representative of modern-day art as he uses old-school techniques and approaches and mixes them with contemporary ideas and points of view.
Bird House
Oil paint
Omar El-Khodary
Omar El-Khodary (°1998, London, United Kingdom) makes paintings, photos, sculptures and mixed media artworks. He uses his work as an attempt to create an engaging visual environment through line, colour and form. It is also a way to develop his own unique artistic voice. His paintings establish a link between the landscape’s reality and that imagined by its conceiver. These works focus on concrete questions that determine our existence. By contesting the division between the realm of memory and the realm of experience, he creates intense personal moments that circle back to the theme of orientalism. His works demonstrate how life extends beyond its own subjective limits and often tells a story about the effects of global cultural interaction. It challenges the questions with 3rd culture kids, as they constantly question their roots, through Omar’s works, he explores his cultural background
as well as establishing a sense of enlightenment. With the use of various materials from a day-today context, he tries to approach a wide scale of subjects in a multilayered way, likes to involve the viewer in a way that is sometimes physical, and believes in the idea of function following form in a work. His works directly respond to the surrounding environment and uses everyday experiences from the artist as a starting point. He explores the history of Islamic art and or architecture and its interpretation in the western world, for instance examining the effects of orientalism and its influence in modern day culture. This personal follow-up and revival of a past tradition is important as an act of meditation. The use of past tradition brings insight onto the world of the artist, as he continues to search for his purpose through his art, making it a means of interpretation and establishing ones place in the universe.
Hamsa
Acrylic and gold leaf on canvas
Nick Fenn
Universe 9
comfort in travelling through these planets and writing about their In this body of work, Nick Fenn experiences. captures the feelings of isolation, These journals are exploration and curiosity and invites scattered and disjointed, but the viewer on a journey across ultimately reveal a story that will an entirely fictional computerleave the reader questioning how generated universe called much of the accounts are real, ‘Universe 9’. and how much of it was due to the Fenn’s multidisciplinary mental state of Azrena. approach to making work uses This project reflects how photographic composites, video art, Fenn copes with the ongoing digital 3D art, paintings, and sound struggles of the pandemic, and to visualise the cosmic landscapes through writing, has turned and the aliens that visit them. Fenn challenging experiences and has taken inspiration from various emotions, into his passion and different artists across many work. Ultimately reflecting the artistic mediums, such as painters broader sense of escapism for like Roger Dean, Alberto Salvinio, those struggling to cope with the and Salvador Dali, and digital pandemic around the world. artists like Beeple, Cosimo Galluzzi This journey through these and Nick Flook. cosmic landscapes is intended to These landscapes often make the viewer feel like they’ve feel unfamiliar and unrelated to ventured into unknown worlds each other, so Fenn has created an whilst also following the journey of audio guided narrative that allows the traveller’s mental exploration us into the mind of the protagonist. unfold. These landscapes and The voice of this writing is that characters represent a world that of Azrena who’s mission involves only exists in Fenn’s mind, and searching the universe for sacred through this exhibition, he invites objects, while also battling intense us to this space where viewers can mental health issues and finds explore this universe.
The mission. That's why I'm here.
Digital collage
Angelos Foulis
Angelos creates art to express himself. He is deeply passionate about the ongoing search for beauty in the world and the process of creating. He makes paintings to explore and celebrate life. He further aspires to examine themes and ideas that are universal but also intimately personal. In addition, he paints because he believes that this world would be unbearable without art. He hopes that his paintings will impact the viewers, resonate with people and urge them to connect with each other. His inspiration for his art is life itself in his surrounding environment. He wants to depict its beauty on his canvas. He works with oil paints and he often uses found materials which provide a sculptural quality to his paintings. He draws inspiration from other painters, as well as photography, film, literature and music. His paintings exist amongst reality and fantasy. Their nature is ethereal, as if they belong in a dream-like state between places with realistic
elements along with fragments of our imagination. The exhibited artworks are visually and thematically interconnected with his practice throughout his academic studies. His paintings with the male figures explore the notion of masculinity in the context of post-modern society. Additionally, the artworks that depict nature along with poetic phrases aim to reflect on classical art through the prism of today’s world. Such paintings enhance the diverse quality and development of his work in the past year. The context of his practice is his surrounding socio-political environment that is constantly evolving and its recurring relationship with the art world. His aim is to constantly develop into new unexplored directions in order to build a diverse body of work. He plans to continue painting but in the future he is interested in diversifying his practice into other mediums such sculpture and film.
The Search
Oil on canvas
Jessica Gaunt
These paintings are part of an ongoing series of work which mainly focuses on my own struggles with processing change. I have been making these paintings for the past four years now and the series mainly consists of bedrooms but also includes other spaces such as kitchens and living rooms. ‘Untitled’ This piece is based off of my own bathroom at home. Spending the past year at home, I was not experiencing any kind of change or making any new memories, every day was the same. I tried to capture the way the sun rises and creates a greenish yellow glow in the bathroom. I struggle with
sleep and this year has been one of the first times in my life that I have found other people relating to my struggles. ‘Untitled’ This piece is a representation of a hotel room I stayed in back in 2015 with one of my close friends at the time who is no longer in my life. We went to a festival together in Leeds and stayed in the hotel, at the time I was struggling mentally and the two days I spent in that hotel were one of the only good things that happened that year. The dark empty feel of the room is significant especially because of how I was feeling at that time.
5:55am
oil on canvas
Madison Geores
Through an amalgamation of introspective and found narratives, Madison Geores deconstructs experienced linearity. Through the appropriation of film, Geores investigates the essences of filmic objects in convergence with everyday experience and personal history. Geores’ filmic inspirations include Post-Depression American Film Noir, Lynchian Neo-Noir, and MidCentury Francophonic Thrillers. Geores believes the recollection of fiction exists in cerebral conjunction with all other memory acting as a guiding path for personal narrative. Geores focuses on films mediation of female experience through perception and reflections, actions and reactions which inevitably create a reordering of the female psyche. Geores investigates these themes through a variety of mediums ranging from ceramics, sculpture, wood carvings, and paintings, to large-scale installations. The wide variety of mediums she uses is due to an ardent curiosity of materiality as well as a deep consideration for material as a coded commodity in an economy of personal labour
and Western Consumerism. In her installations Geores uses sound and lighting effects as signifiers defying a traditional sensational experience, transforming it into something lingering and foreboding like an inescapable memory. Geores’ acknowledgment of references but, the purposeful muddling of context, gives her work an apparition-like quality. In her unconventional making, she implements craft techniques perpetuating notions of Americana folk in conversation with phenomenological horror. Aesthetically naïve yet highly resolved Geores’ paintings comment on American domestic tradition honoring artists like Grandma Moses while teasing at an underbelly of female exploitation and repressed sexuality. Through the fragmentation and presentation of traditional female narratives, Geores deals with an uncanniness, that upon expounding found fiction is resolved into something between fiction and reality that becomes hauntingly and increasingly parallel to female experiences in the postmodern.
Heart Rot: Queen of Garbage
Plaster, spray paint, and spangles
Aesha Gibson
Aesha’s creative process involves brainstorming on paper in the form of a mind map. It helps her develop new ideas and the different routes that they are able to go. In the past she regularly worked with oil paint as her favorite discipline, but has now transferred to a digital based medium. She enjoys this medium due to it being easy to walk away from or pick up wherever you may be. She enjoys making something new and not basing her work off of a certain design. Even though Aesha enjoys creating her own style, her work has been inspired by various artists from Kadinsky, Fiona Rae and even early computer graphics. She enjoys working with shapes, bright colors, manipulating shades and shadows, making them look as if they are moving through the screen in real time. In her early works every single shape had a representation of an emotion. She regularly worked
with basic emotions. For example, sadness, anger, happiness. Her representation of sadness would align with curvier deeper toned shapes, whereas anger had harsher angles and bright colors. Now, Aesha has developed her work to create representations of actions or situations, rather than just one basic emotion. For example, an artwork that represents mental consequences of lockdown or represents the feeling of trying to juggle so many things at once. Aesha made the decision to not name any of her art works and to not give a short description of the meaning behind it if it were to ever be on show. She believes that everyone interprets emotions differently, and there is no set shape or color to represent emotion. From different cultures to religions we all interpret these things in different ways and she wants the viewer to create their own meaning behind her work.
Lockdown Blues
Digital media
Brenda Grace
Brenda Grace (21, They/Them) is an artist studying and based in London. They are primarily a painter however they work with an array of different mediums. Photography, film, and performance being the main ones. They work on making self-portraits and documenting their life different ways.They also like to explore their personal experience as a queer person through their art. They are originally from Manchester and are half Ukrainian and half British.
ICU Celestial
Film
Eloise Lewis
Eloise is a French/English artist, using an inner dialogue of question and answer, to illustrate her own answers to questions of psychological and philosophical nature. She uses the medium of painting, oil on canvas. The painting itself is of a semi-traditional format, using mediums to add layers and effects into the paint. After years of psychoanalytic self-analysis, Eloise has found this a fundamental expression of her desire to understand human psychology and the nature of being. Dreams, archetypes and the unconscious are also strong themes throughout Eloise’s work. This psychoanalytic dialogue is underpinned by Freudian and Jungian psychology, however, is also tinged with the nature of being, as Buddhism and Mindfulness. The purpose is to understand such herself, but also to prompt such
Where do I want to be?
questions from the viewer also, in attempt to encourage a desire for understanding our nature, to in turn develop a sense of meaning and understanding through daily life. Artist influences include Leonora Carrington, Inka Essenhigh and Francis Bacon. Eloise is also strongly influenced by various other creative expressions, such as novels and music, particularly classical. The works are of a surrealistic and playful style, with a strong sense of narrative. . The colours tend to be bright and vivid. There is also an element of irony throughout the works, as the character and illustrative style, generally is not met with a philosophical theme. The surrealist element is also with intent to install a sense of confusion into the viewer, to hold attention, to then in turn provoke a longing for understanding.
Oil on canvas
Kyra Martin
Kyra Martin’s work has a sole focus on portraits and people. Always in oils, they work from photographs to capture a moment that best represents their subject. In the past, they focused on painting friends and family, but eventually moved back to their roots that are tied in the fan art culture and began painting actors, ranging from transcribing film stills, working from professional on-stage photography or painting acting headshots. Due to these connections, the closure of theatre at the beginning on 2020 due to Covid 19 affected them and their work, but they chose to use it to their advantage. The phrases “the show much go on,” “leave a light on,” and “we are viable” were thrown around the theatre community very early on in the pandemic, highlighting
A Light on the Viable 4, Marcus Harman
that theatre would bounce back and those who work within it are viable in what they do and do not need to retrain like suggested. In response to this, Kyra began work on a project titled “A Light on the Viable.” This consisted of a series of 23x15inch portraits in oils on canvas of a select group of people that they know in the community, ranging from West End performers to students who have had their education disrupted. This is to be seen as a stand against the mistreatment of those that work in any aspect of theatre throughout the pandemic, as most were put out of work thirty minutes before they were due to go onstage, not provided with furlough and the government has not offered the correct amount of support to this incredibly important aspect of London’s culture scene.
Oil and gold leaf on canvas
Leland McHugh
Having started out as an oil landscape painter, McHugh’s practice has become more multidisciplinary and often includes text-based work, video projection, and sculpture alongside paintings and silkscreen prints. Somewhat fragment-obsessed, McHugh has a love of collage and the literary technique of synthesis through recombination as enacted by figures such as author William S. Burroughs. He often uses literature, poetry, and found text as a catalyst for amalgamating diverse elements and methodology into tonally cohesive installations. Themes such as the occult and the Wild West, love and selfabasement, voices of authority and poetic sentiment are often at the forefront of McHugh’s artistic inquiry. Questions of insincerity in language and a sense of joy and humor in the absurd focus this work, alongside a loving appreciation for craft-based or specialist skills and processes such as bookbinding, candlemaking, or the production of inks which often serve as the
contextual or aesthetic lynchpin in his installations. In Dinosaur Corner (2021), McHugh draws on a powerful sense of nostalgia which has grown into his work throughout the long months of isolation spent in lockdown in order to transport the viewer into an half-remembered, dreamlike recreation of his childhood bedroom. The obsession with dinosaurs which so many of us have known as children is playfully celebrated and brought back to the viewer amid a room littered with large silkscreen prints like pages torn out from a coloring book, the floor covered with crayons and colored pencils. The projection illuminating the room shows falling Michigan snow outside the window of McHugh’s childhood bedroom, and energizes the space with a quiet serenity even as plastic dinosaur toys drenched in thick black paint implore the viewer think about the overlooked strangeness of dinosaurs toys made of plastic, which were made of oil, which was in turn made of dinosaurs.
Dinosaur Corner Print #3
Screen printing ink on paper
Catherine Mclure
My piece is part of a continuous project that has started from before University. It first started with me trying to process my grief after losing my Grandmother and how art was a way of releasing these feelings. The method I used was drawing into a sketch book, which I call sketch journals. But throughout this project I didn't feel comfortable with talking about it, until Lockdown started. It's weird to say this but Lockdown helped me to process these feelings and made me realise that I had to let them go, in order to progress. So that is when I decided to 'deconstruct' my sketch journals and finally let it out. In this past year, I have done a total of 30 drawings and displayed them in chronological
order, to show how much my emotions can get to me. A lot of the drawings are obsessive black and white patterns, to show how I have obsessively held onto these feelings. In this project, for the first time I have incorporated colour drawings which is something I have wanted to do for a long time. All the drawings are on A5 sized Khadi paper. I chose A5 as it is the size I use for my sketch journals and I wanted as many references to the sketch journals as possible because without them I wouldn't have been able to do all of this. I have chosen to name this piece "Out and Open" because I have finally got to the point in my journey that I am confident to let others know how I have felt and still feel, which is like a ton of bricks being lifted.
Out and Open (2021)
Pen on Khadi paper 103 cm x 207 cm
Somayeh Melksari
The installation “Silk Road” looks at cultural and moral value of tradition in fashion. The two pieces of clothes are situated in the corner of the wall, in the order to reflect each other. The work is to represent the value of fashion from past to present all summarised on the two pieces. The time consuming, traditional handmade silk embroidery, representation of slow fashion and fancy reflective fabric made with sewing machine is the representation of fast fashion. The clothes are reflecting each other in a manipulative way. The Silk embroidery vest not only expose its colour and pattern to the contemporary clothes, also expresses the cultural narrative which it carries. On the other side the shiny and radiant body of today’s vest, reflects imperceptibly and deceptively the handmade embroidery. Reflection of light and colours create a poetic space, as if the two pieces are trying to make a conversation with their surrounding environment including the observers. This is a silent installation, object are still and not moving in the body, as a functional object. Artist’s aim is to
remind the viewer of other cultural values and the power clothes bring within the body of fashion. The background video projects a map of the world showing the journey through Silk in the back of the two pieces of clothes . The route which in the past was mainly used for cultural connection between humans but today with industrialisation it has become an economical route It seems the cultural value which was arisen from East has changed its direction through the westernise culture. The Artist looks at the expression of humans culture in fashion rather that just a functional object. The overall work is considering the position of fashion which has become an icon of economy and is bounded with the consumers’ needs. The culture is changing fast in everything, while the quality is dying as a result of quantity. Embroidery as a time consuming technique which is still used in eastern culture is disappearing through the western culture. Artist is trying to drag the attention to the cultural value of traditional art rather than replacing every thing with the industrial products.
Silk Road
Embroidery and video installation
Nundni Patel
This work is an exploration of the connection and relationship that art and ritual have in common. This year, it is the 25th anniversary of SKSS temple and spiritual enlightening tasks have been given to complete in the run up to the event, one example is daily chanting our God’s name ‘Swaminarayan’ remembering him throughout our day. This work shows the importance of the artist's life revolving around doing everything spiritually, having that mindset of being separate from this world without this body and believing that we are only the small light (the soul) within which can easily be transported into another world. In a religious scripture (Vachnamrut) is where this element of spirituality is explained, the soul has this misconception that there is not a difference between the body and the soul, and therefore thinks the body to be its true self, where in reality the soul is distinct from the body. This is what the artist believes in and this is the mental and spiritual state she has when creating artworks. This year the
work has been driven by the temple's anniversary, and she really tapped into the spirituality and syphon that energy into the artworks. At the start of this journey, she had started off with using religious stories and verses. Lead her to create art with the powerful chant 'Swaminarayan' and famous hymns that narrates the scenery and description of these scenes. Created with an outline of up to 300 plus words of Swaminarayan and 30 plus full hymns repeated in the inner body of the image, all written in the core language of my religion, Gujarati. These pieces had led her to believe that it is not impossible to be creative and perform mental religious activities, such as remembering God and exploring scriptures. This being the beginning of a journey to a new style of art, using religious sources to influence and shape her work. Eventually, allowing her to create this final piece and donating it to the temple to allow the priest to dress the idols in the attire created with the chanting of the ‘Swaminarayan’ all over.
Untitled
Canvas, acrylic, felt tip and foamboard
Louise Raust
Superroukyx is a young, freelance artist from Paris. She lived in London for 6 years, where she discovered her passion for making video and instalation. With her work, she likes to mix all her passion together to create one. All her work is about her, her life and her friends, that brings the audience into a unique perspective. She likes to translate it and communicate it by the fact that “each life has his uniqueness and is an art”. She likes to think that living a life is an art performance to our daily routine, to wake up each morning, have conversations. Each and one of human being makes art. She started to take photographs when her dad gave her her first film camera at the age of 15. Since that day, she has been capturing her surroundings. Her friends are her biggest inspiration. Between Paris and London, the
only thing she always keep in mind is to anchor those shared moments. Superroukyx is known for her personal art work, she likes to share all those personal moments she lives. Her audience, usually young, relates to very well. Living a life, no thinking too much about the future. She wants her audience to see what she sees in her everyday “routine”. She takes whatever comes to her like destiny in her route for life. She explores the relationship between human but also how people reacts to this new life we have to live in: Covid-19. As many other artists, Superroukyx has been affected by it, with the motivation and the lack of people that couldn’t spend time together like they used to. But also as many artists, she had to find other way to work and create new way to make some art.
No rules in love
Video
John Tregembo
"Growing up with the Atlantic Ocean on the doorstep it comes as no surprise that this has influenced John heavily as he has progressed in his practice, painting from a very early age. John’s interest lies chiefly in trying to interpret and represent the wildness and unpredictability of the sea, His modus operandi starts with long walks along the Coast, spells of watching the moods of the sea, a particular outcrop of rocks, a bright colour or perhaps the flotsam and Jetsam on the shoreline will start to form an image that stays with him as he returns to the studio, primarily Working in Oils and Acrylics an image will evolve. John has been a full-time painter for 30 plus years and his work has been exhibited widely across the UK, collected by an evergrowing band of patrons. Gallery representation in Cornwall is the Fowey River Gallery, which has an
enviable reputation for fine and exciting work from some of the most successful painters in Cornwall. He is also represented at the Saffron Walden Gallery, Cambridge. Recently, John has made the move from his beloved Cornwall to the Isle of Dogs, East London, drawn by the Industrial history of the area and a desire to experiment with a new body of work. His interest and love of the natural world is strong and to this end he has recently become involved in issues around Climate change and rewilding, actively supporting a cause which is positively gathering momentum internationally. This recent body of work draws attention to the plight of species in his local environment, in particular the foothold that waterfowl have gained amongst the maritime structures of the Docklands and Canary Wharf.
The Grumpy Pigeon
Acrylic on canvas board
Amy Tyrrell
The fictional character named OC (Organised Chaos) experiments with various methods of manipulation such as pulling, twisting, squeezing, etc. OC has a 3 dimensional approach creating large-scale installations and sculptures using found/recycled materials such as plastic bottles and cardboard. The work carries an underlying juxtaposition contrasting simplistic found objects with the complexity of materiality within materials. In order to value and understand the materiality of materials you need to look very closely. The environment is very tactile as she wants you to look closely and feel immersed within the space. To make the loss for materiality clear, vibrant colours are used as well as complex sculptural shapes in order to capture your attention. The minimalistic imagery is created to cause maximum impact. There is a hidden beauty to found materials that OC aims to fully expose, describing the work as pictorially abstract. The making process is
Pink plastic, 2021
much more important to OC in comparison to the final aesthetic. This ongoing process is where the most exciting feeling comes to place. The unpredictability is very exciting to her as this creates a range of reactions within the audience. Her influences stem from material based artists such as Phyllida Barlow and Karla Black, as well as being inspired by everyday life and what it provides us with. The loss of value for materials is something that reflects within our everyday lives. As a society, we are becoming depreciative towards everyday materials and objects. The lack of appreciation needs to be recognised therefore, throughout the making process OC examines the materials and regards them with the up most respect. One key reason OC makes the work is because she is hugely passionate about found materials and how important they are to us within our everyday lives. The time for change is now.
Acrylic spray paint on plastic water bottles
Hannah Vincent
annah Vincent (b.1989) is a H London based visual artist, currently studying at London Metropolitan University. Her interdisciplinary practice is heavily shaped by the changing moods of her mental health. As a result of this, her work is mostly autobiographical and serves as both a creative outlet and a cathartic expression. This forms an eclectic body of work covering many mediums though most predominantly painting and installation. With all of these she strives to ascertain ways to bring them together into the same piece, often implementing elements such as light and projection to extend her paintings beyond the limitation of the canvas and fill the exhibition space. Her most recent project has been an exploration into the intrinsic value found in personal objects. The things we choose to surround ourselves with to define who we are that subsequently become extensions of ourselves. This can make even the cheapest
items transform into priceless artefacts. By simultaneously dealing with themes such as aesthetic taste, identity and the self-archive, her own personal items form the basis of paintings that not only serve to titillate but to act as portraits. Fuelled by a joy found in Pop Culture references and kitsch, her brightly coloured compositions seek to add validity to the pleasure found in the simple things and the splendour of ‘low brow’ aesthetics. Driven by the notion to turn trash into treasure in the eyes of the viewer, Hannah elevates the status of her contemporary subject matter by creating work inspired by Baroque artists and classic still life, approaching each canvas with a fastidious painterly practice and chiaroscuro-esque technique. Perhaps indicative of her Bipolar, Hannah finds greatest pleasure at the moment where conflicting ideas find synergy and create something new and invites the viewer to consider ‘why can’t this be fine art?’
Still Life No. 1
Acrylic on canvas
Leandro Vitor
The work consists in four, contemporary landscape paintings, the artist took inspiration from walks through their local park, in lockdown during the COVID 19 pandemic in this case Battersea Park, in London. This work focusses on our relationship to places and local environments set within a major city where the park planners have tried to create the look and feel of a nature. Where the quality of light, colours and tones create an atmospheric ambience. The artist composed each painting, by juxtaposing various elements of the park landscape into a single picture. The use of light and composition, channels and induces a meditative, nostalgic and atmospheric sense of isolation to the viewer. Light is a huge element in this painting, it determines the time of the day and the weather, which may prompt nostalgic memories of a familiar place with a similar light.
The artist created these paintings with a mix of materials such as melted wax, photography paper, ink, oil paint, acrylic paint, liquid charcoal on a stretch canvas of 176cm x 61cm. One of the paintings in the series is a more realistic depiction of the scene, moving away from the abstract quality of the others in comparison to the other three, with more vibrant colours and a greater level of detail. The process of creating layers and washes, scraping out paint and mark making gives the artist the freedom to play with many possibilities whether the outcome may be use of abstract or more realistic allowed the artist to take control of the landscape. A man-made park, superimposed onto a city landscape by its very concept is fabricated. So, by taking different scenes from the park and merging them together into a single view the artist has continued this concept of fabrication.
Battersea Park
Oil, acrylic, melted wax, photographyc paper on canvas.
Zophani Watts
When speaking about women’s oppression and liberation it is impossible to describe in a singular narrative, Zophani Watts’ work has chosen to focus on the depth of the matter infiltrating safe spaces, namely women’s bodies and homes. Situating her work in the home provides basis for reclamation of a place where women historically have been oppressed and ignored, although they may often be viewed and expected to be the homemakers. This combined with reclamation of the female form and sexuality created work referencing both elements. This has been achieved through representations of womanliness, which are depicted as exaggerated female forms. The use of the domestic paired with vibrant colours and graphic imagery is successful in creating a space that is impossible to ignore the presence of woman. The repeat pattern that is often included on traditional patterned wallpaper, has been modernised
and offers weighty significances, the soft colours used are ones often associated with femininity. In reference to the interpretated forms, Watts considers the way male artists have depicted women’s bodies over centuries and reappropriates these depictions and draws from the colours and forms used by other female artists, this creates a hybrid of reclamation and homage. Using colour and imagery her work attempts to show the simultaneousness of women who are both oppressed and liberated, creating work that is both loud and feminine, which may be opposing adjectives to some. Watts challenges ideas of what women should be, whilst also challenging what is appropriate within the home. She has created her work using reappropriation and reclamation as methodology, reclamation of what is ours, both our bodies and the home and reappropriation in work that takes pride in portrayals of women created by a woman.
Sex at home
Acrylic
Gabriel Wilson
The artist Gabriel Wilson’s (he/him) Practice focuses on the minuscule and the minuet, Embraces stillness and Focuses on the passage of time. Wilson’s practice covers the medium of film, installation, sound, sculpture, photography and performance. Wilson accredits his main influence to cinema and film. Legendary film makers such as Stanley Kubrick (The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut) but also more contemporary film makers like such as Robert Eggers (The VVitch, The lighthouse) are noted as key influences. Through out Wilson expansive practice there are constant underlying themes. The uncanny, dark humour, slowness and an element of nostalgia can be seen through out Wilson work. Born in the late 1990’s Wilson was born into the new age of digital media. Wilson’s obsession with old technology whether that be analogue film or early digital mini dv tape appear many times in his practice. Wilson has said “as a child I was surround by
so much technology, but moving so fast. Tech was being used to quickly and improving so fast that some things get forgotten”. Wilson uses these materiel’s such as tape or crt monitors in his work as an aesthetic but also because it reminds him of playing at his grandparents with old tv’s or cameras. However, more recently Wilson has explored ideas of identity and themes of folklore and nature in the 2020-2021 project ‘Only Shadows’. Filmed During the Covid 19 pandemic, Wilson turned to his roots of his home and the countryside. Focusing of archaic themes like farming and folklore with elements of witchcraft. Wilson uses these themes and ideas and is able to make them reflects the fears and paranoia of 2020. This work really hammers home Wilsons’s interest in slowness and stillness. A two-hour long film of slow shots of images related to folklore. Wilson embraces the slowness of life and find beauty within it.
Only Shadows
Film, digital recording
NEVER GOING
B ACK AG AIN
Design by Tom Breeton Words by Catherine Mclure, Amy Tyrell and Nico de Oliveira Production by Faith Beswick, Aesha Gibson and Nundni Patel