BA (Hons) Fine Art 2023 graduation brochure - Northbrook College, West Sussex

BA (Hons)

FINE ART 2023

Northbrook College : Degree Show

Private View : Wednesday 7th June : 6-9pm

Thursday 8th & Friday 9th : 10-4

Saturday 10th : 10-1

West Durrington Campus

Littlehampton Road

Worthing BN12 6NU

Worthing Festival : Exhibition

Private View : 13th June : 6-9pm

Exhibition : 14th - 18th June

Worthing Town Hall

Chapel Road

Worthing BN11 9SA

BA (Hons)

FINE ART 2023

ARTISTS

Andrea Arnold

Jessie Gregg

Deborah Jones

Sal Longhurst

Steph Lovell-Powell

Kate O’Neill

Antonia Preciado-Cagigas

Sarah Wheal

BA (Hons) Fine Art

Degree Show 2023

WITH THANKS

The graduating students would like to thank -

All the tutors, technicians, LRC and library and staff for their continuous support, guidance and good humour during the course of our BA.

Also our families, friends and fellow students who have supported us throughout our final year.

cover & index page images

Sarah Wheal

Sal Longhurst

Deborah Jones

Andrea Arnold

I have been researching the British Empire in order to visually portray how post-colonialism has affected modern day Britain, with particular reference to the movements of the diaspora across the world’s oceans, including how different cultures within the Empire have had an influence on ‘Britishness’ today.

The starting point and inspiration for my research is the journey I made on the Empire Windrush to Hong Kong in 1951, the same ship that is best known as an icon for the migration of British subjects from the West Indies to London’s Tilbury Docks in 1948. The voyage took eight weeks and the different countries we briefly stopped at made a lasting impression on me. The legacy of the Empire is evident in the changes of our taste for food, in our language, our music and dance as well as in the visual arts. It explains who we are as a nation. I use personal family photographs and other archive material in my practice combining them with drawing, painting and multimedia. I have also included

information that I have researched on the history of the Windrush which was German built in 1931, was known as the Monte Rosa before being captured in 1945 by the British, renamed the Windrush, and its eventual demise when the engines caught fire sinking in 1954 off the coast of Algeria in the Mediterranean Sea.

Contemporary Britain has been shaped by a difficult and complex colonial past including the many, often dubious, implications it has had especially on power, race, immigration and privilege. My work as an artist is an expression of acknowledgment of some of the many wrongs in British history, as well as a way of celebrating our amazingly diverse culture in the 21st century. I hope that through my art I am able to convey to the viewer a sense of the connection of the Empire to Britain’s present, both through my own memories and the inextricably intangible way the Windrush has echoed the multiracial and racially diverse society that Britain has become.

CONTACT

E : jessie.artist.mother.30@gmail.com

W : https://jessieibiza.wixsite.com/portfolio

I : @jessieg.artist.mother.30

Jessie Gregg

I manage the modern day life of being a mother alongside my artwork. The two are intrinsically enmeshed together and do not exist separately. I enjoy the real-life instances of moving from changing bedsheets to installing a new piece of my practice and back again, and I channel this energy into my practice. I see my practice as a reactive response to everyday life.

My practice includes drawings, paintings and installation work. The relationship between these are shape and form. For my installation work I use found materials. For my paintings, I generally paint on paper or board with acrylics and ink. I prefer paper as a surface as it is quicker to work with and making work at speed is important to my making process and thought processes. I am interested in trying new processes to see what the results of experimentation are. I enjoy the unexpected outcomes.

I have a big interest in art therapy. My intention is to make my practice an important contribution to the growing awareness around issues of addiction and mental health within communities. I want my practice to help others with their issues in the same way that it has helped me.

The foundation of my practice is land art. The physical landscape inspires me as I walk on it, by it and look down on it. I am a geographer and an artist. I have produced a series of paintings and drawings inspired by my interest in the origin and processes that make the landscape. Geography is a discipline that touches on every aspect of the physical world. The work displayed represents landscapes very familiar to me from walking holidays.

I like to reference in my work different maps of the landscape and the geological formations that make that landscape from photographs. I apply layers of acrylic and use ink and charcoal to suggest paths and geological features. I sand parts of the paint away to depict the geology of the underlying rocks and the visible marks on the landscape. The artwork represents my re-imagination of that landscape from the maps, photographs and observations from my walks. They are my personal maps and explanation for the landscape we see and walk on.

I am a multi-disciplinary conceptual artist making work in installation, sculpture and drawing. Currently, I am exploring breath and breathing, something we all share and can relate to. This has been my theme for a couple of years. It stemmed from the time I spent walking on the Downs during the Coronavirus pandemic. I felt intensely the difference between my being able to breathe freely on the Downs and those in hospital fighting for their next breath.

I have a medical background that possibly prompted me to research further and think about the subject in much broader terms. I found that there was a certain demographic who were more prone to contracting Covid and having a worse prognosis.

Sal Longhurst

This same section of people is also more likely to suffer from other lung issues such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), lung cancer and asthma to name a few. Many of these are exacerbated by poor air quality.

One would think that access to clean air is a human right, however, that is not necessarily the case.

The way in which I work is intuitive and exploratory. Using drawing and 3D media such as latex, plaster of Paris and Jesmonite, I question what it is like to find breathing difficult and seek to give the viewer space to consider what that might be like and what reasons may lie behind it.

CONTACT

E : rainbowpainteroo7@gmail.com

W : https://rainbowpainteroo7.wixsite.com/portfolio

I : @sal.longhurst

Steph LovellPowell

As a girl, one of the first toys I had was a Tiny Tears doll which I didn’t like, and didn’t really know what to do with. Gendered toys teach girls that being nurturing and subservient are good things; dolls are setting the child up for motherhood in the future whether they want children or not. The form is a wedding cake decorated with porcelain doll parts. Girls are taught from a young age, through fairy tales and the like, that getting married and having children is the aspiration and, indeed, expectation.

The wedding cake has much symbolism; it is white to represent the purity of the bride. The cutting of the cake is a representation of the loss of virginity on the wedding night, literally the breaking of the hymen. The word Hysteria roughly translates from Latin to Wandering Uterus. It was believed that women’s psychological distress was caused by the womb that wandered round the body.

I have used the aesthetics of kitsch and maximalism to emphasise the ridiculousness of this aspiration forced upon girls, and the opulence they are expected to have on their wedding day. The average cost of a wedding is around £25,000. The wedding cake alone can set you back around £500, obviously the more extravagant the more expensive.

This work aims to challenge the viewers perceptions of gender stereotypes and is a response to the messages and expectations society sends to girls and young women.

CONTACT

E : dr.steph@sky.com

W : www.stephanie-powell-artist.co.uk

I : @ thelittleshopstorrington

“As her short term memory dropped away the distant past was flooding back in to replace it” *

Not my words but a quote that perfectly describes my experiences of dementia and the drivers behind my work. Care home corridors are the setting; the bleak uniformity and bland ‘present’ that - for the person with dementia - is seemingly leading nowhere and contributing to a losing sense of reality. But objects remembered from the distant past ‘flood in’, push to the front and demand greater clarity.

Working with paint on board, my process develops a sense of confusion through the buildup of texture and layers using oil and cold wax. Collages come together from prepared papers, painted or printed with acrylics, and set against a background of softly painted board. Colours are muted and forms abstracted with only the remembered objects gaining clarity through sharper edges, stronger colours and hints of age-induced patina - and by including items clearly remembered from my own childhood, I’ve experienced memories and emotions while working that may well echo those of a person with dementia.

Connecting with, and supporting people with, dementia has been an important part of my past working career and so has become a significant influence as my work has developed. Important in my intention is a desire to portray how short and long term memory - and the emotional experiences that accompany them - can deeply affect those living with dementia and those who care for them.

(*Linda Grant, novelist, writing about her mother’s dementia in ‘Remind me who I am, again’ (1998))

Kate O’Neill

After I became ill, I started to volunteer at a gallery. That gave me the confidence to start to make art. Through my training I realised that my processes are in 2D and 3D. Drawing and making or making and drawing is what excites me. I use any materials that help me to create work, such as wire, paper, clay or metals. I also draw inspiration from my background in embroidery, which I love.

My interests are wide but now something is more urgent for meclimate change, the loss of biodiversity and what it means to us all. I want to be part of the movement for making a more sustainable world.

CONTACT

E : antonia_preciado@hotmail.com

W : https://outsidein.org.uk/galleries/sariuco

I would like to be a constant reminder of the emergency of our situation on this planet. Thus, my recent work is making objects that represent this problem. Recently, I have made a time-temperature sculpture in wire and wool that shows how it has changed in the last 100 years.

I don’t like to be restricted by mediums so in the future I may use other ways such as video, installation or perhaps graffiti to reflect and show what interests me and what it is happening in the world around us.

Antonia PreciadoCagigas

Sarah Wheal

CONTACT

E : Mrbeanbag@btinternet.com

W : mrbeanbag8.wixsite.com/website

I : @SarahWarner6626

My work reflects my intimate relationship with nature, and sings of my passion for stories. My travelling theatre moves through the landscape collecting prop materials, and unexpected guests along the way. Art is a most basic human instinct and is a connection that we all share. With an emphasis on community and collaborative projects and by actively engaging my audience, I strive to reinforce and celebrate this connection with once upon a time tales.

In my current story I am ‘The Last Homosapien’ drifting in my coracle through a familiar yet futuristic landscape. Driven by our species’ enduring artistic instinct, I create makeshift works using scavenged flotsam and jetsam. I am accompanied by Charlotte Brontë, whose tough and enduring reputation provides both inspiration and solace.

This tale acknowledges the importance of the physical, most specifically our hands, in our remarkable cognitive development.

Hands are celebrated through flint knapping, church organ playing, puppetry, text and dance. With a rattle bag of domestic, ritualistic, historical, and futuristic pop-ups, my last voice leads the audience to the end. I worked in collaboration for the performance entitled Ekphrasis with musician Tobias Wheal, who composed the music and played the organ for this event

I take inspiration from contemporary artists; Monster Chetwynd, Heather Phillipson, Jeremy Deller, Andy Goldsworthy and Chris Drury. Joseph Beuys and Charlotte Brontë provide emotional support whilst Hieronymus Bosch never fails to lift my spirits.

CONTACT

Andrea Arnold

E : andrea@akamediadesign.com

I : @arniart7

Jessie Gregg

E : jessie.artist.mother.30@gmail.com

W : https://jessieibiza.wixsite.com/portfolio

I : @jessieg.artist.mother.30

Deborah Jones

E : deborah.jones.pixie@icloud.com

W : https://deborahjonesfineart.co.uk

Sal Longhurst

E : rainbowpainteroo7@gmail.com

W : https://rainbowpainteroo7.wixsite.com/ portfolio

I : @sal.longhurst

Steph Lovell-Powell

E : dr.steph@sky.com

W : www.stephanie-powell-artist.co.uk

I : @thelittleshopstorrington

Kate O’Neill

E : kate@kfoneill.co.uk

W : https://kateoneill.create.net

I : @kateoneill53

Antonia Preciado-Cagigas

E : antonia_preciado@hotmail.com

W : https://outsidein.org.uk/galleries/sariuco

Sarah Wheal

E : Mrbeanbag@btinternet.com

W : mrbeanbag8.wixsite.com/website

I : @SarahWarner6626

BA (Hons) FINE ART

BA (Hons) Fine Art

Northbrook College

Full-time (3 years) or Part-time (5 years)

The BA Fine Art course at the Northbrook College campus, near Goring-by-Sea station, provides a challenging and stimulating creative environment where individuals can develop their own studio practice as professional artists.

Students can specialise in Painting, Drawing, Printmaking, Photography, Sculpture or Installation, or they can chose to work more generally across all areas of Fine Art.

Entry Criteria

Foundation Studies in Art and Design, or National Extended Diploma, or a similar course. Mature students without qualifications, but with relevant experience, are encouraged to apply.

Course Enquiries

Teresa Whitfield (Course Leader) teresa.whitfield@gbmc.ac.uk

Further Information

www.gbmc.ac.uk/ba-fine-art

www.gbmc.ac.uk/ba-fine-art-part-time