University of the Highlands and Islands
BA (Hons) Fine Art & Fine Art Textiles
Degree Show 2022
Moray School of Art Orkney College UHI UHI Outer Hebrides Shetland College UHI
With enormous congratulations to all graduating students: Olga Dean Hart Tilly Howie Sergio Iannuccilli Kayleigh Kellas Sue Little Melissa Sandoval Wendy Barker Jamilla Garrett Sophie Elizabeth Mitchell Macdonald Vicki Redpath-Watson Susan J Wittingham Kathrhona Lawson Sif Nielsen Karen Clubb Shannon Leslie Elouise Spooner Jean Urquhart cover image: Sif Nielsen, UHI Outer Hebrides
Introduction This publication is a celebration of the culmination of four or more years of learning, exploration, experimentation, inspiration, discipline, and not just a little hard work. We applaud the students on their achievements as they emerge out into the wider world, and thank them for enhancing the reputation of the course and enriching the life of the University. From the coasts of Moray, across to North Uist, up to Orkney, further up to Shetland, our students have spun a web of manifestation – images and objects, sounds and words, an energetic sprawl of fervent creation. Creativity has transformative power. The formation of forms. Metamorphoses. The materialisation of ideas, the transmutation of imagination and materials. To inspire and motivate, to empower, to connect, to harmonise. Personal visions becoming collective experience. Artistic creativity thrives on relationships – between ourselves and each other, our environment, the worlds that we are born into and that we build. One thing is forcefully evident here - that creativity flourishes despite the unique challenges of lockdowns, restrictions, and isolation, pushing through relentlessly like green shoots in spring, gathering momentum like a river to the sea. Celebrate with us these fruits of inspired labour, generous outpourings of ideas and imaginations, skilled manipulations of materials and technologies. When we respond - looking, listening, touching - we are reminded of who we are, how we sense and think, and how we have individual perspectives yet share a common understanding of the world. The artworks that you see here are realisations of the spaces in between, making the unknown known. Norman Shaw, Programme Leader
Moray School of Art UHI What is a soul? This existential question has always interested me. Growing up during the collapse of the Soviet Union, witnessing starvation and ruined lives, when within days millions of common people lost all their savings and hope, I would turn to Russian literature where I found that the only thing worth saving is the human soul. But what is it? Since Russia invaded Ukraine this year, I got a chance to explore just how far I can push myself asking existential questions, before I hit rock bottom. Being half Russian half Ukrainian I am internally torn apart, time when all structures of known and stable crumbles down and you face yourself. This is when truth is born, but are you strong enough to handle it? Through my practice I explore the relativity of the ineffable soul searching process. Following the footsteps of American Abstract Expressionists I use my body as a conduit of emotions and thoughts. I use the plane of the large scale canvases as an arena, where the physicality of paints and gestures meet to discover the inner world. I take my inspiration from pioneers of Russian Avant garde movements to push boundaries and to challenge people’s acceptance. Being a strong believer in Jung’s common subconscious theory, I use circles as my vision of human souls, sharing a vortex of this reality. We are the same but different, standing in order yet being chaotic, keeping up our appearance with strong boundaries and bleeding out of control.
Olga Dean Hart olgadh06@gmail.com
Moray School of Art UHI
Tilly Howie
tillyhowie22@gmail.com
Forgotten histories and secrets are packed away just waiting to be uncovered. The possibility held within new beginnings, with the opening of boxes. These are the thoughts and ideas that inform my work. The rhythms of folding and unfolding allow me the time and space to process thoughts and emotions. The unpredictability of the cyanotype process has captured my imagination and attention. I enjoy and embrace the lack of control that I have. In great contrast the precision and control of the folding process allows me the indulgence of structure and rigidity. The rhythm and actions of making within my process contrast with the silence and stillness of waiting for the cyanotypes to develop, recording the passage of time. I have a huge respect for makers of the past, and appreciation for skills that have gone unnoticed and have been forgotten. I am drawn to old domestic, familiar objects and materials that have been handmade and, often repaired. The use of simple processes and familiar materials helps to ensure my work is approachable and relatable.
Moray School of Art UHI
Sergio Iannucilli
sergioianart@gmail.com
In my artworks I try to convey those elements that brought me close to Art, which are: a sense of wonder, emotional nourishment, and an intimate attraction to what I see. Currently my work is based on print and embossing. The non-figurative design is simply a result of following an inner stimulus, where rational choices of shape and instinct resonate continuously with each other. What I wanted to convey is a sense of fluidity, dynamism, beauty. Possibly a type of ever-changing image, which depends on how the viewer focuses and their eye moves on it. I attempt to summarize the different aesthetic values that I accumulate in my life, allowing them to emerge spontaneously and intuitively in my artworks, where my idea of beauty it is not a rigid idea, but rather something of a collection of many different possibilities We continuously pursue beauty, in our common life, because we know it makes us feel good. The pursuit of beauty is one of the things that has characterized the whole of human history and worth is seeking in contemporary art as the central subject.
Moray School of Art UHI
Kayleigh Kellas
kayldoesart@yahoo.com
My paintings emerge from a process of layering and removing paint. Luxurious gestures are placed and then destroyed through masking and sanding in a highly responsive, dialogue-like creative process, where ‘happy accidents’ are encouraged. Driven by a fun-seeking approach to grappling the new (to me) medium of oil paint, I adopt a childlike ignorance toward traditional painting rules – mixing paint in party cups, painting onto paper, not waiting for paint to dry before painting another layer. The joyous act of mess-making combines with a technical, editorial eye in a back-and-forth conversation between myself and the painting, as the final image reveals itself (or doesn’t!). Taking note from abstract expressionists and their contemporaries, literal imagery is abandoned in favour of the emotive and ambiguous nature of pure colour, gesture, and composition. In cutting visual ties to physical objects or places, the paintings have no narrative to tell - they become a mirror of those who view them; their interpretation is guided by the viewer’s own experiences and emotions. I invite the viewer to take the time to complete the lifecycle of the paintings, by placing themselves within these worlds that I create through paint.
Moray School of Art UHI
Sue Little
suelittle@me.com
‘An art which does not have emotion as its principle is not art’ – Paul Cézanne We inhabit a world of emotional folds. I have witnessed the emotions I want to capture. A spectator who has watched someone close slowly slipping into their own world of confusion, anxiety, and isolation. And, how ironic that we have all possibly felt some of these emotions whilst enduring the uncertainty of the pandemic for the last two years. These emotions need to be remembered. Welcome then to my version of our world of emotional folds. A textile installation of emotions embedded in folded forms, ‘bodies’, evolved from the deconstruction and reconstruction of mundane white muslin and jute scrim fabrics and finally, set in a medicinal white walled environment. Alongside still images and a filmed performance where white nylon fabric moved and responded to a dancer’s body enveloped within, producing shapes and folds that evoked different nuances of feelings and emotions. Now, it is the turn of viewer to look, connect and respond to these emotions buried deep within these ‘bodies’.
Moray School of Art UHI
Melissa Sandoval
MelissaSandovalPhotography@gmail.com
In the 3rd year I decided to focus my creative practice in analogue photography. I have been working in the social documentary and street photography genres. I am interested in the photography medium and its potential as a tool to explore personal and social histories. My final project is a documentary project. I have recorded a protest movement that arose in response to pandemic legislations and mandates, uniting a variety of people from various walks of life and political leanings. My intention was to photograph these events from the personal perspective of the participants. In my final presentation I have presented a selection of images in a grid formation so that they can be ‘read’ in relation to each-other as well as individually. The images create a visual narrative that can tell a visual story.
Orkney College UHI
Wendy Barker
wendy@orkneyescapes.co.uk Sea Change As I look out to the sea from the piers of Stromness, a sense of wonder and awe at the natural world washes over me like the inevitable oncoming tide. It is a response to the beauty in the everchanging Orkney light and a sense of underlying dangers that might lurk beneath the surface. I seek to capture the contrasts of light and dark, stillness and turmoil in photography, moving image, sound and projected light. A transformed landscape is offered inviting a dialogue and disorientating the viewer. My inspiration is the soft radiance of a winter afternoon, moonlight and reflections underwater where the sea interacts with the piers. I am fascinated by the mesmerising rhythms of wave motion from passing boats disrupting the stillness as they progress to the shore: a metaphor for change we experience in life that begins slowly. We may see it coming but only take notice when it is upon us. Its arrival feels unexpected. The word sea is small and easily uttered They utter it lightly who know least about it A vast ancient terror is locked in the name Like energy in an atom George Mackay Brown - The Sea
Orkney College UHI
Jamilla Garrett
jamillagarrett@hotmail.co.uk The materials that I gravitate towards have the quality of belonging to someone prior to myself. They have been passed down or are destined to be discarded, expressed in breakages, scuffs and wearing. This wear is seen in extremity; fabrics are water damaged, one-use materials are repurposed and metal is disintegrating. Due to this, much of my multi-media work revolves around reparation, particularly the act of sewing. I create objects belonging to two distinctly different but overlapping themes, war and home. My work deals with family history, concerning my great-grandmother and her anxiety caused by my grandfather serving in World War II. Mending is integral to my work; it is a reaction to my great-grandmother’s societal role. It is also a kind of ancestral reparation. Just as materials degrade so too do memories held by living family members of those who have passed. My installation is an attempt at temporarily making these changing memories static before they disappear. I intend to create the space I imagine she inhabited, small and ramshackled due to impoverishment, made homely with soft furnishings, but distorted by quiet but unsettling indicators of the war outside.
Orkney College UHI
Sophie Elizabeth Mitchell Macdonald macdonaldsofa@gmail.com
Drawing inspiration from local landscape, folklore and personal experience of mental illness I create objects and environments in which the viewer obtains a small glimpse into my narrative whilst maintaining enough space for their own reading. Sculptures are formed in a repetitive, meditative process with materials that challenge with their adaptive forms. These materials are naturally degrading and are created with the knowledge that they will change and erode over time. Scale is used to recreate the experiences of a mentally ill woman in an overwhelming world. A collaborative performance between place, body and material create a shared space for healing.
Orkney College UHI
Vicki Redpath-Watson
redpath_vicki@hotmail.com
My darkness is a new work on a new scale. Becoming ever more introspective since the Covid lockdown, I embarked on drawings of my hands and self-portraits. This evolved into a series of monoprints created from impressions of my body or face on paper and other surfaces. The work is repetitive, reflective and addresses my long-term problems of body image and the way society views the female form. Each time the process is the same: I prepare the paper, apply oil to my body and lie down on and move over the paper, but the results are unpredictable, only visible when graphite or another medium is applied. Limbs are easy to spot, but by looking at small fragments details emerge: individual hairs, eye-lashes, an ear, a nipple. These are self-portraits, but the sense of movement and shape echo the landscape that I run in and which in turn shapes me. There is a ritualistic and contemplative element to the making of the scrolls. Just as small details make up a body, the daily repetitions make an emotional diary of how I feel. Un-rolling a scroll sends me back in time.
Orkney College UHI
Susan J Whittingham susanwhittingham@aol.com
Here… this is the place recalls fleeting encounters with phenomena in the Orkney landscape that reveal the remarkable in the familiar. Most days I walk to the top of Binga Fea on the island of Hoy where my route leads to a lone, rusty stake that marks the highest point. A short distance from it a satellite tower stands in perpetual surveillance over a layered, scarred and gridded terrain. The final ascent is steep; time stills, breathing quickens. Each breath echoes the voices of a whispering landscape. As clouds part, shafts of sunlight suggest hidden thresholds to somewhere ‘other’. I use digital photography in combination with writing, poetry, sculpture and installation to record and interpret the chorus of trembling energies that dance across my field of vision. Satellite dishes are a routine presence in the landscape as transmitters and receivers of encoded signals. Removing the rust of corrosion and suspending them in an altered context makes these objects strange again - a pared down essence of my daily walks - here, in this place.
UHI Outer Hebrides
Kathrhona Lawson kathrhona@hotmail.com
Storytelling by the fireside before the dreaming time is an inherent human ritual. Ancient stories connect us to the island landscape, and the elements. Memories and ideas inherited from our ancestors nestle in our collective subconscious and surface in these stories and dreams, the fragmented remains like skin shed over generations. Stories continuously accumulate, break, fade and alter like pieces of pottery washed up on the shoreline. They are reinterpreted in relation to our own personal experience, our footprints among the layers. Marks, imprints, and lost words perpetuate, picked up by the curious, carried in pockets sometimes explored, exposed, passed on, and sometimes returned. I work in dimensional layers exploring our cultural subconscious connections. Through exploration my aim is to embody the viewer in the hypogeal world of island folklore. A handful of stories from the Hebrides are deconstructed into fragments for the viewer to discover, contemplate and hopefully pass on.
UHI Outer Hebrides
Sif Nielsen
sif.cpn@gmail.com
My practice roots itself in my relocation to North Uist. The whoosh in the treetops now brought by the sea, rumbling and humbling with the weather running wild across open moors has brought an unforeseen sense of belonging through exposure. Exposure to Gaelic folklore bringing imagination to our narrow spectrum of reception rekindling my love for the mysterious and magical world of stories I remember from my childhood. Looking through the veil to the otherworld has become a way of exploring my relationship with the environment, how the liminal time of twilight can facilitate powerful encounters through more sensual and alert processing of our surroundings. I use ceramics as the vehicle of my island exploration. Plant ashes, rocks, and bones as well as bringing discarded man-made material to the process I seek to expose other sides to things, layers of interdependency or how subtle shifts in materiality - while familiar - can hold the uncanny and mystifying richness of stories. With ceramic works situated in dark spaces partly lit by projection, I hope to encourage curiosity, exploration, and immersion.
Shetland College UHI
Karen Clubb
kdclubb@hotmail.com
The Space Between The body of work that I have developed for my Degree Show comprises a range of textile art pieces that memorialise yet transcend time, person and place. I have explored the space that lies between absence and presence to find inspiration, drawing on personal memories, family history, treasured artefacts and fragments of evidence that have been passed on through and between generations. The space between is where the process lies, and where I have responded through making to create work that is authentic and connected to a true sense of self. My work, which lies between fine art and textiles, is intensely personal, and uses textiles as a carrier for the emotions felt during the process of making. I hope my work captures an essence that connects the individual to the universal through the life experiences that touch us all – love, loss, the passage of time and the fragility of memory.
Shetland College UHI
Shannon Leslie
shannonleslieart@outlook.com
My name is Shannon Leslie, and I am a Shetland based artist. Underpinning my practice is the exploration of the ‘island’ as a metaphor. My Degree Show exhibition portrays an archipelago of works where thoughts and ideas connect and intertwine, encapsulating tangents of consciousness into a physical dream realm. Born from a venture into transcendental dream realities, my artwork explores island heritage and personal experience with place. I take inspiration from my own dreams, recording them in a personal journal of monoprints. From the narrative in my initial monoprints, I use the freedom of sculpture to delve into realms of the unknown. The act of creature-making enables me to explore the local geology of my imagined world to portray the uncanny. Drawing also represents a crucial exploration of personal identity within my work. I take inspiration from the technique of chiaroscuro to express shadow and form, giving a direct contrast of dark to light, the conscious and the subconscious world. My show aims to display the symbiotic malformation of nightmares, where the heart of the exhibition is a hand sculptured trapdoor where all my dreams are born.
Shetland College UHI
Elouise Spooner
spoonerelouise@gmail.com
For the degree show I wanted to channel the theme of girlhood, which I interpret as an ungendered look into the youthful rebellion that everyone experiences, regardless of age. In my practice I find inspiration from my experiences and create work using graphic text and images to discuss what it means to be a bit reckless and full of newfound freedom. I gravitate towards immediacy and ruggedness in creation, so use found materials rather than professional art materials. In this show I used old furniture, clothes, bed sheets, cardboard, housepaint and household ‘trash’. Once collected, the process of turning these materials into art works is energetic, intuitive, and rather messy. I take inspiration from my life primarily; however, I also pull inspiration from popular media, tattoos, poetry and song lyrics. Along with this, I ultimately reject any form of professionalism when it comes to process, and value expression and fun over perfectionism. I believe strongly in the value of a youthful voice and have worked hard to curate my installation to reflect this rebellious, out-of-the-box attitude.
Shetland College UHI
Jean Urquhart
jean@jeanurquhart.com
My purpose is to paint. To paint with the intention of reflecting my environment – as I see it. I am motivated by the colours, textures, light, sea and landscape of Shetland. But mostly I am guided by the paint and colour, painting instinctively to produce images from the mind’s eye. Whilst doing research for my dissertation I was fascinated with the work of untrained artists. I was intrigued by the work of Shetlander, Adam Christie and Angus McPhee from South Uist who were naturally creative. But as a live-long doodler, the work of Scottie Wilson and Jean Dubuffet, both self-confessed ‘doodlers’ have had an influence on my work. I am aware of not having developed a particular style and my work may seem disparate but these past four years have allowed me to investigate rather than conclude how I might use paint. I use acrylic paint and charcoal on paper, canvas, and wood.
With thanks to all staff contributing to the BA (Hons) Fine Art & Fine Art Textiles: Louise Barrington Anne Bevan Lindsay Blair Rosie Blake Paul Bloomer Brian Boag Edward Bruce Joanna Buick Samantha Clarke Simon Clarke Sarah Dearlove Kerrianne Flett Kelly France Pete Honeyman John Hunter June Hyndman Mark Jenkins Alison Lee Shaun MacDonald Anne Mackenzie Rebecca Marr Nicola Neate Gillian Neish Norman Shaw Stuart Sim Steve Smith Judy Spark Edina Szeles Kristi Tait Stacey Toner Stephanie Tristam Cordelia Underhill
image: Kayleigh Kellas, Moray School of Art
Study Fine Art at UHI If you want to study contemporary art and develop your creative skills in a vibrant and challenging environment, the BA (Hons) Fine Art degree is for you. You’ll be taught by a highly experienced team of visual practitioners, who will support you to explore and experiment with a range of fine art media. We support exploration of multiple media including painting, digital imaging, photography, drawing, spatial studies, printmaking, and textiles. You will also have support from a team of academics who will help you to write about your own work and that of other artists, whilst also establishing an awareness of industry and sector professionalism. With access to your own studio space and specialist equipment, you will have all the necessary resources at hand. Our small class sizes ensure regular contact with a diverse array of staff whose professional knowledge and expertise will enable you to develop to your fullest potential as part of a community of learners.
Find more information and apply online: moray.uhi.ac.uk/courses/ba-hons-fine-art/ orkney.uhi.ac.uk/courses/ba-hons-fine-art/ outerhebrides.uhi.ac.uk/courses/ba-hons-fine-art/ shetland.uhi.ac.uk/courses/ba-hons-fine-art/
UHI Degree Show 2022 Olga Dean Hart Tilly Howie Sergio Iannuccilli Kayleigh Kellas Sue Little Melissa Sandoval Wendy Barker Jamilla Garrett Sophie Elizabeth Mitchell Macdonald Vicki Redpath-Watson Susan J Wittingham Kathrhona Lawson Sif Nielsen Karen Clubb Shannon Leslie Elouise Spooner Jean Urquhart