Factory 15: Middlesex University BA Fine Art Degree Show 2015

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FACTORY 15 Middlesex University BA Fine Art Degree Show 2015 The Grove The Burroughs, London NW4 4BT Thu 28 May – Mon 1 June The Old Truman Brewery 91 Brick Lane, London E1 6QL Fri 5 June - Mon 8 June www.factory15.info www.mdx.ac.uk/artanddesign

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FACTORY 15

Welcome On behalf of Middlesex University Fine Art staff and students, it is my privilege to welcome you to our BA Fine Art Degree Show exhibition, FACTORY 15.

These graduating artists have not only produced the contemporary fine art work you will engage with in our exhibition but also discussed and determined its distribution and reception, its function and value. They have become as concerned with ‘how the work works’, to explore aesthetic logic and material behaviour that lead elsewhere from their initial intentions. They have become as concerned with context: whether artistic, cultural, economic, political, professional or social or one or more. They have become as concerned with the public reception of their work, with your judgment as audience. They have not made their work for you, rather to be with you and for you to be with them.

It may seem anachronistic now to think of an art school as a ‘factory’ given our post-industrial society. Still, despite the seeming immateriality or virtuality we are encouraged to believe now shapes our world, there is still very much creative labour at the heart of the process (notwithstanding how ‘the process’ may have changed). In this ‘factory’ of creative labour we respond to the precarity and contingency of the social and economic world our graduates will enter as professional practitioners. A difficult prospect, yes, but we are certain their resourcefulness, ability, knowledge and skills will set them apart and enable them to thrive amidst such uncertainty and change.

Thank you very much for visiting our exhibition.

Roddy Hunter Director of Programmes, Fine Art

Photography: Emma Saffy Wilson

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FACTORY 15

This is just another threshold in your life, it won’t be the first and certainly there will be more to negotiate, but for many of you this will have been the first opportunity to try on that second hand suit of clothes that we call art and endeavour to make it your own. For some of you the fit will be perfect, for others it may take a bit of shuffling around; but for all of you, the experience of reflecting upon yourselves in the context of art will have certainly enriched your insight to the extent that you are more able to identify the next move in your game.

For it is just a game, but what a game. As artists, it is more than learning specific skillsets, you are joining a family that is global and has been around for millennia and it is my firm belief that through the shared experience of forging poetic sense from brute material you are able to empathise with sensibilities way beyond the scope of your personal experience. Before you became involved in art, this would have been a closed shop, but now you have experienced the practical scope of your dreams and will have made some pretty fundamental choices about yourselves and your horizons.

Of course, it doesn’t stop here. We have exposed you to particular discourses within a particular context. You will have made friendships and allegiances that will in all probability last you a lifetime and you will have learned to find your voice within a particular institutional environment with particular resources subject to particular constraints. Next time round it will be different again. You will not necessarily have the

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benign presence of tutorial staff to respond with absolute seriousness to whatever you challenge them with, no matter how preposterous it may be; but you will also no longer be obliged to make your enquiry subject to a specific academic framework.

Sometimes the difference will be felt with relief, sometimes with trepidation. Those of you who continue to postgraduate study will experience a complete gear change in discourse and an opportunity to dig yourselves in deeper; for others, it might be as simple as a change in the height or breadth of the room you use, whether it has natural light or not and whether it serves well as a space for reflection.

Inevitably this leads to new thresholds associated with all of those difficult life decisions about how to find time and space to make practical sense of a vocation for which there may not be immediate pecuniary reward. This will bring you face to face with the implications of the difficult decision you made so lightly so many years ago to follow art as a vocation, but you will know, that however it works out for you, it will be never the same again. The experience of thinking and making as an artist equips you to have a hand in your own destiny, wherever it may take you. You acquire a level of certainty within an uncertain world.

Simon Read Associate Professor

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Photography: Emma Saffy Wilson

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FACTORY 15

‘What if ?...‘ It takes a leap of faith - these days - to study Fine Art. Where will it lead? Does it guarantee a career or job - what’s the point?

Yet one could equally ask why would you not study art? Art provides us with a unique way of thinking. As a way of processing things, ideas and events, it offers a reflective outlook on the world – using all the senses – and allows for political and sociological commentary, encouraging us to ponder and convey an aspect of what it is to be human.

As a fellow artist (and latterly as a part time research student myself) I have enjoyed the many conversations we have had over three years with this year’s graduates – the first to be inspired by and recruited at our new Hendon building, the first to shoulder the increased fee burden - and have been privileged to assist in the navigation of concepts, the development of projects and the flourishing of ideas. These students have tested boundaries - of mind and matter - have taken risks, tested materials, deliberated on how their works can best be presented and received and experienced the moment when a work of art finally stands on its own and speaks to others.

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Art fosters curiosity and presents the challenge of working through concepts, materials and processes to make something tangible, that has meaning. These students have developed expertise in trains of thought and in the acquisition of practical skills. They have experienced the excitement of collaborations and connected with other, like-minded artists in the field. They have learnt about the roles of the studio, the sketchbook, the importance of experimentation, of research, the value of editing work and have reaped the huge rewards inherent in showing work, reaching audiences and eliciting responses.

So, art? As a means to access so many thoughts, objects, places, people and experiences, is a rich choice: as a way of thinking and as a way of life?

Why not.

Tansy Spinks Senior Lecturer

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Photography: Emma Saffy Wilson

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Claire Agius

Through my BA Fine Art at Middlesex, my art practice has narrowed itself down to the order found in natural form and repetitive patterns. Patterns in nature create links between elements and people and suggest that perhaps there is a bigger meaning to life on earth. These patterns show that even in the complete randomness of the outside world and wildlife, one can find order and a feeling of belonging. As someone who struggles with organization and finding purpose in everyday life, this concept of repetition and controlled nature becomes a sort of appeasement and source of positivity and hope.

My work generally reverberates with bright colours and metallic tones of gold, bronze and silver. This use of vivid colour is an attempt for the audience to feel the warm and joyful side of life rather than the grey and horror filled world we witness and read about in the papers daily.

Observing my personal progress as an artist, it can be said that my style, while very much linked to abstraction, also incorporates a very methodical approach revealing my appreciation for control. This duality between chance derived from impulsive art experiments and the expected result of controlled art making is a juxtaposition with the incongruences and order found in nature.

claireagius93@gmail.com

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Vienna Barbetti

As an artist I am inspired by the world around me; I find inspiration everywhere. I am always creating work that can transmit the same feeling or essence I find in objects.

Working with nature has always been one of my favourite interests as an artist. As a young child I collected many flowers, that my mother used to dry and then hang them around the house. I have decided to work with roses as it was someone’s favourite flower closest to me, my grandmother.

My grandmother was my main inspiration as we used flowers, sepcifically the rose, her favourite flower, to help her remember of her past which she had forgotten due to her Alzheimers. Although memories can fade and be distorted between reality and fantasies, memories are the imperfect portrayal of that of the past which is reconstructed and reinterpreted over time.

Through research I have identified that over a period of time memories are vulnerable to corruption and because of this I have decided to create my work in mixed media, mostly metal that is easy to change form but hard to destruct over time, the complete opposite of the flowers’ fragile and delicate form.

Even though a rose goes through the process of ageing rather quickly, I wanted to be sure that my pieces of work would not ‘die’ over time but keep their appearance, making sure that the essence of the flower remains. I wanted to find the beauty created by nature and re-create those forms in a material that would retain its form.

I believe that memories are what makes an individual whist growing up, affecting the person they become when they are older as if memories are the backbones of each one of us. Memories are a way of holding on to the things you love and never want to lose.

viennabarbetti@hotmail.com

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Daniel Bayliss

Although it is bloated and egotistical, I promise that what you are about to read is a functioning testament of myself as a creative.

I have encountered some creative solace in the drawing-room and, for example, while playing with a camera. I recently found my faith in the critical function of still images so diminished that I began experimenting in the temporal arts. I take an odd pleasure in the fact I can spend five weeks isolated in the garret, making libels, and then spend an equal duration making sketches with others.

The film that I wrote is about traditionalism vis-a-vis modernism or vice versa. One may view the subject matter as being controversial – you’d probably be right. I, however, found it fitting; as I am of the opinion that the transfiguring of debates to aesthetics makes for superlative art.

I hope that my future work will both represent and uphold the notion of humanitas. I understand that this not a new method. But what do I really mean when I think or say that word? I find this to be a question worth re-asking.

It wasn’t until half way through my third year at art school that I realized that I was a compulsive liar. Not ordinarily, i.e. in the jostlings of everyday life, was I a liar; no. I realised unreality was something I wanted to manufacture either as a hobby or trade. Now sir, the kind of artist that I am is a liar; no serious artist ever tells the truth.

If I were frivolous, I’d suggest that Freudian analysis is the best lens through which to see my work. I put this down to the fact that, during my Second Year, I read ‘The Dream Work’ and Lateral Thinking in the same sitting and then awoke in Swansea. The problem with lenses, as you know, is that, in their transparency somethings are made clearer, while other things are made obscure.

Although I clearly erred much in the process of my final work at art school, the screenplay, I did enjoy doing it enough that I must go on to see how much I can improve. Perhaps, I think, the pleasure and compulsion will outweigh the disappointments.

djbayliss@hotmail.co.uk

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Laura Birtwistle

‘Insofar as its order is that of pure relationship, the grid is a way of abrogating the claims of natural objects to have an order particular to themselves; the relationships in the aesthetic field are shown by the grid to be in a world apart and, with respect to natural objects, to be both prior and final. The grid declares the space of art to be at once autonomous and autotelic.’ Rosalind Krauss, 1979

Measurement provides us with a universal paradigm with which to quantify our surroundings, and this use of rational logic allows us to consistently reach new levels of understanding regarding our existence. A particular system that utilises this paradigm spatially is the grid. It serves as an armature on which structures can be created in an organized fashion.

The grid has always been an integral part of my practice, whether it be as a visual tool applied to the production of figurative works, or employing it as the structural basis for the work itself. Overall, it is a reflection on my need to order and exercise an element of control.

In pattern making, the grid plays a fundamental role in maintaining regularity during the production process; this property is consistent with my current line of reasoning. It is also consistent with the production process itself; the method of silk screen printing resonates certain mechanistic and systematic attributes of the grid.

The autonomy of the formal elements boasts a particular need to control. By creating and arranging geometric abstractions I am rejecting the concept of the work being representational of anything external to itself. It remains a self-referential, controlled outcome.

laurabirtwistle@outlook.com

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Ala Bogdanovic

“To build a future, you have to know the past” Otto Frank 1 In post-Soviet times in Lithuania everything Russian became subject to negotiation. Language reformation and forced Lithuanisation affected most people holding Russian names, for example: Anna become Ana, Inna - Ina, Ella - Ela, Alla - Ala. That’s me.

As a dual conflictual status Russian-Lithuanian émigré I embody this territory of negotiation: I am compelled to respond to specific social and political issues such as discrimination and racism which myself and my family have been victims of. The fate of the family and the fate of the country are intertwined; the political and the personal overlapped. One aggression is causing another aggression.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in 1939 divided Eastern Europe, and the Baltic States were bloodlessly incorporated into the USSR. The people in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania called this ambiguous event as an ‘occupation’ and it has been a burning issue in relations between Russia and the Baltic nations ever since. During the initial years of post WWII Soviet regime, thousands of local people from the Baltic states were arrested and exiled in Siberia through the ‘Criminal Law Act of RSFSR (1938), Number 58 (a,b or c)’ and convicted of ‘Homeland Treason’ or of being a ‘Public Enemy’. Am I supposed to be answerable for the sins of leaders from the distant past? From a loyal patriot I have become an enemy of my own homeland, – a ‘Russian occupier’ – , a label that follows one everywhere in Lithuania.

I have my way to answer for my historical past and I do this by adopting different registers –playful, serious, documentary– and a range of media – sculpture, performance, film– to explore a fugitive/unstable sense of identity both ethnic and artistic: What does it mean to belong to a group, a country...a genre, a scene? ________________________ 1 Otto Heinrich “Pim” Frank (12 May 1889 – 19 August 1980) was a German-born businessman and the father of Anne Frank. As the sole member of his family to survive the Holocaust, he inherited Anne’s manuscripts after her death, arranged for the publication of her diary in 1947, and oversaw its transition to the stage and screen. #AllaBogArt www.AllaBogArt.com AllaBogArt@gmail.com allabogart.blogspot.com

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Christopher Butcher-Calderon (1.1) Statement: something”

“a definite or clear expression of

(1.12) Definite:

”clearly true or real; unambiguous”

(1.13) Certainty:

“a fact that is definitely true”

(1.2) It seems that to make a statement is to assert certainty (2.1) I am almost completely certain that I cannot be

completely certain

(2.2) Therefore, it seems unseemly to make a statement

________________________ 1 Pearsall, J. (ed.) New Oxford Dictionary of English, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, ...2001. p. 1816 2 ibid. p. 483 3 ibid. p. 298

calcalderon@hotmail.co.uk

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Melissa Caplan

My work explores the cultural understanding of beauty and ugliness and their parameters within our society. I am interested in the margins of these categories and the moments when they can be traversed - playing with the thin line between them. To this end I question the desire to conform to certain ‘idealised’ notions and celebrate those who can’t or won’t conform.

‘Today, since one of the greatest political issues we face is the progressive cyborgization of humanity, art should be, and actually is, a major source, of our insights about our cyborg society.’

Chris Hables Grey, Cyborg Citizen, 2002

Cyborgization is a springboard and catchall, which encompasses my interests; exploring the difference between plastic and cosmetic surgery; medical intervention and design by medical interference….and all the messing we can and will do with nature and ourselves. The implications of cyborgization are not only crucial for feminism and issues of gender but for all human society. I am not ignoring the obvious dystopian vision, but I also view this as a, ‘cup half full’ too. This future reality has both sides of the coin, it is both good and bad.

I explore my ideas using methods of making that are a ‘Frankenstein’ process; using collage, photography, colouring in, light boxes and a range of media and methods in close juxtaposition. I use whatever media are appropriate to my ideas, finding ways to make my ponderings visible, through film, sculptor and photography, working them through to my own conclusion.

m_caplan@sky.com

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Mingjun Chen

A Memory Tree The memory of childhood is the purest thing and most innocent moment in life. A tree represents the stages of grown up from small to big; for us, the human is from a baby to a teenage and become an adult. Every stage of growing up takes a little innocence away from us and we become more stressed by problems around us, we aren’t as happy as how we were anymore.

A tree is like a guardian in a fairy tale. Among the branches, they hide our happiness and memories from the past. My painting of the tree demonstrates the contrast between childhood and adulthood. The painting represents the impression of kindness, to draw people back to the memories without stress and struggle.

The concept is to get people slowly more relaxed as they ‘read’ the painting as a contrast between childhood and adulthood. It will remind them of something more meaningful and fun in the past.

MC1513@live.mdx.ac.uk

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Emma Chilvers

Anatomy, the human form and the exposure of its inner workings has formed the inspiration for my work for the past three years. I have gone from creating images of dripping skin; highlighting the details of the bodies surface, to exposing the inner of the human body, and its effect on our bodily structure and formation. Through this I have gained an appreciation for the body’s delicate and intricate, yet remarkably tough, form.

e.chilvers@hotmail.co.uk

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Katie Collen

My practice primarily focuses on various aspects of animal identity; the effects their aesthetic qualities have on the welfare of the animal itself in creating new offspring for a new species, i.e. hybrid animals, as well as expanding the awareness regarding the risks of scientifically creating new animal species.

Animals are the key focus in my practice because I get feel that there are so many areas that can be explored within the animal culture, and as an animal lover myself, it’s a true passion to analyse them in my own creative manner.

In my third year at university I plan to create art as an awareness tool, as the beauty of the animal is typically the reason why humans kill them. Poaching is a huge part of illegal trading in certain parts of the world and this has inspired my approach to the topic of animals.

I work mainly in drawing and sculpture that vary in size depending on what compliments the animal I’m portraying. My practice branches out into a range of different styles going from fine water colour paintings to oil paintings -all with different techniques that enhance the overall collection of my work - which adds an element of authenticity.

katie.collen@hotmail.co.uk

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Josephine Cottrell ‘I cannot describe anything more clearly about reality than my own relation to reality.’

Gerhard Richter For a long time I have been interested in the way that we occupy and interact with different architectural spaces, and in turn how the differences in architecture, such as the size or shape of a room, effect the way we feel and interact with each other (particularly as strangers).

My current work examines architectural spaces in much closer detail. Taking sections of spaces and enlarging them to the point where they are almost abstract, the imagery plays on the idea of our awareness of the spaces we occupy fading in and out of our awareness.

An important aspect of creative process is not to work toward a final image directly from life. I have found that more interesting and personal interpretations are created when working from other sources. In particular I like to work from ‘poor quality’ photographs, where details are lost and other shapes and tones become more prominent. As my aim is to create work far removed from its original form, I have found this the best way to begin the a piece, as it immediately force myself and the viewer to fill in gaps with their own interpretations of what ‘should’ be there.

For these pieces I used a black and white photographic screen print of figures silhouetted in the London underground that I made in 2012. I then blew up sections of the print with a photocopier. This created some interesting imagery but I decided to push the work further, photo etching the images onto steel and printing them again. As I had hoped the images were even further removed from their original form. New shapes, textures and tones coming through the etching process, the work is now a vague abstraction of its original subject.

My hope is that the imagery gives viewers some vague and fading awareness of the original content of the work, reflecting the way our awareness of our surrounding fades in and out in reality, however an important aspect of the work is that it is to be seen and interpreted differently as the individual and person response of each viewer, even if that means it is viewed as simply black shapes.

‘Often one is blind to the fact that there is another way to see what is there.’

Jasper Johns

jo_cottrell@hotmail.com

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Aysegul Dalga

For my project, I have decided to take a game design/animation approach yet again (continuing from last year, but instead of going into in depth detailing in Minecraft, I’ve decided to take the game out into the real world), as I see myself more in that field as well as having a passion for games and also gaming in general. By doing this, I have decided to use Minecraft, a game about breaking and placing blocks. In Minecraft, at first, people built structures to protect against nocturnal monsters, but as the game grew players worked together to create wonderful, imaginative things. As my starting point I constructed my childhood home, first using the in-game facilities and later constructing it using cardboard and a hot glue gun.

My aim this time is to bring the digital world into reality – to give an illusion. By achieving this, I have found printable textures and DIY mods (pigs, creepers, characters) that are used to symbolise Minecraft, which I have carefully assembled using a scalpel and glue to add to the illusion and possibly make it interactive as the characters can be moved around in or out of the house, as if you were playing ‘house’. I have attached the brick textures onto the cardboard walls to mimic what I have already done on Minecraft and to also give colour and I intend to camouflage the cardboard texture as much as I can with a variety of different textures.

gildedi_91@hotmail.co.uk

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Rebecca Dawe

Religion for me is something that I was born in to, like family, there was no choice given but only an obligation to learn, like the same bed time story being read to you every night. My work Revelations is a reflection of the question that built a wall in my mind, “What is Religion?� Through these images I have found a way to show the history that has imprinted within me, I dare to challenge an idea that without proof how does anything truly exist and why would we continue to believe in it. Hope can be a beautiful and cruel thing but through this piece I believe I have created an ending.

My Revelations.

rebeccadawe1144@outlook.com rebeccadawe1144@wordpress.ac.uk

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Keshia Davis

I have always found it amazing how with photography you can capture and keep the most very special moments as a reminder. Seeing your new born baby or taking a picture with your loved ones and your partner on a wedding day. As an artist I believe photography allows me to do this. Throughout this year I have gained a wider knowledge of developing different media in photography and one thing I have fallen in love with is my Polaroid camera. It is the most instantaneous form of photography and not only does it take pictures quickly; it prints them almost as fast. It really reminds me of the retro counterpart my parents would use to capture baby photos of my siblings and me. That being said, I do love the more basic photographs but what I enjoy even more are very surreal photos. They’re photos that grab the attention of an audience for their unusual and unreal approach.

This has resulted in a merger of these two ideas together in my work, as I really wanted to be able to use both. My two ideas not only merge Polaroids and surreal photos but also allow me to combine photographs of animals and humans. I chose to use animals, as I believe they can describe a person’s personality. Each of the images shows a unique symbolism to that person. I got this particular idea from the Chinese zodiac where each animal has a representation and character description of people born in that particular year. Each animal I have chosen represents how I feel about their personality.

I have included a video alongside each of the animal heads, which will give a better insight to the representation of the images shown. It will also show individual meaning towards the person in the image e.g. if I put a chicken’s head on a person’s body, it may be because I sense they’re frightened or easily scared. They may disagree with my interpretation but I feel this makes the images more unique and personal. The images being placed in a Polaroid really adds to that personal feeling a Polaroid gives you. In these surreal combined photos I have further widened the feeling of individuality by making these self-taken images which is also known as a ‘selfie’ for short or a portrait.

keshia_d@hotmail.co.uk

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Yasemin Der

Wonderland ‘If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.’

‘Wonderland’: the limbo between dream and reality. Why wonderland? My journey began when I went to Hightgate Cemetery, I came across this arch covered with leaves and vines twisting and twirling around the columns and the arch itself. Nature had taken over. Once I entered through the arch I felt as if I had fallen into the rabbit’s hole. I turned to my left and there was a row of doors, as my eyes wondered I saw that each door on my left had a partner facing them. I carried on walking upwards alongside the surrounding doors until I reached the top, the journey from the beginning of the arch, through the pathways of doors to the end of the pathway was merely a moment or two however the architecture and the atmosphere had stopped time for that moment and made me feel as though I was in a wonderland. All that I could see were these tunnels, arches and doorways. I have always had this fascination with tunnels and doorways.

They represent a way into the unknown. If I took that fascination and that experience I had at Highgate then I could create my wonderland, that essence of dream, the endless possibilities.

As well as creating this wonderland I wanted the painting to have that reality aspect.

The limbo between dream and reality. I wanted to create that ‘clash’. Have you ever had that dream where you are falling? It felt so real right? I wanted to capture that in my painting. That even though I am painting this wonderland, reality would bleed into this dream that I would create.

Egg tempera was the key to archiving this. I collected plants and waited for them to dry out however instead of grinding the plants into powered pigment; I left a majority of the plant intact to create texture which gave the painting movement and physicality.

Those who view the painting ask, what is at the end of the tunnel? A doorway to where?

What is behind each door? Honestly? I am not even sure where they are going. Each viewer has their own interpretation to where the doorways, pathways and tunnels are going but what I do know is that either way, any road with get me there.

yazzy_jazzy@live.co.uk

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Catherine Deeley My exploration into the representation of young parenthood, specifically motherhood, emerged through my reflection upon my younger sister’s pregnancy, aged nineteen. As the older sibling, I instantly felt protective and began to search, in order to understand, the societal and political sensationalized ideas on the subject. I began by trying to work with individuals willing to share their stories, collecting them via email, interviews and ongoing conversation.

My aim in doing this was to use these narratives as a way of asking my audience to understand and reflect upon these experiences. At the same time, I had conversations with professionals such as midwives and organizations, including charities all connected to motherhood in some way. These talks included interviewing older women who have experienced ‘young motherhood’, current young parents, and parents-to-be so that my research involved a widespread scope of attitudes. From portrait paintings to textual and audio commentary, I aim to deliver an alternative representation of young parenthood to that of the mainstream.

Throughout art history motherhood has been represented, historically through idealized imagery from the Virgin Mary to Victorian sentimental pre-Raphaelite works. More recently artists have begun to question these representations and engage with their personal, passionate experiences of motherhood. An artwork that specifically inspired my work was Judy Chicago’s The Birth Project’, in which she collaborated with over 150 women. Likewise, social engagement features heavily in my artistic concerns. Chicago is not a mother herself; nor am I – hence my awareness of my response emulating the voices of others, instead of speaking for them. Photographers Catherine Opie and, more recently, Jendella Benson are also influences of mine. Suzanne Lacy was the first figure to influence me from within the socially engaged art world.

One of the main elements within my visual work is the power of expression within an alternative context, more recently, combined with text. My aim is to express the oppression and victimization so often ignored yet created by society and the mass media.

Similarly, the use of written work hopes to signify the honesty and authenticity of real people sharing their first person stories and emotions, mediating the young parents experience for an audience, as an artist. These representations of young motherhood can be truthful and powerful, yet allow a subtle distance where I do not share the experience of motherhood directly.

xcatherinemarie@hotmail.co.uk

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John Dobson

In my approach to the 3rd Year Degree show my focus has been in particular landscapes from Wales and Snowdonia. My concept is the relationship between landscape and still life and I have incorporated them together by firstly painting all different landscapes and then painting all different objects in and around a place called Parndon Mill which is a place in Harlow. Whilst doing my art practice I had a commission for a Turkish cafĂŠ, but sadly the person that wanted the painting refused to accept my painting so I have included it within my end of year exhibition. This picture is of some snow peaked mountains in Turkey. What I have tried to do in some of my paintings is to express light and how one colour becomes another colour by means of analysis. I have done a series of about 20 pictures, but I have only exhibited 5 pictures in this 3rd year exhibition and these pictures are the very best that I have done. At the start of the year I began painting all different landscapes partly as an exercise to improve my skills as a painter. I know it is hard to link landscape with still life by looking at my artworks, but this is what I have tried to do.

JD778@live.mdx.ac.uk

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Muge Dogandor

My current practice grew out of visits back home to Istanbul and conversations I had with my grandmother who was gradually losing her memory through Alzheimer’s. I felt a desire to gather together pictures and words that could tell her stories and also explore the process of loss. I was further inspired by visits to the Istanbul flea markets, a repository of old magazines, newspapers and Ottoman prints, a jumbling together of Turkish history.

I’m interested in exploring the process of collecting and presenting personal and cultural history and considering how visual and textual documents can represent what is known as well as what is missing. My work uses found materials, printmaking and collage as the basis of mixed media works that explore elements of my family history. I have been influenced by Tacita Dean’s work and how she presents found text and visual materials, reflecting the subjective, incomplete and intriguing elements of investigating stories about the past.

I investigate how scale and methods of display can evoke for the viewer how large and powerful memory is, containing many invisible elements. I explore processes in printmaking and collage that reflect the complexity of memory through layering of image, text and threads. Accidental printing processes, as well as deliberate scrubbing and subtraction for me express the fragility of individual memory and how it can vanish. I use elements of textiles and nostalgic colours to evoke photographs of past eras, in an attempt to revisit the past.

mdogandor@hotmail.com www.mugedogandor.com

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Jeody Etchien

In my photography and video works, I try to capture moments or events that tell a story to engage subjects that are sensitive within society, addressing issues of identity, sexuality, acceptance and equality. I want to provoke my viewers into thinking seriously about experiences beyond their own and give them another perspective, particularly concerning the experience of LGBT community. I want them to ask and reflect upon what we think? How we feel? What do we do? And begin to understand the difficulties for LGBT people within society.

This year, I’m trying to think outside, trying to combine photography and videography and include text. The texts would provide clues to the content and interpretation. A diary will be available for the viewers to read through so that they can have a feel of what it feels like to be us.

While creating this work, the question I been asking myself is what is it so difficult to accept the LGBT? This is our truth! Our pain!

Why stereotype, categorize us making us feel like we don’t matter. Aren’t we human too? People may not know but theses issues can be overwhelming and stressful. That is why I chose to do videography where the viewers can see and feel the emotions others and I feel on a daily basis.

This year, I want to finish it with courage, the work, the journey is more about accepting who I am as a person and not caring about what people think. I’m creating this work because it’s very personal and I do feel like a piece of me is going to be revealed. Not a lot of people can do that. I don’t know what reactions I will get but I surely hope it will help someone out there. PEACE, LOVE AND ABUNDANCE!

jeodyetchien@hotmail.co.uk

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Paige Fashoni

The phenomenon of the starved self focuses on body image as a new and evolving phenomenon in society and culture, the exposure of the ‘perfect body ideal’, and the effects this has on peoples lives. I began creating a collection of work hoping to trigger and promote dialogue and further understanding into a world of eating disorders and negative body images. Intrigued by this new and evolving culture, my work is heavily influenced by the constant exposure of body image in the media, whilst being influenced by artists focusing on body image, such as Jenny Saville, L.A. Raeven, and Judith Shaw.

My work captures the truth of what it is like – when body image, exercise, and weight consumes our minds and takes priority over everything else human. The form my work takes reveals the inner viciousness and demolition an eating disorder can manifest, whilst the physical exterior remains perfectly in tact. It focuses on how an individual is lost, their identity stolen, and their minds consumed – all that is left is their body, an outer shell. What is the relationship between body image and identity? Are we defining ourselves by manufacturing a socially approved and admired exterior? My pieces capture the emotional and physical bondage of these complex illnesses, whilst also exploring the trials and tribulations that come hand in hand.

My work takes many forms. Sculpture is one of my most enjoyable mediums, as it allows my work to come to life, portraying realist bodies. I am intrigued by limitless form and the use of sculpture has allowed me to bring anything to life, in any shape, style, or size. My work doesn’t fit any specific genre and the pieces blend combinations of material that depend on the narrative I am portraying.

I aim to encourage reflection and discussion on eating disorders and body image through my work, and create contemporary art furthering an understanding into a world of eating disorders and negative body image, that I believe, is neglected.

pkfashioni@hotmail.com

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Cylvans Fauvette

My work is symbolically depicting / reflecting my vision and reflection on historical and spiritual matters. My interest in Ancient Civilisations’ ritual practice and culture is partly due to my origins but also seeking to strengthen my knowledge and unframe my identity. I have come across the foundation and the fundamental of these breath-taking ancient wonders all based, raised and built on understanding of spirituality. I find these artefacts inspiring and uplifting, the art present in ritual ceremonies, sacred temples and villages houses and walls. My daily practices explore the ways an African culture progresses and evolves in a foreign environment, enjoying the conversation it awakens as it involves two slightly different cultures that complement each other the multiple misunderstandings that occurred in history and still to this day. Reversing or replacing the usual Westernised representation by an African subject, whether it is sculptural artefacts or portraits depicting individuals originating from the African continents but evolving in a western society or somehow influence by it directly or indirectly.

At time reflecting on historical events of the past adding my own perspective to it and just reversing the roles in order to change the mood revolving around the subject , I translate visions and dreams in a fictive way. I aim to explore different dimensions and attempt to open other realms, allowing more freedom to the viewer’s imagination or speculations on a capacity to perceive the possibility of a parallel reality where happenings of history as we know it today is a fiction and our perception of fiction is becoming real. I invite the viewer to step in my shoes and see his usual surroundings through my eyes; it is a journey between time and spiritual dimensions that I share to incite the viewer’s minds to step beyond his own reality and relocate his position by reflecting on this multiple aspects of matter.

khemetology_973@hotmail.co.uk

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Marion-Faith Fraser

My art practice is a means of both self-expression and self-discovery. I encounter my innate narcissism head on, literally through casting my body and argue that, to look at self in all aspects is to accept that this is necessary for growth and healing.

In making, deconstructing and reconstructing myself, I have discovered the value of the cocoon. In this protective, molding space, I have been able to explore inner and outer self. What had begun as a process integral to body casting, has now become a major part of my work. The performative acts of making are captured to celebrate the childlike enthusiasm my work allows and is sustained by. This lyrical play is what would I like to call ‘authentic theatricality’.

Moving this from studio to gallery space causes my artwork to transition to a staged exploration of my authentic art practice. This enables me to share my joy and my concerns with the viewer.

mff135@gmail.com

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Erika Ferreira

Wipe if off!

From make up on your face to make up on a canvas. Instead of acrylic and oil paints, This year I found myself using different materials to paint with, such as makeup products. Using these products you have to be skilled in a way, which is quite an artistic thing by applying it everyday. It’s a great talent and skill to apply make up on yourselves if you know how too. Using that talent I’ve decided to do it on a canvas.

Doing this experiment it then made me wonder the reasons why women wear make up and many reasons are because of self confidence and beauty. Talking to these women and finding out why, make up is a product made to cover up and hide what’s underneath which then brings that confidence up by looking beautiful.

So then my main focus was to ask women who wore make up to wipe their faces with a face wipe and the results from the face to the wipe was amazing as to how much makeup would come out and the amazing patten that showed all the confidence on a face wipe.

erikaferreira1410@hotmail.com

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Channah Gearing

Life experiences are a great inspiration to create artwork which is the source within my artworks especially in particular the experiences that have made me grow as a person.

My current inspiration has come from my experience in working in the striptease industry and I decided to use this experience as it has influenced a lot of positive changes within myself.

Many outsiders of this industry view striptease as a seedy industry, which I had done before my eyes were opened, but discovered it is classy and tasteful and has help me gain a tremendous amount of confidence in my everyday life as well as my dancing life.

I find myself feeling liberated as a woman because of this industry and my adolescent insecurity has faded away and given me strength to take any challenge head on.

I enjoy the concept of the theatrical which this industry is really about. It is about creating a fantasy which is an escape for the client and the dancer and an alter ego is created by the dancer. My alter ego character is Scarlett which is a very traditional English rose character with a very old Hollywood bombshell look which is seen in burlesque which is another element within my character that adds a sassy and sexy demeanour. With using an alter ego I have taken an essence of ‘Scarlett’ in my normal life and this character is now a part of me.

With this being the main concept of my artwork I have created a series of works revolving around the striptease industry from my own perspective, through paintings, photography and live performance I have created this artwork to show this industry from my positive perspective and show as many scenarios as possible relating to this theme as there are many perspectives involved within this industry.

cgearing89@googlemail.com

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Martina Geier

The work is a pure enjoyment of exploring places that most people wouldn’t go to and it testifies to political upheaval and the importance of place to a sense of identity.

‘The experience of maneuvering mazes and obstacles of days gone by. The adrenaline rush of the unexpected. Finding footprints where you wouldn’t expect them’ - Urban Explorers.

It is also travelling into time and imagining what was. Consequently, the imagination plays a major part in this work. By the swiftness of its action, the imagination separates us from the past as well as from reality. If we can imagine it, we can create it.

geier.martina@gmail.com

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Gabriela Giroletti

My paintings cannot be seen as individuals, but as a group that epitomize an impatient person. I am persistently curious about the materiality of things. The backlit computer screen has transformed the way images are experienced today. Being interested in how things meet in space and looking back at the way technology has advanced, my work began to reference a world determined by the computer, enriched by the many new visual conventions familiar to the Internet generation.

The amalgam between human spontaneity and the virtual world characterizes my work, where the use of high colour and hard edges clash with more impulsive mark making. It addresses architecture and questions the value of commercial design, whilst echoing the multifacetedness of Cubism. As a result of this empirical exploration I started to consider human experience while transferring these images from a digital dimension into an analogue, historical visual language.

Accepting painting as a multidisciplinary and unimpeachable medium, I start working by drawing from nature or architecture. Subsequently these references are drawn, redrawn and reworked digitally. My work happens through a process of continuous making, editing and re-arranging. The playfulness of my use of colour and the dynamic of its expressive potential plays a vital role in the development of my visual language, fully connected with the technological aesthetics of contemporary culture.

gabrielagiroletti@gmail.com

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Melissa Greenwood

My work is a visual clarification and depiction of memory misfortune inside the mind when degenerative ailments’ similar to AD and dementia happens and advances. ‘Dementia’ is an umbrella term like ‘tumour’. We know when we hear that somebody is diagnosed with disease that there is a whole other world to the story. We know to solicit which organs or parts from the body are affected in this case the mind. You need to start to detach your memory, if in odds and ends, to understand that memory is the thing that makes our lives, existence without memory in no life whatsoever. Our memory is our soundness, our reason our inclination, even our activity.

Undoubtedly our memories are what make us. However in the event that there are no memories does this mean we are no longer ourselves? Our identities are produced using the greater part of our past encounters and how we handle distinctive circumstances throughout our life, however in the event that all that has been detracted from us regardless, we still have our ‘identities’. I say identities on the grounds that there is no line or distinction in the middle of good and bad. We would no more have the mental intelligibility to know the distinction, in the same way as a kid needs to discover that on the off chance that you touch a hot iron, you’ll be harmed. I accept that you will continually have various identity issues. Size and scale are both looked into when I consider the thought of both immersion and fragmentation. This recommends a viewer encountering or feeling the work from inside, as opposed to outside in the regulating origination of an ‘art object’ being looked at from outside.

mgreenwood222@gmail.com

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Nermin Hassan

‘Sweet Love’ is about the obsession and the passionate love of observing sweets up close; the situations one would go through to feel closer to the subject/object of desire and the lengths one would go through to achieve it. Why? Simply because I am a sweet-a-holic! They have become something I can’t resist and therefore are my biggest weakness. ‘So why the dramatic poses?’ you may ask…

The most intriguing part of my project I found to be was exploring the meanings and imagery caused by words related to any person’s ‘over the top’ obsession with something; I found passion, lust, love, utopia, intimacy, joy and pleasure. These very words are what have helped me create my works of art and I believe have been quite a kick compared to one having a subtle habit. The aim was to be LOUD. LOUD to aware that there are such extreme obsessions existing.

Quite dramatically presented I’m aware, but being dramatic and weird is the best way to get a buzz in this world, especially with similar companions. Peace!

nermin_hassan@hotmail.co.uk

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Kirsten Henery

Using the human body as a medium in my art work has always been important to me. I find it interesting to explore the body and experiment with it in as many ways as I can.

Immersing myself into my work is another important factor to me, for my most recent work I have also been looking at ways I can involve the viewer more.

Illusions have fascinated me for a long time now; tricking the brain for a short while to create a state where you get lost in the illusion and lose all other senses, to find yourself completely immersed in the present moment and transporting to another place is a key part of my work. Two artists that have inspired me are Bridget Riley and Yayoi Kusama. Both artists have inspired me to create art that deceives the eye but stimulates the brain.

Patterns, designs and textiles are also vital to me. I have been looking at the discourse of patterns and how we have adapted to use them in everyday life. Jessica Hemmings has been my main influence on this subject. I have been exploring ways that I can use patterns and designs on the body without wearing a piece of clothing.

kirsten.henery@hotmail.co.uk

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Jane Hinde I’ve always been fascinated by social and political change; the point at which there is a qualitative shift from one condition into another. How that occurs, is experienced and understood is the stuff of history and social anthropology. In my art practice that fascination still remains but the journey has been in both the spatial and temporal dimension.

Thresholds and borders have become interesting sites of investigation and the challenge has been how I express my feelings in that new context.

The mode of my work has moved from a static form of expression in traditional materials, such as clay and cement which denote permanence, to the use of more transmutable materials such as rubber, wax and latex. This has invariably involved representing the human body. More recently I have used photography and film to explore threshold or borders in physical space and to reflect altered states.

My latest work is a 6 minute audio recording with no imagery titled, ‘What more can I say?’ The installation comprises a table set between two chairs, running vertically from three sheets of lined paper, each 5ft x 3ft, hanging on the wall. All three show handwritten words - largely illegible - alongside ‘doodles’ written and drawn by me while I listened to tape recordings of police interrogation, extracts of which can be heard in the headphones placed on the table.

The objective of the work is to immerse the listener in the world of police interrogation.

Five different suspects, each arrested and suspected of various criminal offences being asked questions and will face prosecution and possibly prison if they admit to these offences and are found guilty. In real time these interviews lasted five hours. In order to distill the process by which the language of interrogation could be laid bare, I edited the interviews to 6 minutes.

In these samples, I want to show the language of authority; its operation of moral prompters of judgement, its supposed power of persuasion and coercion. Throughout these extracts, the police refer to a higher authority, something outside and beyond ourselves. It is this I find fascinating, the interpolation, the attempted intervention - the purpose of which is to make the suspect admit. This attempt to change someone’s mind, to bring about a change of ‘heart’ is an exchange, underpinned by an unspecified accountability. My involuntary responses to hearing this calling up of a superior moral authority are shown - powerless, unable to intervene, the excessive marks in my defeat.

The interview between the priest and the republican prisoner in Steve McQueen’s film, ‘Hunger’ highlights the role of authority underpinning decisions and attempts at confession or coercion. Another film which still resonates with me is ‘The Offence’, directed by Sidney Lumet in 1972 and the failure of persuasion. jhinde358@googlemail.com

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Abbey Hitchens

‘Confronted with the “colossal,” the “absolutely great,” the mind turned inward into its own unconscious, regressed into its own labyrinth, to discover, in the tangled labyrinth of its dreams, a depth from which it could no longer soar into the grand design of the Kantian/Romantic sublime.’ - Vijay Mishra, the Gothic Sublime (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994)

In my artistic practice I have been consistently fascinated by the Sublime. The Sublime has always had a confusing mass of questionable definitions put to it. However, I am particularly interested in the idea of the Sublime as a concept within the Gothic genre in art, theatre and literature. During the Romantic period in the 18th and 19th Centuries, the Sublime was considered to be a sensation of realizing that your existence is truly insignificant in comparison to the vast size of the world we live in, whilst being able to witness the colossal works of God and the powerful force of nature which surrounds us.

I tend to experiment with different materials such as film, clay painting, photography and drawing. My inspirations have come from a variety of different sources such as Gothic novels, films and art. The main references being Mary Shelly’s book ‘Frankenstein’ (1818), Tim Burton’s ‘Edward Scissorhands’ (1990), and artists Cortney Brims, Horace Warpol and Tony Oursler. There have been many paintings that portray the Gothic sublime, such as Philip James De Loutherbourg’s paintings of a sea landscape - the crashing waves are an example of the sheer power nature holds.

a.hitchins@hotmail.com

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Sherika Hogan

For me blackness is a very important subject as I am black first, before things such as my nationality are considered. With blackness comes identity so I have chosen to produce works based on my identity, therefore my blackness. I am not just seen as an artist, but a black artist so I feel like it is down to me, and others like me, to put out uplifting black art. I want to look at the representation of blackness within the art world, because I feel like ‘we’, black artists, are underrepresented in terms of art portraying ‘us’ (from the African diaspora) in a good light.

sherika-hogan@hotmail.co.uk

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Alicia Hopkinson

As human beings we are widely diverse, the one thing we all have in common is our mortality. The transience of life is the binding factor for all of mankind. Like many people, I have experienced this king of terrors and the absence it leaves in its wake. I see death and loss as my Achilles’ heel so I treat my practice as an exploration into the feelings, emotions and realities that death musters up. I find this aspect of life particularly interesting because it is the inevitable end, the ‘time’s winged chariot hurrying near’.

There is an ironic quality in that my work may outlive me.

I choose not to display my works in the conventional way of hanging a painting, I don’t want them to be viewed in the same way that a conventional painting would be. They are emotions, they are feelings; they are my struggle with understanding and accepting death. The curve, working as a barrier, stops the viewer from leaning forward and observing the detail in the prints or the paint, as one may do with any other painting.

The viewer is forced to stand within and be engulfed by the work. There is also a relationship between what nature and gravity want the wood to do; bend and warp. I allow that to happen, however I structure it and control it. The boards give the appearance that they are leaning and look free-willed, however this is something that I can control, reflective of how I deal with the idea of mortality.

My paintings are not made for living room walls.

aliciakatehopkinson@gmail.com

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Matylda Kantor

What is the value of experience? How does time, space, gravity, beliefs and desire shape our reality? In this world regardless of a social status we comfort ourselves with accumulating material objects and they play a vital role in our humanity. In my art practise I focus on exploring the senses: sound, sight and touch. I have been obsessed with drawing, photographing, documenting and collecting various representations of gates, entrances, exits, passages, spaces and objects which can open and close. By letting these fragments of everyday enter my art I allow them to play with symbols and duality. There is never a single viewpoint, and no single perception has the power to carry authority. I let them in because they are worth a second look.

unomomento.kantor@gmail.com misskantorblog.tumblr.com

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Kardelen Kaya I was first introduced to Robert Rauschenberg’s ‘Combines’ in my art classes in my early teens, back when I attended secondary school. Soon after I became interested in printmaking and collages, going onto explore and experiment with ‘combines’ of my own in the years following my introduction to the works. To this day my endeavour to explore the creative options available in printmaking has not been hindered, and I am currently experimenting and producing large scale combines in various shapes and forms using different materials in Middlesex University.

The process of making my combines is a lengthy procedure; each image is built with layers of hand pulled prints – adding, erasing, obscuring and revealing objects I have found on a day-to-day basis. Every layer applied leaves a residue and history, the result is a dense, lush and complex surface, where one element peeks around another, or dissolves into the next. The layering process mimics the accumulation of experiences and complexities evident in ourselves, and the world around us.

It was not long ago when one of my lecturers drew similarities between combines and biographical diaries, after having had some time to meditate on this and letting my thoughts marinate, I realised the depth of the truth in their comparison. For example, when one observes Rauschenberg’s ‘Combines’, each image can be said to be portraying contemporary events from that epoch, and everything is carefully placed in a specific location for a specific purpose thus effectively acting as a biography for that time period.

History has also always been one of those topics which has never failed to attract my attention, through observing history one can not only outline how, why and what changes occurred, and how these influenced society and its many different branches such as politics, art, law, architecture etc., For my combines I decided to look at the history of Turkey’s politically fuelled violence against its own people as these yield a potent source of personal inspiration for myself. In some of my current work I have silk-screen prints from the Sivas massacre, an event which occurred on July 2, 1993, which resulted in the murder of 35 people and the Mara massacre which was the massacre of over 100 left-wing Alevi activists in the city of Kahramanmara in December 1978 by the neo-fascist Grey Wolves. Publication, portrayal and realisation of these events have led to many changes in the politics, legislation and culture of Turkey, this is especially true in the last 10 years and my aim was for the public to remember these events.

Kardelenkaya92@hotmail.com

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Guiti Lewis

My Nanny’s Home I have such beautiful memories of my childhood, of my nanny. My father was a General in the Persian Army, and he was posted at an outpost in Persia. In the evenings my Parents would have social obligations that they attended. During the day my Nanny would be at our home taking care of my younger sister, my younger brother, and myself. I was the oldest and I was 8 years old. Once my parents left for the evening, my Nanny would take us home with her, it was a simple home with a flat roof. She had two children of her own. Her husband would be waiting for her with a loving hug, and greeted us with kindness and respect. What struck me was the love that was present in their home, and it was do to my Nannie’s kind heart. You could almost touch the love, the feeling of acceptance and the joy was in the air. She loved me completely and I remember that she showed her love for me in many ways, that my own mother did not. While we were at her home, it was like coming home, acceptance and understanding poured from her no matter what I wanted know, or wanted to try, or wanted to do. The only thing she would not let me do was climb her roof, which was flat and such a temptation to me. If I wanted to learn how to cook, she showed me how. When I became curious about sewing, she guided me, when I wanted to knit she taught me. Anything I wanted to know she gifted me with the knowledge. She was such a treasure to me, and to this day the memories are very dear to me. She taught me about trust and what love really was, my own home was not like that at all, it was cold. I do not know what my sister or brother thought or felt, but the time I spent with my Nanny was a defining moment that made me what I am today. It broke my heart when my father was transferred to another base and we had to leave. If I could go back, and thank her for her love and kindness, for her complete and total support, for her loving me with an open heart and mind. I still dream of her small home that shone with such warmth and love, I remember with great fondness and love this special lady. Without her teachings and kindness I would not be who I am now.

guitilewis@gmail.com

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Natalie Law

My work is about the umbrella installations of the ‘Occupy Central with Love and Peace’ political organisation active in Hong Kong at the moment. Hong Kong’s police use teargas and pepper spray on the protesters and the protesters only use umbrella to protect themselves. Is that fair enough? Everyone was angry with the way the government attempted to calm protesters, so they called on thousands of protesters to block the roads and paralyse Hong Kong’s financial district, if the Beijing and Hong Kong governments do not agree to implement universal suffrage for the chief executive election in 2017 and the Legislative Council election in 2020 according to “international standard”. Therefore, I’m using this opportunity to share my experience during “Occupy Central” with all of you. Let’s us fight for democracy!

n.law34@yahoo.com.hk

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Hanita Luper The sculpture installation ‘Shantytown’ was provoked by a sight that prompted deep questions and emotions about space and identity. More specifically, it motivated me to explore the concepts of home and homelessness. What does it mean for us to feel at home? How do our homes define the way we perceive ourselves, or how others perceive us? After all, the concept of ‘home’ is one of the most fundamental reference points for how we relate to the spaces around us. It gives us a sense of community and embodies a space that promotes safety and a sense of belonging. Therefore, it is a critical component of identity. As Iris Marion Young wrote, home is ‘the site of construction and reconstruction of one’s self’.

I explored these concepts by creating an architectural structure of repeated motifs made from recycled cardboard boxes, a flimsy material that is widely available and often used by the homeless to create makeshift shelters. I peeled off part of the cardboard surface, revealing the corrugated layer underneath. This resembles the corrugated iron that can frequently be seen in impromptu slum houses. Other found materials such as empty drink cans, plastic, fabric and paper are added to the corrugated structure. Acrylic paint was employed to create the impression of rust and age. The overall effect is irregular, ramshackle and worn out.

The motif depicts basic dwellings, namely a ‘shelter’ that is little more than a box representing a room, door and window. The dense and monotonous repetition of these 200 dwellings creates a sense of anonymity and the feeling of the ‘Other’. I thereby recreate how the physical space of ‘home’ can extinguish identity and generate a feeling of alienation. This references Georg Simmel’s theories about the tension between individuality and urbanisation, as well as the trend towards ‘defensive architecture’ as means of rejecting the presence of the poor.

My work is a reflection of the immense divide between rich and poor, which is embodied in the spaces they call home. Today, one can see the construction of beautiful homes for the rich but very little, if any, for low-income communities. I hope to draw attention to the need not only for affordable housing, but also for a less utilitarian approach to personal space and the concept of ‘home’.

This work was influenced by Marjetica Potrþ an artist and architect who inspired me by highlighting the issues of private space, security and utility. Working in close consultation with disadvantaged communities, Potrc has constructed dwellings which transform not just the environment but also the community itself, combining beauty and utility.

She then turns her creations, which she calls “case studies”, into gallery spaces.

hanitaluper@hotmail.com

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Luke Mapo

How I see it My project is a multiple screen surveillance of London depicting the city as a concrete jungle. All of the random clips on each individual screen show various parts of the city.

It allows viewers the freedom to focus on what interests them. The idea is based on the digital world we’re living in and how social media dominates it. In some ways it influences us to the point of brainwashing. The growing trend of how video is used is in short form, no longer than one minute. Snapchat and vine are examples of this. This is important for the attention span of the consumers as it influences how they maintain their interest in longer form videos. The constant interchanging of clips in my piece represents this. It’s like a person flicking through channels or web browsing when trying to pass time or find entertainment. The correlation between them all is the series of historical events that appear e.g. The UK riots that began in London’s Tottenham area. The events I’ve focused on are negative and controversial as I feel that it’s these two things that cause society to continuously change or progress. These images capture some of the most chaotic moments that have happened, emphasizing the ‘concrete jungle’ perspective.

Each screen acts as a channel showing different viewpoints of London, showcasing the diversity in how people within the same city live and see things contrastingly with one another. The setup is loosely inspired by ‘When Humans Walked the Earth’ by the Chapman Brothers as well as Nam Jun Paik’s digital art installation. The screens are piled on top of each other reminiscent of a skip consisting of various second items and junk. This represents the constant progression in new technology that in turn, renders old models obsolete and useless. ‘How I see it’ is an exploitation of the environmental imagery in a multicultural city that is both appreciated and taken for granted.

lmapo@hotmail.com web: l14videoartist.webs.com fb: l14videoartist

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Alicia Melanie

As a research based visual artist the core of my current practice revolves around responding to the evolution of portraiture in a variety of visual structures. I comment upon the discourses of racial authority, hierarchy and both current and historical societal happenings. My art is primarily birthed from subjective experiences, delving into concerns of generational understanding and a confrontation of institutional critique. Whilst painting has become a fundamental responsibility, I also practice with new media art forms to expand on the art world’s engagement with new technologies. Site-specificity and assessment of dialogue have become imperative components of an on-going series of which I have titled ‘The Visual Life’.

#AMMirrorseries #TheVisualLifeDoc aliciavisualart@gmail.com www.AliciaMelanie.com

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Fotini Michailidi

Most of the times, making a piece of art seems to be easy and simple; but actually there are a variety of complexities around the process of making or even at the actual practising of art. All my projects return to the same issues. They reflect my reactions and my responses to the contemporary word and my personal relationships. I am developing ideas that relate to memories, experiences, emotions, and imaginings. The work is a kind of a narrative about how I (personally) or we (as a whole) orient ourselves in the contemporary word by giving more attention to space and time (past, present, future), dreams, targets and thoughts than our current situation (personal relations - family, friends, etc).

I used to use real (material) objects with different metaphorical meanings. I use them as symbolic objects by blending my reality with my imagination. Most of the times I use everyday recognizable material objects and images that create strong and weird emotions. There are a variety of complex concepts and ideas into my projects and usually people cannot get in touch directly with my artworks. I love inspiring people through my art. I believe that our imagination can travel in different directions at the same time.

We live in a century where everything seems to be destroyed. People lose their money, their jobs, their houses, their belongings just to buy a piece of bread. People nowadays become the victims of the system created by themselves; a chain of false ideals. There is a chain that ordinary people elected other people to work for the system, the people who will work to develop the system for our own rights. However, we used to connive that the system of its own used to manipulate the people that work for it and these people manipulate with different kind of methods to manipulate the ordinary people.

This installation was created to make people feel physically their subconscious inner emotions. By putting them in the process of experiencing my work, I am using a tricky way to manipulate them, showing how they are manipulated in their everyday life and allowing them to ask themselves how and why this happens.

f0tini007@hotmail.com

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Gemma Milligan

The work is a material investigation into the somatic experience, exploring sensations and tensions that gravity and other forces produce on a body. There is a palpable tension during the manipulation process that pushes my chosen material to it limits.

The unintended visual quality of the material is its body-referencing quality; the latex appears bodily, like the fragility of the skin.

I experiment to gain knowledge, which allows me a sense of control during the making process. But this feeling of control is in flux as changes happen that are not under my control. Due to the ephemeral nature of the material and the natural environment, I begin to play with the materials sensitivity by adding heat and light. With continual change to the works environment research suggests that eventually the latex will become corrupted and decay, due to entropy. The entropic process and the ephemeral nature of the latex becomes an integral part of the work and its process.

I see the work as an ‘event’ during the creating process, this becomes a part of the work. But the works have their own sense of presence within the space; they become something else altogether.

gemma.milligan08@gmail.com

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Hani Mohamed

We all have journeys and pathways which we take in life.

Hani Mohamed is a visual artist who draws upon themes such as identity, journey and culture within her work. Taking us on a visual journey on what her identity means to her as an African woman living in the western world. She uses a collection of archival records of which she took when visiting her native country Somalia, the Horn of Africa, almost 10 years ago. She does this by absorbing the culture and experiences she encountered and transforms them visually.

Emotions are something that have always inspired her practical ways of working. Capturing emotions within mark making and through photography is something she explores, from tranquility and happiness to anger and sadness. Using tracing paper as her main medium allows an emphasis to how emotions are somewhat transparent and fragile also.

Hani believes that her art offers her a chance of relating to her environment, complementing the beauty of nature with man-made forms and images, which spring from her ancestral culture. She combines the strength, uniqueness and energy of her heritage with a technically skilled understanding of the power of forms, feeling and materials to create works. The wide appeal of her work seems to lie within its recognizable African approach to bright colours and strong lines.

hani.moh1@hotmail.com

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Robin Murphy

Technology has for a long while been evolving at an astounding rate, devices now taken for granted now would have seemed like magic only 100 years ago. Yet despite how far we’ve come there are still subjects we tread around so lightly. Man first stepped on the moon in 1969 but nobody has been back since 1972, by now we should inhabit the stars, spreading our influence and ensuring the survival of the species. The only reason we are not is due to money and greed; only a fraction of the USA’s military budget would be enough to completely fund NASA. Another subject that scares the masses is the idea of robots with artificial intelligence.

Movies like the ‘Matrix’ and ‘Terminator’ paint the only possible future for robotics as a cold and ruthless invasion and extermination of our species. The alternative for this hypothesis is an evolution from robot to life. This is the subject of my main work. As technology stifles our evolution as a species, completely removing the survival of the fittest mechanic, it allows the evolution of slave AI to sentient life; something that I believe is inevitable. Humans after all would have required thousands of years to develop to a point anywhere near our slowest processors, who’s to say what the future might hold?

RM1218@live.mdx.ac.uk

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Marlon Nedd

My project is a reflection of my process and the emotions I’ve felt coming from a harsh and turbulent past. I worked hard to improve a situation that, on more than one occasion, left without a fixed abode. However this situation was addressed and resulted in a positive outcome for me. My work consists of five pieces, four of them being oil paintings and the other, a mixed media monoprint. Four of these pieces are figurative and the fifth is symbolic. Despite my project not having a title, each piece works as a narrative. These are Joy, Pain/Sorrow, Reflection, Documentation and the final piece, ‘A Bad Situation Addressed’ which is the first painting of the group.

neddwatson@hotmail.co.uk

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Yasmin Nicholas ‘As I hold my pen, my fingers turn into an instrument, strummed into the soul, a tropical feeling of gold, over hearing stories of old, my grandfather reminiscing about boyhood in Dominica, the dealing of being born over here, the knowledge of gold, I will never really know, through knowledge of pure folds of the delight of simple life, a mango feeling, a passion fruit meaning and a breadfruit feeding.’

Mind written with hand. My poetry is focussed within the language of art, my artwork expressing through handwritten or sometimes my vintage typewriter, what is important in my life, culture and identity. This year I have decided to take up ‘Kweyol’ (Creole) which is a language still considered a ‘dialect’ from the Caribbean Islands mostly in the Windward Islands, within countries such as Dominica and St. Lucia which have started to be revalued. It is a language not noticed by some which seemed to be fading. Creoles are many sets of dialects over the world. A lot of my art-works this year have drawn upon the shared identities of my birth country and my ethnic background, as growing up with my grandparents gave me a inner vision of Dominican culture, although I have not been there. I have taken my inspiration from this language because of its history due to slavery and its place within contemporary life means that on many different levels it is a ‘Coded Language’, which is the title of my project. It also has a complex status as a dialect when perhaps it should be seen as a language with its influences from the French language and African dialects. What I want the viewer to ask is - is all language coded?

Physically and metaphorically? Using this language mixed with the English language I have been able to see how it looks in different media through paint, photography, film and writing mediums. To me language is a fruit for all to engage in however it will decay if the identity is lost and I have used a breadfruit as a metaphor for this. Using this language within my art practice gives me a chance to express my heritage by words as well as images, words expressed in celebration, angst from not understanding it, but also the joy of learning it myself and expressing the complex feelings to viewers.

Creative influences include Adrian Piper, Shirin Neshat and Keith Piper. Through my research I have discovered that the language is reviving, and I feel that it is up to all of us descending from these small islands to celebrate it. Statistically, a language can be wiped out within three generations and it would be tragic to lose something so sacred to our culture. I have noticed its absence from the communities in which I have grown up which have changed over the years, places like Harlesden and Shepherd’s Bush. I want my art to give people a greater understanding of looking into my culture and my heritage to understand what makes a person who they are.

‘Ou pa sa doubout Kweyol anko’ You cannot stop Creole. yasminnicholas@hotmail.co.uk bwapen.wordpress.com yasminnicholas.wix.com/words-from-yasmin

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Nancy Owen

In my practice, I’ve been focusing on color, pattern and emotions. I am amazed how a simple piece of fabric, color or pattern can change the way a person looks and feels. I wanted to play around with different colors and patterns to create wearable art.

For this piece, I’ve decided to create different bags to represent different emotions, such as fear, disappointment, repetition, commitment issues and paranoia. My work is called ‘Emotional Baggage’. I’ve set up my bags in a baggage airport claim to show how human beings we all have different kinds of baggage. Either we pick up and deal with our emotional ‘baggage’ or relinquish our old domicile.

NO264@live.mdx.ac.uk

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Luis Pais

When I began making my work this year, I planned to read a series of books for my essay combined with researching artists I have been investigating for the past three years like Richard Hamilton, Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach. My work develops from this research, crossing illustration, photography and printmaking to explore genres of landscape and pop art.

LM1067@live.mdx.ac.uk

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Jasmine Prescod-Johnson

My works aim to explore the inevitable clash of consumerism and female body image.

I challenge these themes by gathering the unwanted discarded product from the original product it belonged to and manipulate it to serve against, but also for, its original purpose. The discarded packaging now manipulated into the way I have moulded it becomes more powerful than what was once inside it. Now a garment, a common question of “can you wear it?� becomes a part of that vicious clash, the never-ending cycle of which everyone is a part.

jasmineprescod@hotmail.com

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Gintare Radkeviciute

Throughout my 3 years at Middlesex University my interests ranged from optical illusions to family portraits to sculpture. I was curious to explore other possibilities in art forms which meant that I could not stick to one thing. This led me to the work in front of you. The intention of it was to express an emotion. It is the product of my resentment towards the high expectations of art society and social pressures. Through the process of connecting the wire with the clay blocks I wanted to express the idea of something heavy supported by something fragile. Think of this artwork as having a mind of its own. In order to adapt to the environment it must carry on evolving, attaching piece by piece, one on top of another, just trying to hold everything together.

g.radkeviciute@live.co.uk

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Celine Samson

My art deals with fragments of autobiographical narratives that convey qualities of universal human emotion and existence. Although sometimes sombre in nature, it often contains elements of humour and joy.

Founding myths, the metaphysical and existential concerns are my playground of thought.

The feeling I’ve often had of being ‘in between’ has led me to look into the mysterious and the peripheral states - the twilight, the dreaming, the absurd and entangled temporalities. Like Proust, I believe in a circular notion of time whereby everything resurges in some form or another. This probably explains why mandalas are a recurring theme within my artwork, as are experiments with silhouettes, juxtapositions, layerings and polarities.

My love of poetry, which I view as an essential creative principle, along with literature and philosophy, also informs my practice. My background as a linguist and a library worker could explain why my production sometimes has a sequential feel in which the written and the spoken word may feature.

My practice spans a breadth of media, including 3D, collage, painting, photography, video, artist books and soundscapes.

www.celinesamson.co.uk celinesamson@hotmail.com

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Marina Sanchez How do I perceive my own experience? What I hear modifies how and what I see and perhaps what I see modifies what and how I listen. This is me living in my world.

My practice explores perception of both space and place. By space I mean the space I occupy in a given moment both in my mind and my body. Another way of thinking about this is an awareness of where my thoughts are and what I feel. I think of this space as an internal space.

Place on the other hand describes the physical, structural environment that I find myself in; it is a place inhabited by the other. Place for me is external to the subjective me, my skin is the boundary between the external place and me.

I am interested in exploring how I respond to the world around me and it responds to me. Where I locate myself from moment to moment between internal space and external place determines my experience.

My studio practice involves using materials and sound. I am interested in exploring the materiality of the object by looking at what it can actually do. For instance, the ‘spring’ has various properties such as the potential to store energy whilst also being a resonator. I explore these properties through installation and video. I also draw out associations with the object, which help me to think more laterally; just as the word ‘spring’ itself can start its own trail.

Sound plays a major role in my practice. I am interested in the attention required to listen and can appreciate that the editing process is just like painting. I create sounds from objects, record and manipulate them. I love how sound has given me a freedom I never would have dreamed of by allowing me to think about space in a radical way. As a consequence I am not necessarily confined to the gallery setting; sound allows me to work with a space that might be less sympathetic to the object. Sound has the capacity to define a space and it can give it an identity. Playing with surround sound has given me the opportunity to move sound in a space, articulate its dimensions and explore some of its properties. Exploring sound as part of my practice has conversely made me much more aware of when I am not consciously listening and has heightened my awareness of what happens to my experience.

marinarsanchez@hotmail.com

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James Sivapragasam

My work aims to make people think… to make people more aware, as well as to make them want to comment on things within our society and within our world that are driving humanity away from a better life. I want people to wake up from their complacent lives and see things the way they are truly meant to be seen. I aim to explore the topics of political oppression, consumerism, materialism, the monetary system and the lust for control through my work but I guess what you would call the main aim of what I do is to hopefully get people thinking, more specifically, thinking for themselves. Some of my work also comments on the art institutions and the rules they have about what makes an artwork and what is accepted. My work has drawn inspiration from everything I have seen and experienced in my life, there have been many artists such as Goya, Edvard Munch, Banksy and Alfredo Jaar and more, but also films such as ‘Bladerunner’ and ‘1984’ to list just a few. Music and sound have also influenced me as a person as well as my art and I have recently become interested in how art and sound have been used together whether in film or otherwise.

I choose to work with different media as I feel that I can only express and explore the topics I would like to through experiments and combinations of different mediums. I have worked with digital art, graphics, ceramics, painting, 3D sculptures with wire, plaster and video and sound technology. Currently I am working on a mixed media installation, which consists of video and a 3D sculpture which aims to comment on topics within our society such as oppression, lack of self reflection and personal responsibility, surveillance state and fear and control.

james.siva.86@gmail.com

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Gemma Smith

‘In the nude, all that is not beautiful is obscene.’

– Robert Bresson

gemah93@gmail.com

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Gitanjali Sood

With special emphasis on social media networks such and Facebook and Instagram, I aim to address the changing processes of art-making, promotion and exhibition, which seems to have shifted from a physical and tactical space of a gallery, to a virtual, mediated experience of reality.

I use more traditional mediums like oil paint and canvas, along with materials such as Acrylic and High Impact Polystyrene to emphasize the contrast between the tangible, physical experience, and the digital, virtual world. The transparent plastics used in front of the hand-made 3D picture spaces act as a barrier for the viewer, as they can see that virtual pictorial reference, however cannot touch or physically experience it.

gita_xx8@hotmail.com

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Daria Anna Stawiarska

2MF]\]QD Âą NLHG\ P\ÄžOÄŠ Âą ZyZF]DV Z\UDÄŞDP VLHELH L ]DNRU]HQLDP PyZL PL R W\P VHUFH MDNE\ XNU\WD JUDQLFD NWyUD ]H PQLH SU]HELHJD NX LQQ\P DE\ ZV]\VWNLFK RJDUQLDĂź Z SU]HV]ĂĄRĞß GDZQLHMV]Ä… QLÄŞ NDÄŞG\ ] QDV ] QLHM VLÄŠ Z\ĂĄDQLDP JG\ P\ÄžOÄŠ 2MF]\]QD Âą E\ ]DPNQÄ…Ăź MÄ… Z VRELH MDN VNDUE 3\WDP ZFLÄ…ÄŞ MDN JR SRPQRÄŞ\Ăź MDN SRV]HU]\Ăź WÄŠ SU]HVWU]HÄ” NWyUÄ… Z\SHĂĄQLD Jan PaweĹ‚ II, 1995 ‘Homeland - when I think - then I express myself and get rooted, my heart tells me about it, as if a hidden border, which from me goes to others in order to include all in the past more former than each of us: and I emerge from it‌when I think Homeland - in order to close it in myself like a treasure. I still ask how to multiply it, how to expand this space which it fills’ John Paul II, 1995 3DWULRW\]P R]QDF]D XPLĂĄRZDQLH WHJR FR RMF]\VWH XPLĂĄRZDQLH KLVWRULL WUDG\FML MÄŠ]\ND F]\ VDPHJR NUDMREUD]X RMF]\VWHJR -HVW WR PLĂĄRĞß NWyUD REHMPXMH UyZQLHÄŞ G]LHĂĄD URGDNyZ L RZRFH LFK JHQLXV]X Jan PaweĹ‚ II ‘Patriotism is the love of what is native: a love of history, traditions, language and the native landscape. It is love that also includes works of its countrymen and the fruits of their genius‌.’ John Paul II

daria_us5@wp.pl

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Elina Strelita Strele

My art is a window to an understanding of how you can read emotions and how each person has their own reactions for things they see and feel. What makes a sad painting sad? Is it the object or situation reflected on a canvas? Or is it a shape, colour or both?

Everyone sees things differently and most likely associates them with their own experiences. Like other artists trying to capture a feeling on a canvas by using dark colours or shapes, I am trying to capture emotions through painting eyes and portraits. By using watercolour and acrylics I only partly control the outcome of each work and the results are never the same. Painting itself takes over. Dripping lines are visual evidence of the energy of the process. This style is my opportunity to get out of my comfort zone as each painting is a challenge. Being an artist gives me ability to understand value of lines, colour and texture.

The portraits and eyes I paint is something I see everyday – sadness is the emotions which takes over in people’s eyes. What you see in these portraits will differ from others, because of your own experience, what you have seen in others when they are sad or excited or happy etc.

I have discovered that sadness does not have to be reflected through dark colours. Instead I make most of my paintings with vibrant and bright colours. You can smile, but that does not mean that you are happy, your eyes will tell the truth.

artanilefirst@gmail.com http://artanile.weebly.com/contact.html

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Celestine Thomas

As an artist, I work with the found object - creating something from ‘nothing’ (things that people have thrown away or lost). The intention of my work is to encourage the viewer to see these objects from a different perspective. This process transforms the objects allowing for a different interpretation from when they were first created or found.

I am motivated by colour and light; this inspires me to create work in both painting and sculpture. I enjoy the way in which paint or material can flow naturally and yet with the simplest change of conditions, the effects of light and colour transform the object to produce something new. The objects that I find I manipulate to create new three dimensional objects, which then can be considered with a new outlook as the viewer interacts with my work.

An additional inspiration that links into my work is the urban night scene. The colours and lights that are produced in this environment change the feeling and look of a place from the scene in daytime and the scene in night time. I like to manually control the light setting to create the mood and emotions of the urban night environment for the viewer then to experience.

Through transforming found items into something new as well as manipulating materials and light to reflect the urban night scene, I hope to provide the viewer with a unique participatory experience of looking at objects.

celestine-thomas@hotmail.com

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Antonia Wando

Art as a Mirror of Society My work uses mirrors as a material in different ways. I am interested in the process of breaking glass and I have captured this action through photography. During my daily routine I wondered what might happen if I disrupted our usual relationship to the everyday object of the mirror by breaking it. A broken or shattered mirror is viewed with superstition in our society and I am fascinated by these strong, irrational beliefs. I think part of this superstition arises because a shattered mirror fractures the image it reflects, quite often the face of the viewer that looks at it. This can lead to a sense of fractured or broken identity.

Michaelangelo Pistoletto is my inspiration, I am very intrigued by the way he creates an illusion in his mirrors paintings as if there is an actual person reflected in the mirror.

However I am most interested by a work he undertook at the Venice Biennale in 2009 called ‘Twenty Two Less Two� where he smashed twenty mirrors with a tack hammer creating the sharp images of the audience.

toniawando93@hotmail.com

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Diyana Yovcheva

I am an artist who works mostly with plants and other natural materials gathered within the urban environment. Every step of my artistic process is embodied within my reverence for Nature, beginning with my search for materials.

My work is a return to art’s first canvas - the earth - and to our planet’s original storytellers: the seeds. Plants are a living tribe, an indigenous tribe. Plants see life differently. They have different customs. They speak another language. My art is an attempt to translate their language so that the true story of the planet can be told. Each seed, root or pod contains the Earth’s history.

Like tribal artifacts of native people my art crosses the threshold into magic and remind us that we are all indigenous.

djijo84@googlemail.com diartworld.tumblr.com

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Sanaz Zamani

Though I would not class myself as a feminist, I am a big believer in human rights. I grew up in Iran; a place where equality between the sexes is palpably imbalanced. I had myself both witnessed and experienced the injustices of inequality; I had no suffrage in Iran, nor did I have any foreseeable prospects of marital or parental rights. After seven years of appeals, Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged at for the ‘murder’ of her would-be rapist; she was only 26 at the scaffold. While working as an interior designer in the office of the perpetrator, she was attacked and sexually abused before managing to put a penknife in the assailant. I have come to the understanding that I identify with her and try to empathise with her position after the sentence. The execution of this poor woman shocked me to my very core, yet Jabbari is but one name in the innumerable list of women denied human rights in Iran. I am past hope concerning the problem of human rights in my country, and the lack of respect for people’s lives disturbs me. These issues dominate my fine art practice, and I have expressed my feelings about the death of Jabbari in this installation.

How does it feel to be hung? How does it feel to abide hanging?

sanaz_zamani68@yahoo.com

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Adam Zelik

The Beginning The mystery is unfolded.

The sense of alienation from society is visible in my creation.

I imagine a world of distinctive forms that other beings could not see.

My knowledge is my reason.

I am the demonstration of space that is pushing me forward and my representations are shown to people of tomorrow.

Amongst those who are like me, we begin to support each other for further purposes.

And thus the order of the world needs to be changed.

id@anonymz.net

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FACTORY 15

It’s Sunday, 26th April and I’m nearing the end of a Skype™ call with a friend in Australia. She holds up a t-shirt she purchased from Etsy to the webcam so that I see, written in serif type, the words: Art is Hard My response is typically flippant ‘Yes it is...but the trick is to make it look easy to everyone else...that’s what takes skill.’

After ending the conversation I begin looking for a notebook from 2010 because I know I have to stop talking with friends on the other side of the planet (being alive now is amazing) and find inspiration for this text you’re reading now.

The bright orange notebook was started a few weeks before my degree show - a similar stage to where the current graduating year are at whilst I write this.

Two things happen when you start re-reading old notebooks. There is the cringe factor that must be overcome when being reminded of old embarrassing ideas. Then there is the surreal collection of disconnected words and sentences that once had a very clear meaning but now, through forgetfulness, have become disjointed and strange to you. ‘...positions of where horses are during the day.

Big Red switch above the signing-in book. Cows are heavy.’

the final year of a BA Fine Art course can make people (me) go a bit strange.

I eventually find the page where I’d written a single sentence describing what would later become my Degree Show performance in 2010: ‘The piece will take the form of a request show in which people at the Degree Show request music songs for each other which I sing for them their intended listener.’

Despite the difficulty of reading these forgotten or discarded fragments, there is also something encouraging you learn from looking through old notebooks. The work you’ll be making in 2020 might look completely different from what you have now, but it will still have those same fundamental preoccupations, it will still come from the essence of who you are. But what’s the difference then? You just get better at it, that’s all.

The first episode of the British Sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf titled “The End”, concludes with an onscreen text: THE BEGINNING Following a cataclysmic, life-changing event, the show’s protagonists, now lost in deep space, must survive as they are thrown from one adventure to the next whilst trying to find their way home.

Art is hard, but it’s totally worth the struggle esOne of the pages from the notebook is particupecially when you don’t know what adventures larly awful; a drawing for a proposed game show you’ll be thrown into next. that I called ‘Bash the Cat’. From my illustration, this hypothetical event seems to involve sticks, humans, cats, boxes and intense acts of animal Giles Bunch cruelty. Horrible. I have no recollection of drawGraduate Teaching Assistant ing this but it demonstrates how the pressures of 60

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Photography: Emma Saffy Wilson

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FACTORY 15 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Cover Image: Martina Geier Degree Show Curatorial Committee: Daniel Bayliss, Laura Birtwistle, Ala Bogdanovic, Josephine Cottrell, Alicia Hopkinson, Luke Mapo, Gemma Milligan, Diyana Yovcheva, Adam Zelik BA Fine Art Academic Staff 2014-5: Giles Bunch, Judith Cowan, John Dack, Katy Deepwell, Alberto Duman, Loraine Leeson, Rebecca Fortnum, Roddy Hunter, Alexandra Kokoli, Nick Lambrianou, susan pui san lok, Kathleen Mullaniff, Steve Mumberson, Keith Piper, Simon Read, Nic Sandiland, Tansy Spinks, John Timberlake, Luke White Art and Design Technical Staff: Graduating students would like to thank all Art and Design Technical Staff, particularly Sonia Bienek, Louise Beer, Tom Cert, Joseph Emilien, William Gillingham-Sutton, Chris Lord, Freddy Morris, Colin Moss, Nadia Radjabi, Jeremy Russo-Ball, Rob Searle-Barnes, Howard Taylor, Sam Wibberley, Owen Wall, Joanna Wilson Printed by ArtQuarters Press, 2015 @ All artworks and text are copyright of the individual artists and writers

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