MA Show 2014
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MA Degree Show October 2014 This exhibition is the culmination of the excellent work undertaken by our Master’s students over the last year or two and shows the diversity of creative thinking, skills and professional approach to practice that they have achieved in that time. Both full-time and part-time students have come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences to contribute to the debates and extend their individual practices, with a good proportion of international students to offer enriched cultural understandings of art and design. This is therefore, a particularly lively show from the three courses of Design and Applied Arts, Fine Art and Digital and Visual Communications, with multi-disciplinary work ranging from painting, sculpture, print, illustration and photography to audio-visual pieces, animation, glass work and installation. Thanks go to the highly motivated and dedicated staff who have supported these students through the Master’s programme. Su Fahy, Lester Meachem, Pat Dillon, Prof John Roberts, Dr Louise Fenton and the rest of the MA staff team are all experienced researchers and/or professional designers and artists in their own right, who have shared their knowledge and expertise with the students to deliver exciting and challenging opportunities for learning. The result of their valuable input is clearly evidenced in the quality of the student work on show at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery. Following on from this exhibition and graduation, we wish our students continued success in their endeavours and future plans whether this is to further develop their individual practice, work in the creative industries, teach, or continue to research at doctoral level. We hope that the MA experience has left them well-equipped to prosper and make their mark on the world. Prof Dew Harrison Associate Dean for Research and acting Head of School of Creative Arts and Design and Media
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MA Design and Applied Arts MA Digital and Visual Communications MA Fine Art PhD Research Artists in Residence
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MA Design and Applied Arts The 2014 graduate MA Design and Applied Arts exhibition showcases the work of our talented professional designers and artisans working within the specialist disciplines of glass, ceramics, product design, interiors, fashion and textiles. It represents the culmination of many months of demanding, concentrated study, and our graduates are now at the threshold of their creative futures. This year’s cohort originate from across the UK and overseas; from China, Nigeria, Romania and Saudi Arabia. The rich, cultural diversity of the group creates a stimulating and supportive environment for sharing experiences, ideas and creativity. The result is witnessed in outstanding outcomes that cross the boundaries of contemporary art and design, addressing the theoretical questions that inspire the work. The majority of our international graduates will apply their talents by adding to the local growth and economy of their home countries. Several are planning to return as educators in China, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia.
Many of our graduates are already established in enterprises as artists and designers, successfully exhibiting and selling work to galleries and collectors. The association with heritage industry and the resurgence of design craft is recognized through the continuing relationship with companies and organisations such as the Lace Guild, Wedgwood, Spode, the Contemporary Glass Society and the Glass Quarter, Stourbridge. Sincere thanks are extended to Professor Dew Harrison and the extensive team of MA tutors, technical and administrative staff in glass, ceramics, interiors, fashion and textiles for their support and commitment throughout. I would like to extend my very best wishes to all of our graduating students and wish them every success in the future. Congratulations! Patricia Dillon Course Leader, MA Design and Applied Arts
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Samuel Etai MA Design and Applied Arts
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I am inspired by the rhythm of “AKANGA” the traditional wrestling drum of Southern Nigeria, which I communicate through my vessels. I am particularly interested in the flexible twisting movement of the wrestler’s bodies as they interact with each other. Rhythm and movement is part of my culture and heritage and this has given me the impetus to communicate through my vessels using unconventional techniques to stylise my forms. I develop sharp edges and slab built structures to intuitively express the wrestlers inter-winding bodies. My vessels also evoke the trunks of elephants especially the way they use their trunks to communicate. Elephants also have the ability to recognize unspoken signals and to interact with humans. They signify good fortune. I use reduction and oxidized glazes, especially reds, blacks, blues and oranges which are important colours found in the patterns of the traditional wrestling costumes.
e: samorascreation@yahoo.com
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Liu Fang MA Design and Applied Arts
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My work is inspired by the Beijing opera face. I am specifically interested in the colour and the shape. What interests me most is the pattern of the put-on facial make-up used for opera actors and actresses in the stereotypical roles of “painted face” and “clown”. These opera faces artistically imply connotations of the benevolence and malevolence, enabling the audience to get a glimpse of the inner world of actors and actresses through their symbolic facial makeup. In this sense, facial make-up has obtained the reputation as “painting of the heart and soul”. Every piece of my work uses fused sheet glass. Every layer has its own unique part of the face shape. When the light shines through, the colours show up the layers enabling you to see the deep soul of the human being.
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The movie Farewell to the Concubine reveals two men hiding their true feelings of love behind masks. Through my work I want people to think about which character they are and how they can find their real inner self.
Contact e: 346276615@qq.com
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Cristian C. Hurmuzi MA Design and Applied Arts
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Structural Systems for Transportation Design
The project involves the design and construction of a functional bicycle frame inspired by space frame concepts usually seen in automotive or architectural environments. Intersections, multiple welds, thin tubular steel and geometric networks, are design aspects integral to the overall concept. The design investigation is inspired by Ducati, known for extreme use of metal tubing in their motorcycle chassis design. Spatial structures were also used in bicycles such as those designed by Moulton or Pederson. ‘Truss – a structural member usually fabricated from straight pieces of metal or timber to form a series of triangles in a single plane”.
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The design utilises a “truss” to provide stability and strength, capable of supporting considerable external load over a large span, with the component parts stressed primarily in axial tension or compression. The individual pieces intersect at truss joints or panel points.
Contact e: cristianc.hurmuzi@gmail.com
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Laura Murphy MA Design and Applied Arts
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I am intrigued by the idea of creating luminescent, delicate objects that retain an inner strength through both structure and material. Thin trails of colour echo the seemingly chaotic, yet structurally sound pattern of a leaf skeleton. Others emulate grasses in the breeze or follow the path of a swallow’s flight. I work in slip-cast Parian clay body, finding myself entranced by the translucent quality of the glaze-like surface as it interacts with light. This symbolises the optimistic feeling that steals over me upon catching an elusive ray of sunshine, pursuing a natural antithesis to the often negative reports we are bombarded with in the media.
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Contact e: laura@lauramurphyceramics.com w: www.lauramurphyceramics.com
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Melissa Nicholls MA Design and Applied Arts
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My work is an abstract representation of the mind and how it is affected by illness such as Alzheimer’s. Looking at the positive effects of reminiscence and music therapy I combine light, sound and black and white sculptures in this installation to evoke the surreal element of the sufferer’s experience and that of those around them. In the last few years of my Grandma’s life I spent a lot of time with her and observed her deterioration. She taught me how to play the organ when I was young and we shared a love of music. She would ‘come alive’ when certain songs were played and could remember the words, giving a glimpse of her former self. My research has led me to visually represent sheet music and brain scans resulting in this monochrome body of work. I have worked alongside Dr. Mathew Dalgleish PhD. to compose a piece of music to accompany the work and create an audio and visual installation. As a glass maker I create sculptural blown forms. Within these structures I use caneworking techniques to create twisted and cross hatched lines symbolising the misfiring synapses of the brain which cause memories to become fractured and confused.
e: info@melissanichollsglass.co.uk w: www.melissanichollsglass.co.uk
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Bhavna Parmar MA Design and Applied Arts
Name: Bhavna Parmar Email: bhavnascards@hotmail.co.uk Website: www.texturesbybhavna.com
Contact e: bhavnascards@hotmail.co.uk w: www.texturesbybhavna.com
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Will Pryde MA Design and Applied Arts
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My work portrays the underlying reality of life if the camouflage of the physical realm were to be removed. I create a window into the hinterland of the not quite tangible world inhabited by beings warped and deranged by an existence that never exposes its true self for fear of scrutiny or judgement. I use cast Pate de Verre as my chosen medium to generate sculptural forms, drawing from my own interpretations and experiences of life. I utilise the oil painting like quality and surface details of Pate de Verre. This methodology gives me both control and spontaneity allowing flexibility inspired by the Abstract Expressionists such as Otto Dix, Edward Munch and James Ensor. I am drawn to their unique way of viewing the world and portraying the intense emotion of a situation using striking colours and exaggerated forms.
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Contact
e: w.j.pryde@hotmail.co.uk
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Richard. T. Roberts MA Design and Applied Arts
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Mankind’s sensual relationship with the natural elements of air, fire, earth and especially water inform my glasswork. Sensory response to the natural environment, outwardly and inwardly, prevails; be it due to wind or water caressing the skin, the energy and flux of the body, or the simple contact of the body to the ground. Our urge to reconnect with nature is more essential than ever before, as we find ourselves adrift in a technologically sophisticated, digital world, increasingly disconnected from the natural environment. We ignore nature at our peril and cease to be truly human. Inspiration comes from human/animal composite figures from traditional references, for example sirens or tritons, or as creatures of my own invention, expressing our animalistic inheritance and kinship. I primarily use kiln casting glass techniques in 3D and relief. My process has progressed to the complex method of ‘core casting’, achieving the result of negative space encased in the glass, but whereby the empty space appears to contain a solid form. The aim is to create work where the intrinsic relationship exists between the technique and the concept of figures locked, encased, emerging or evolving in and out of the glass.
e: richard.roberts1@homecall.co.uk w: www.richardrobertsglass.co.uk
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Sara Squire MA Design and Applied Arts Pattern Repetition Simplicity Light Shadow Layers Voids Pattern. Repetition. Simplicity. Light. Shadow. Layers. Voids LIGHT. LAYERS. PATTERN. REPETITION. SHADOW. SIMPLICITY. VOIDS LIGHT LAYERS PATTERN REPETITION SHADOW SIMPLICITY VOIDS
Contact e: sarsieb@hotmail.com
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Helen Taylor MA Design and Applied Arts
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I am a contemporary silversmith, jeweller, designer and maker who specialises in unique, high quality jewellery, tableware and interior furnishings. My inspiration for design is influenced by both natural form and industry, in particular the development of unit construction and the linking of shape to create interlocking, repeat pattern. I incorporate my love for vintage style into my work by using retro-inspired elements such as colour and pattern found on wallpapers and fabrics, often adding a vintage twist in and around a contemporary setting.
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I incorporate a blend of mixed materials both in my work and for inspiration, particularly focusing on precious metals, ceramic and natural products such as wood, yarn and leather.
Contact e: helenjaytay@gmail.com
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Lu Wan MA Design and Applied Arts
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The inner worlds hidden in different ceramics are varied, still like water, innocent like children’s eyes, or scary like a scar. They are all feelings hard to put into words; however, through my bowls I am able to communicate these feelings. My intention is to bring together handicraft and nature in my work. I am involved emotionally with each individual piece I create. Each has its own temperature, which can warm the individual’s soul and mind. Volcanoes are one of the most mysterious mountains on the globe. We know intuitively about these mountains as their appearance has been imprinted into every individual’s heart as children from the photographs in ancient books and encyclopaedias. If we turn the whole “volcano” upside down on the hand with which we have food, it will be an extraordinary experience. Viewed from the front, its shape is like a bowl for eating; however, if we turn it back, it looks like a burning or a dormant volcano. My glaze will be developed to enhance these different shapes under high temperature via chemical reaction; every bowl will give the audience a different emotional response.
e: luwans@me.com
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Louise Ward MA Design and Applied Arts
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A few experiences in France
On 4th August 1914 Great Britain declared war on Germany. Over the next four years 8.7 million men geared up to fight on the front line to defend their King and country, many of whom never made it home. One of the bloodiest battles fought during the Great War was the Battle of the Somme. Half of the British forces who were deployed there were wiped out on the very first day alone. Many men underestimated the heavily advanced German artillery, popping their heads up over the tops of the trenches, resulting in severe facial injuries. My work aims to bring the brutal physical consequences of this period of time to the forefront of our minds, creating a deeper understanding and a greater respect for the millions of men who laid down their lives for us. It is inspired by the personal experiences of my Great Grandfather, Corporal Walter Davis, who fought in the Battle of the Somme. These disfigured glass faces have quotes from his diary inscribed on them, allowing the viewer to relate to them on a much more personal level, causing them, if just for a moment, to think about and appreciate the sacrifices of these men.
e: louiseward46@msn.com w: www.louisewardglass.co.uk
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Matthew Watson MA Design and Applied Arts
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My work is a response to the narrative of place and memory embedded within abandoned buildings. I aim to give the viewer a sense of history through prints of photos and text echoing reminders of the past, sandwiched between the layers of decay and dereliction seen in modern times. I communicate this through print and surface texture, applying layers of glaze, slips and screenprinted images onto the forms. I have worked on the Wedgwood Museums Artisan collection taking inspiration from the screen-printed plates of Eduardo Paolozzi to develop a series of wall pieces using historical references from the factory archives.
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I use old photos to create contemporary pieces which act as time capsules to the past. I often display my work in alterative spaces such as industrial environments.
Contact e: matthew.23@live.co.uk w: matthe017-wix.com/matthewwatson
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Xiaoyu Zeng MA Design and Applied Arts
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As an International student, my experience has introduced me to the world of global travel, exposing me to a cornucopia of experience, visual stimuli and altered perception. My textile work investigates the concept of ‘time travel’ and records in surface pattern and textile narratives, the concept of displacement and intermingled traditions. Colourful conversations occur, representing contrasts between both place and time. As a Chinese national I am acutely aware of the importance of heritage and tradition but I am also from a new generation that has embraced change and technology. My work expresses these anomalies in quirky, visual narratives that are intended to create dialogues and cultural contrasts in social and corporate interior settings.
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Contact e: zengxiaoyu298@gmail.com e: 1019872924@qq.com
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MA Digital and Visual Communications The MA Digital and Visual Communications offers study in a broad range of digital and visual communication theory and practice. Specialist areas covered are: • Graphic Communication • Illustration • Animation • Computer Games Design • Multimedia Design • Design for Advertising • Photography • Film and Video The course attracts students from a wide range of disciplines and from all over the world, giving it a strong international flavour. The current cohort comes from as far afield as China, Nigeria, India, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Poland, Greece and Germany, as well as the UK. The course gives students the opportunity to develop their creative design abilities but also equips them with marketing and branding skills and knowledge essential for a career in the competitive market place that is International Visual Communications. I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of the graduates every success for their future careers in the creative industries. Lester Meachem MA FHEA Course Leader, MA Digital and Visual Communications
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Lesi Ai MA Digital and Visual Communications
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My project is to visually depict my experience of daily life in the UK as a Chinese student. The drawings draw on my cultural experience from a Chinese perspective but are intended to be a visual translation of my emotional responses to a new culture here in the UK. The illustrations are intended for both a Chinese and British audience to highlight cultural differences and similarities.
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Contact e: aliceailesi@gmail.com
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Rong Bao MA Digital and Visual Communications
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I came from China and have studied here for almost one year. My main direction is 2D animation. During my time in the UK, I have experienced different cultures between the two countries. And the learning method has been totally different from Chinese universities. I have a lot of interest in Japanese Anime, so, in this year I have focused on the Chinese traditional elements in animations and Japanese cartoons and writing two papers about them.
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My final work is a 2D animation made by FLASH. I want to use some similar colours to show a kind of sadness to audiences.
Contact e: brr91928@gmail.com
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Jacqueline Carton MA Digital and Visual Communications
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I am interested in ecology, natural history, and relationships and patterns in nature. The prevailing theme of my most recent work has been ethology, the study of animal behaviour. Throughout the enquiry a strong underlying preoccupation has been to conjure the phenomenological experiences of a creature, to get into their mindset and portray the world as they might see, feel, smell it. To do this takes subjectivity and an understanding of the creature’s umwelt- that is the specific ‘self-world’ and environment of the organism. My specialism is illustration and I have created a graphic novel for my final Master’s project. It recounts the experiences of a lone rat who has been captured and placed on an island in order to record its behavioural patterns. Though embellished it is based on a true story. Combining naturalistic with fantastical elements I aim to make the audience feel submersed within the story.
e: Jakki_Carton@hotmail.co.uk
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Neil Easton MA Digital and Visual Communications
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With the undertaking of my MA illustration project, ‘Transhumanism’ was the emotive subject that caught my imagination. The transhumanist idea that through advances in science and technology, mankind will escape the weaknesses of their human form, prone to sickness, damage, ageing and eventually death. The aim to extend life with the ultimate goal of eternal life. The object of this MA project is for the illustrations to provoke the viewer to ask themselves questions such as; how would a supposed necessity of physical and intellectual enhancement be cultivated and sold to the public? Is this something new to come upon man or the repeat of an ancient deception repackaged for today as the next step to be taken in the human evolutionary journey? What could be the resulting physical and spiritual consequences of genetically altering creation, both man and beast. Therefore radically redesigning what it even means to be human?
e: neil@eastoncreative.co.uk
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Nathalie Goepel MA Digital and Visual Communications
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Imagine we are in the future: Parents now have the possibility to go online and design their own baby. They have the power to fulfil all their longings and desires for their future baby. This includes appearances like choosing the eye colour, skin co¬lour or whether they should have an Asian touch or rather look European. They can also decide on characteristics, talents and on the intelligence of their wanted offspring. How would it be if we would be able to control such things? What if diseases, miscarriages and the sex of the child would no longer be an issue? What if we could design out difficulty in reproduction and choose from a desired set of qualities?
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My Master’s project: ‘design your child‘ gives an insight of how this illusion could be implemented and shows the variety of possible influences on human evolution.
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e: hello@nathaliegoepel.de w: www.nathaliegoepel.de
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Yutong Ji MA Digital and Visual Communications
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My project is a short film called ‘Trouble’ which is set in the park. The film has been an experimental piece to enable me to embrace new production skills and further develop my animation experience. I have learned new production methods and software that will help me to realise my ideas in future projects.
e: 276463333@qq.com
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Duygu Karabacak MA Digital and Visual Communications
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Did you know? One in every four woman experiences domestic violence in her lifetime. It is time to do something. My aim is to give people information about what is happening in their neighbourhood and spread this problem to all over the world. Outstanding people can only be active and do something against violence, if they know what is going on in their surroundings. Can a cause become a brand?
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My MA project deals with a campaign against domestic violence on women. I am creating typographical designed clothing. T-shirts, jeans, jackets, etc. are helpful tools to spread a matter. In addition, to pep up the campaign, it is combined with body art which is constructed with the same aim as the clothing.
Contact e: duygu.karabacak@hotmail.de
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Leslie Klaedtke MA Digital and Visual Communications
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The average citizen lives his everyday life in the belief that those men who committed a serious crime are found guilty and will be locked up for the sake of society’s safety. But what does happen when someone innocent is wrongfully convicted for a crime? When someone is very likely to lose almost everything in his life? The story of this book narrates the path of those innocents who find themselves in an absolutely unfamiliar situation which they cannot cope with. Furthermore, it picks up on the experiences of those men during their time in prison and the effects of such experiences on their life after exoneration.
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This modern and graphical edited book makes aware of the problem of wrongful conviction through judicial injustice and tries to communicate this topic in an interesting way to call for attention to prevent further misjudgement.
Contact e: l.klaedtke@gmx.de
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Franziska Klenk MA Digital and Visual Communications
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The beauty surveillance-program called DREAMANIZER is part of the Company DNAETHIC that allows the manipulation of the human DNA. People will be able to change their look while sleeping without any surgery. From now everybody can accommodate oneself to the Master of Beauty. “Life is a mirror. If you frown at it, it frowns back. If you smile, it returns the greeting.”
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William Makepeace Thackeray
The name DNAETHIC stands for creating more beautiful, friendly and happy people. The corporate identity, advertising and product design have been created by Franziska Klenk.
Contact e: F.Klenk@gmx.de
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Ina Krombholz MA Digital and Visual Communications
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‘Don‘t Think Twice’ is a jewellery brand against mass-produced individuality with the wish for a more thoughtful society. It wants people to be aware of the fact that there could be more than just to keep calm to live a ‘Second-HandLife‘. It tries to provoke and to demand attention by using uncommon quotes, questioning catchphrases and communicates therefore always a little ironically. It’s a damn intelligent and creative brand, that‘s why! Oh, and it fuckin‘ loves slang! But now carry on, please!
e: ina.krombholz@hotmail.de
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Chuang Liu MA Digital and Visual Communications
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I think the school time is the most precious time of our life, because we not only learn knowledge but also develop good friendships. This graduation piece is going to tell a story of a band. The band’s singer gets badly sick, and then the band gets into trouble as the band cannot work without the singer. Meanwhile, the guitarist and the drummer of the band encourage him to fight the disease; finally he beats the disease and the band start again.
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Though a year passed, I still really miss my friends and my band, which stared in sophomore year, the band makes my college years wonderful and meaningful, thus, the aim of my graduation piece is to remember my college years.
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e: 548906572@qq.com
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Tim Lovatt MA Digital and Visual Communications
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This year my work has been focused on the comic book and the comic book industry as well as issues it raises in today’s culture. Such as the affects certain comic stories and their images have on the general masses, especially the younger reader. For my Master’s project I am concentrating on how literature and images are illustrated in comic books. In doing so I will be producing a comic strip of 13 images using selected text from Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War.’ Creative literature can be a powerful tool used within society, for instance it can be used for educational purposes which is why I find great inspiration in illustrating this ancient text which has had a vast influence on the world covering management and leadership in both business and military strategies. In the hope that a historical text may yet contain lessons worth consideration by society today.
e: roarillustrations@hotmail.co.uk
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Zagham Qadir MA Digital and Visual Communications
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The aim of my Master’s project consist of creating a source that manipulates typography using light, shade, projection and positioning. I have combined various methods to establish this focus and have created a range of objects to display these ideas. The main focus of my experiments was to manipulate words that contain other words within them. These consisted of one seven-letter word that could be stripped down, similar to layers, to reveal new words, for example ECLIPSE, CLIPS and LIP. By combining these ideas, a range of objects have been created to display and project the design using light and typography. These vary from one another as each focus on a different concept. Although the end result is similar, different approaches are taken to create the idea. The design of my ideas focus on creating a way type can be linked to complete, separate or create new words.
e: z-86@hotmail.co.uk
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Melanie Rich MA Digital and Visual Communications
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‘Inspire’ is a new brand created for the cereal section. After diverse qualitative research I came to the conclusion that a product for an independent mix of various ingredients for cereals should urgently be present in supermarkets. With this background in mind, the slogan ‘select, create and mix’ was born which refers mainly to the creative process of selection of ingredients and mixing. It is exactly this process which provides an incentive for children as they can fully decide for themselves what they would like in their cereal. Based on this, it is a fun for the whole family.
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In addition, I have also paid attention to sustainability and environmental friendliness which is why the packaging is made out of bio-plastic which is produced from corn. This fact provides next to recycling even varied possibilities for reuse in private households.
Contact e: rich_design@web.de
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Caroline Roose MA Digital and Visual Communications
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“The age of meism came with the end of consumerism and its concern for community, and of socialism with its concern for society. Meism is fostered by privatization and self- responsibility... the individual is held responsible for themselves.” Jean Baudrillard. Meism is a world-accommodating religion for secular societies. Its theology follows naturalist philosophy in the belief that there is nothing beyond the natural. The other ethical key component is existentialism naming the neverending process of individualization as the reason for contemporary rituals of self-castigation, self-improvement, and self-adulation. My work presents suggestions for religious practice in Meism.
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Contact e: caroline.roose@live.com w: www.carolineroose.com
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Lizy de los Santos MA Digital and Visual Communications
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Let’s have a blast together
Nowadays in our over-scheduled society people are always busy and on the go. Technology plays a key role in everyone’s life, particularly when it comes to socialising. Not only social networks, also smartphones and other inventions determine the way we communicate. The rapid pace of change and the anonymity of the internet make it harder to find likeminded people. For my Master’s project I created a new image for the children’s product ‘Popping Candy’ and made it a sophisticated fun product which brings likeminded people together. With my campaign I want people to find friends or partners through a fun but efficient way. Humans need to enjoy life and need to be surrounded by people who do the same and who have similar interests.
e: L.delosSantos@gmx.de
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Benjamin Schmitt MA Digital and Visual Communications
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The work towards my Master’s project focused on experimenting with visual digital design development, user interface design and usability in contemporary operating systems. For my Master’s project I examined the visual differences in interface design today and questioned if smartphones and the mobile interface has affected this.
Contact e: Designbschmitt@icloud.com w: benjaminschmitt.prosite.com
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Mareike Seefluth MA Digital and Visual Communications
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In the pre-computer era, handwriting was of enormous importance. We have learned a huge amount about their personality from the handwritten letters of great human beings. The content and meaning of what we write is the most critical thing, but we lose something deeply personal and meaningful if we stop writing by hand. When a friend’s parent dies, what can replace a handwritten condolence card? Surely not a condolence email?! So I wanted to create an advertising campaign for analogue communication by using the outcomes of my two main projects (statement-selfies and collecting worldwide handwriting stuff projects) and some smaller projects. So the outcome depends on the co-operation of known and unknown people worldwide. Eco design concepts currently have a great influence on many aspects of design. Eco materials such as the use of local recycled materials reduces the environmental costs of shipping, fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. So I will use certified paper (FSC), bio inks and a climate-neutral production fitting in with the latest standards of eco design.
e: mareikeseefluth@gmail.com
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Timo Firtina and Vivien Stennulat MA Digital and Visual Communications We create handmade personalised children’s books for children aged 8-12 years old. Our unique personalisation process helps children to identify more closely with their books, thereby strengthening the education effect and reinforcing ownership. In our personalisation process you can choose from four character profiles with different qualities, which are based on four personality types. This guarantees that every child can identify with at least one character as himself. For the book illustrations we redraw the child from a photo into an illustrated character. Therefore, every child finds himself in his own completely unique book. The stories involve the child taking part in various adventures while developing superpowers. Our books represent unique and long-lasting gifts from friends and family while also supporting parents in the education process. We let children dive into their own personalised world of reading and enhance their imagination while they are learning skills for life.
Contact e: Timo.firtina@gmail.com e: v.stennulat@gmail.com
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w: www.tivi-production.com
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Christos Symeonides MA Digital and Visual Communications
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My Master’s project focuses on film and video production. I have never produced any work that relates to the production of a film and that’s the main reason why I’ve decided to use my MA studies as an opportunity to introduce myself to this field. My project is a short film called ‘The Blue Bin’, that was written, shot, directed and edited by me on a very low budget. This project has helped me gain some basic knowledge concerning film production therefore I am glad that I made the decision to follow this path. I am sure that everything that I’ve learned throughout this year will definitely be helpful for me at some point in the future. I believe that having some basic knowledge around film and video production is an important additional characteristic for a graphic designer.
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Contact e: Christos.Symeonides.17.02.89@gmail.com w: christossymeonides.wix.com/christossymeonides
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MA Fine Art Contemporary Fine Art as a subject is typified by its promise of being an infinite and boundless field of practice, and covers the whole gamut of visual expression. The artists exhibiting in this show reflect various elements of the broad range of work supported by the MA Fine Art course at the University of Wolverhampton. Working with the School of Creative Arts and Design’s community of technicians and academics, the exhibiting students have developed individual, independent voices through sculpture, painting, installation, photography, performance art, relational and other practices. This show represents the culmination of a long period of reflection, research, experimentation and application, qualities that are reflected in the work on display.
critique, and individual tutorials with a subject specialist. In addition to the regular teaching team who have worked on the programme, I would like to thank; Professor Dew Harrison; Professor John Roberts; and our new Reader in Fine Art Dr. Alexei Penzin; as well as the school’s administrators, Jo Mills and Don Adamson; and to extend my appreciation for the efforts of all of the MA studio tutors who provided the graduating students with supportive individual advice and tuition. Finally, I would like to wish all of the graduating students every success with their future development as artists, and extend my firm belief that they will capitalise on the skills that they have developed at the University of Wolverhampton. Congratulations.
The ethos of the MA Fine Art programme is the development of critical and artistic independence, delivered through intensive practice-led studio study, alongside technical workshops, theoretical lectures, seminar
Su Fahy MA Fine Art Course Leader
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Komlaish Achall MA Fine Art
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Kom Achall explores the ambiguous, non-interpreted triangle between being born British Asian, female and self. The undertones that direct her practice are cultural identity, cultural hybridisation, Diaspora, hierarchy systems, religion, domesticity and female Asian identity. The practice documents and archives the fusions, conflicts and denials, seeking to capture multifaceted complexities that interweave, juxtapose and collide to make-up this hybrid mix. The artist uses sculpture, collage, installation art and symbolic objects and her photography work is integrated and digitally manipulated to create an undefined and misunderstood space, yet portrays pictorial authenticity. For Achall, this action of arranging images in layers represents a narrative and perplexity that is hidden within each individual’s identity and psyche. Her works frequently demonstrate contradictions between harmony and conflict in contemporary Britain, highlighting tensions between ethnicity, religion and political opinion.
e: komachall@hotmail.co.uk
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Hannah Boyd MA Fine Art
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Hannah Boyd’s oeuvre explores the haptic qualities found in organic materials. She is interested in gestural marks, feeling that the artist mark is emblematic of the artist. The concept of trace features highly within her work evoking, the desire to pass on traditional skills and knowledge. Her work focuses on the relationship between materials and the body, and seeks to analyse these actions and our social attitudes towards touch in the hierarchy of the senses. Her use of intimate phrases and verbs gives the viewer the opportunity to reflect on their interaction with the world around them and question their own perceptions.
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She has created a number of site specific works, including a story-telling hut at the Festival at the Edge 2014 and alternative drawings using unearthed clay from Baggeridge Country Park.
Contact e: Boydiya@hotmail.com w: www.boydart.co.uk
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Tom Chimiak MA Fine Art
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Tom Chimiak is an award winning conceptual filmmaker specialising in short observational films and time-lapses. Tom’s methodology revolves around three traits of colour, composition and collaboration, with a desire to engage and pose questions to an audience.
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Inspired by Jeremy Deller’s work, Tom enjoys working with creatives of all fields of art to achieve a more rounded project, which best executes the original idea. Personal inspiration stems from his consumption of music, interest in digital/film photography and his autistic perspective on the world and society.
Contact w: www.tomchimiak.com
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Sarah Killeen MA Fine Art
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The setting of the home for me has a vocabulary that is both banal yet uncanny. A place we can act without pretence, the home provides numerous features for creative discussion and interpretation. Functional or cherished objects, corners, nooks and crannies, structures, furniture that make up the space of the home have a language that is significant to us all in varying ways. Memories are wound up in banal elements of the home. Shelter and protection, character and design, security to be ourselves, the unnerving quality of exposed lives or the bitterness of an unhappy childhood memory may be evoked in the domestic.
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In this collection of embroidery work and paintings the unremarkable, the everyday, is portrayed alongside the private and the often peculiar side of intimate relationships within the familiar setting of the family home.
Contact e: sarahkilleen83@yahoo.co.uk
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Gavin Lawley MA Fine Art
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I like to think of my practice as being an exploration of social and cultural situations through the use of sculptural forms and material constructions. Materials play a large part in my practice as a site for negotiation. I use the methodology of ‘thesis, antithesis and synthesis’ to examine my contextual concerns and as a way to find clarity in cultural investigation. My work relies upon intuition through direct engagement with subject and material to produce artefacts of cultural meaning and insight.
e: gavlawley@gmail.com
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Maria Michael MA Fine Art
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Death, life, and abandonment are the key aspects that dominate my practice. Through my work I want to persuade the viewer about the existence of metaphysical element in reality. My project focus on life after death, mainly questioning where the spiritual part of each person goes when passed away and I am presenting my own scenarios of that fact. To succeed the metaphysical element I am working in camera using available light. I am shooting in monochrome and I am using slow exposures to create a ghostly presence. My practice consists of sequence photographs and I am working in thematic series.
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I am performing mainly in abandoned places in Cyprus as a personal residency. My inspirations are artists such as Francesca Woodman, Sarah Moon, Magdalena Kmiecik, and Nikhil Chopra.
Contact e: Marigoullaa@hotmail.com w: www.mariamichaelphotography.com
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Chryso Nicolaou MA Fine Art
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An investigation of the nature and importance of presence and identity, ours and others around us. The artist through performance attempts to test the relationship and interaction, between her, the audience and the existing everyday objects. At what depth, the objects we use every day and the people we see every day, influence, invade, change the path of our life. What is acceptable and not in human behavior, at what point society becomes a cage and how much are we stigmatised by it. The interaction with the public plays an important element to the whole performance, as with her presence the artist asks the audience all those questions. The main aim of the performance is to create an uncomfortable feeling to the participants and through the possible elements of anxiety, surprise and uneasiness, again using the artist’s presence, identity, the white space and ordinary objects creates a realisation of the main questions that are asked and tested.
e: tyrianpurple100@gmail.com
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Kathryn Sawbridge MA Fine Art
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Kathryn Sawbridge is an experimental artist working within the theory that everyone is born with a Tabula Rasa (blank canvas) and that personality is built up by the impact of different experiences and memories. Her work uses colour meanings and layering techniques to show development of personality. This current piece of work incorporates the key features developed during her Master’s projects which aimed to answer her research question, ‘To what extent can the theory of semiotics be used to illustrate the development of personality and identity?’ This final piece uses the creation of a dress as an analogy to show the buildup of her personal blank canvas, with natural materials and fabrics layered to show her tabula rasa. The artist has used a selection of recognised colour semiotics to represent personality traits, which have been influenced by memories and experiences, giving the viewer hints to the artists’ personality.
e: kathryn.e.sawbridge@hotmail.com w: www.risingkestrel.co.uk
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Richard Savine MA Fine Art
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Savine’s doodled paintings joyfully mix a combination of childhood memories, symbolism and traces of dreams with pop culture, street art and graffiti. The works embody levels of pareidolia - the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning, where it does not actually exist - through the use of partially representative abstract imagery. Forms and motifs from previous works are recycled and appear in many of the pieces building connections and relationships within paintings that could otherwise appear isolated. Many of the forms don’t quite commit to being recognisable, yet are not totally ambiguous as there is a sense of familiarity. Without this construction of ambiguity the work wouldn’t have the longevity if the viewer were instantly aware of the recognisable. The titles of the works are keys that unlock intent within, the pieces almost title themselves, “…as I work, subconsciously populating the area, a title will appear – guiding mood, colour, form and composition towards a level of completion.
e: Richard_savine@o2.co.uk w: www.richardsavine.co.uk
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Antonia Sella MA Fine Art
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Antonia Sella is a multidisciplinary visual artist working with photography, sculpture and predominantly enjoys painting. However as a painter born near the sea she is naturally intrigued by the seasonal changing elements of the seascape. These inspiring encounters are photographed by the artist to capture the moment. Sella’s inspiration comes from the sea and seascape. She is interested in primarily expressing her emotions for each season and the spectacular seascapes she records. As an artist she is focusing on her feelings and her memories that she has from reflecting on the seascape for each season. The drawing and photography taken influences her abstract works, the important feelings and select memories are eventually expressed on large format canvases or paper in the studio.
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Antonia works with four seasons; for Winter and Autumn she used darker colours and for Spring and Summer she used lighter colours so finally the viewer can see the different colours between the four seasons.
Contact e: sella.fine.artist.@hotmail.com w: antwnia123.wix.com/antonia-sella-artist
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Georgina Shepherd MA Fine Art
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Georgina’s paintings hover between abstraction, landscape and figuration. Her work is triggered by observational drawing where she regards her role as an observer of transitory moments encountered within the topography. Processes rely on instinctive swift brush strokes that maintain an element of ruptured control where paint surfaces vary allowing Georgina to imbue the work with expressions of light, colour, space and elusiveness. These processes explore organic structures through fracture and interplay having an interchange of depths, organic labyrinths and viscous friction where she demands of the viewer an active presence of visual enquiry and intrigue. Recent work explores rock formations, boulders and crags linked to the activity of rock climbing where the materiality of the paint engages in a dialogue with the subject. Her perception of natural forms through gestural marks, vibrancy and energy illustrate her motivation to invite the viewer to contemplate, link and recall the ephemeral nature of the landscape through her interpretation of its presence.
e: g.sheep@btinternet.com w: www.georginastudio.co.uk
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Anna Smith MA Fine Art
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Smith’s work reflects and extends the phenomenological writings of Martin Heidegger Being and Time, 1953, relating Heidegger’s authentic experience to people’s experience of disability as a social construct. Heidegger believed that people spend most of their time immersed in inauthentic experience; it is not until an object is broken that we can have a true authentic experience of it. In the late 18th century the body of the ‘other’ has been, medically and psychologically measured and classified into a white, male, able-bodied, heterosexual hierarchy. These social constructs form the basis of people’s inauthentic experience of disability and otherness. In Liquidity a series of abject anthropomorphic sculptures, the damaged yet confident body of the ‘other’ is displayed against the medicalised supports that hold it in place. The reflective facade of the ceramic glaze creates an anxious uncertainty of where each sculpture ends and the audience body begins, highlighting the fluid nature of disability as a social construct. The positioning of the sculptures directly on the floor removes the boundaries created by the art object on a plinth.
e: annaski@hotmail.com w: annasmithart.com
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Deborah Stone MA Fine Art
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Using traditional and digital techniques Deborah’s work explores memory through association. The photograph becomes a drawing board where space, light and mark-making are a bridge to the historic arguments of superiority in media. Monumental and intimate formats serve as tools to study how our mind recalls details, environments, locations or haptic qualities, which trigger impressions that once shaped our lives. In creating a layering of media, Deborah links time with trace. These works become anchored both in the past and in the future simultaneously. It is here the discrepancy between what is anticipated and what is expected lies. Significance of juxtaposition of images through overlapping or proximity plays between myth and fact, creating the story. This is memory as a format to identify, interpret, empower and destroy. Our search for what was real and the echoes of dreams we once had.
e: qwaxuk@yahoo.com w: www.deborahstone.co.uk
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PhD Research
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PhD Research CADRE (Centre for Art, Design, Research and Experimentation) at the Faculty of Arts currently has 35 students undertaking doctoral research, both part-time and full-time, and all at different stages of their study. Their projects are highly creative, innovative and diverse, some theory-based, some practice-led, but all challenging in their unique approaches to the contribution of new knowledge across art, craft and design. This exhibition has an array of work from a number of the practice-led research students, those who have outcomes ready to show and are not concentrating on either the preparation of their Confirmation of Research, or on the writing-up of their final thesis.
Prof Dew Harrison Associate Dean for Research and acting Head of School of Creative Arts and Design and Media
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Everlyn Nyangiro PhD Research
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Everlyn’s work challenges the human visual bias reflected in many key art discourses, practices and in our ordinary appreciation of artworks. Whilst not refuting the importance and omnipresence of the visual, she argues that drawing one’s attention away from it opens up opportunities for the development of a different type of sensory practice: one majorly based on taste, smell and touch as medium. She argues that the non-visual senses have the potential of involving the audience in a more immediate and bodily way, and therefore are ideal for the exploration of personal, emotional, cultural and geographical meanings through eliciting memory and association.
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By using taste, smell and touch as the main source from which experiential, aesthetic and connotative appreciation is enabled, Everlyn aims to destabilise and question the dominant appreciative foundations within art.
Contact e: Everlyn.Nyangiro@wlv.ac.uk
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Sheikha Khuloud Al Qassemi
Heritage Elements and the impact of their implementation in Contemporary Architecture.
Garfield Benjamin
How can cyber-art force the contemporary subject to confront its position as the parallactic gap between physical and digital worlds?
Michael Birchall
Investigating models of new media curating and artistic practices in relation to participatory and socially engaged practices in both museum and online contexts.
Carina Brand
Between Nature And Freedom: Culture and the question of moral progress in Rousseau, Kant and Hegel.
Stephen Greenfield
Ecological Labyrinths and mythe of the Fall An Earth-centred approach to the Lord of the Rings and His Dark Materials.
Paul Hague
Wordsworth, Williams & Coteries of Cultural Exchange: Intellectual Communities of Influence in Paris & London in the 1790’s.
Catherine Hale
Art, Enterprise, Finance and Development Changes in global Cultural Production.
The Ethics of one-on-one theatre.
David Bryant
Deleuze and Painting: Re-thinking the Formal.
SOMA: Toward a 21st Century Gesamtkunstwerk.
Gemma Collard-Stokes
A common language amid inscription and experience: revealing the connection between writing, moving and habitation in creative process.
Carol Cooper
The development of architecture in the Black Country in the 20th century for art, design and visual media use: using the context of contemporary influences to analyse success or failure of a variety of projects completed during this era.
Robert Geale
Shakespeare films, ideology and intersubjectivity: An examination of the ideological production and consumption of Shakespeare films.
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Christopher Gomersall
Simon Harris
Antje Hildebrandt
Post-conceptual dance and choreographc performance practice: Expanding the object.
Lisa Holden
Freak Show Television: Victorian Discourses in British Reality TV.
Fiona Jardine
The Divided Seal: Reading a History of Signatures in Visual Art through Derrida’s
Signature Event Context.
Lovepreet Kaur
An exploration of gender equality through the teachings of Sikhism and their implications amongst Sikhs in contemporary society.
Jay Langley
James Priest
Xin Li
Theresa Radcliffe
To what extend does the Higher Education System play a role in the preservation of caste based divisions.
Researching design interventions to improve glass recycling both in terms of its system and its products.
Greg Marshall
The Application of a Post-Organic and Post Human Methodology to Live Theatre Practice.
Scott Martin
Soundtrack, Identity and Physical Space in Post-pop, New American Wave Cinema.
Carol Meachem
What is the role of creativity in visual communication?
Tara Mooney
Textile artefacts as triggers for wellbeing: Innovative approaches to Alzheimer’s disease.
Clive Moore
An exploration of the shifts in modes and processes of communication from printbased to digital artefacts.
Caroline Preece
An investigation into the ‘Languages’ of painting.
A cinematic review of existential anxiety, from German Expressionism to Korean New wave Neo-Noir.
Still Life and Eroticism.
Anna Santomauro
Transmission: Conveying Marginal and Post-Traumatic Contexts through Socially Engaged Art Practices.
Benedict Seymour
The Time/Money Image: Fictitious Capital, Film and Social (Non) Reproduction.
Daniel Somerville
Body Opera: In Search of the ‘Operatic’ in the Performance of the Body.
Roma Soni
Reveil to Reveal: An investigation into the visual representation of the veil.
Ian Peter Stone
The transposition of third text discourse from analogue to digital cinema.
James Williams
Creative interaction and collaborative process in contemporary music and its performance.
Yet Chor Sunshine Wong
Transformative and activist potentials in socially engaged art.
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AiR 112
Artists in Residence Artist in Residence is a scheme designed to encourage practicing artists to engage with the Faculty of Arts and our students. It provides visual artists and designer makers with the opportunity to undertake a period of research or realise a project, using our workshops and supporting facilities, in exchange for volunteering their services to the Faculty for one day. This gives those participating the opportunity to use equipment of which otherwise may not be available to them, as well as benefiting the Faculty by bringing ideas and techniques which may not otherwise enter the University environment.
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Caroline Ali Artists in Residence
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Drawing as a trace of observation activity is examined through the experience of working directly from historic works on paper such as a portrait in The British Museum by the political cartoonist James Gillray of his publisher friend George Humphrey (1811). This sketch by Gillray has been the source of exploration around notions of attention to detail in the context of museum collections. My insitu records of this observation activity are used as a means to both probe a past drawing event, and to simultaneously record evidence of current investigation. These museum encounters have been developed by means of hand-drawn animation, graphite and silver ink on museum conservation paper. A glass magnifying lens refers to the focal area of the human eye.
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Physical damage of the paper support, with its parallels to vision and memory is also being studied in terms of stability and museum preservation activity.
Contact e: info@carolineali.co.uk w: www.carolineali.co.uk
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Betul Katigoz Artists in Residence
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I am interested in creating handmade objects through which I can communicate my innermost feelings. My vessels explore the relationship between fragility and strength, logic and emotion. Touching the clay enables me to convey these feelings through the repetitive actions of developing hollow forms. I use very rough brick clay to create my work which for me represents the physical state of the human body. However my forms are delicate and petit representing my emotional state. I am fascinated with ‘clay’ as a material that has been extracted from the Earth as rocks and strata and it is this feeling which I wish my own work to embody. As a form, I am drawn to the Tulip as it has cultural significance to Turkey where it is considered the embodiment of perfection and beauty. My forms reflect the quality of the tulip, both metaphorically and physically. Just as the rock brings strength into my works so the tulip evokes a fragile and ephemeral state. My practice continues as a voyage of selfdiscovery as new influences immerge and combine to form my artistic practice.
e: www.betulceramics.com w: betulceramics@outlook.com
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R H Robinson Artists in Residence
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R H Robinson is a progressive English artist and writer based in Birmingham, UK. A professional freelance worker with a range of traditional fine art skills she produces paper constructions and writes essays and reports. She also undertakes short-term commissions and residencies in the education, health, heritage and voluntary sectors where she provides consultation and art direction. In response to culture-led regeneration my work contests the status and role of the creative within contemporary art practice and arts relationship to assumed audiences. I aim to instigate debate via direct action and occupation. Works vary from transitory projects to formal enquiries. These activities intentionally operate in opposing spheres- anonymous places and established art spaces. This dichotomy informs a critical observation of art and its systems and the pro-active research that is fundamental to my work. Research and documentary led the sitespecific outcome is commonly intervention, event and critical text.
e: RHR1968@gmail.com w: www.robinsonruth.com
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Katherine Sullivan Artists in Residence
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My work inhabits the common ground between architecture and clothing. Both are seen as metaphors for the body and for human experience. The crafts involved in clothing and building often overlap in my work and I share the views of the great architects of modernism that the very nature of architecture can be identified with textiles. To these architects, a building is worn and not occupied and their understanding of body and clothes, structure and ornament as one underpins the perceptual framework for my sculpture. In my studio I experiment with building and engineering materials whilst employing techniques found in the textile industry, in order to create fabrics of my own. I often initiate residencies in heritage sites in order to scrutinise the archaeology of this ‘membrane’ that stands upon the margins between private and public space. I aim to lift the decorative elements from clothing and buildings and turn them into constructive elements within my sculpture.
e: sullcansculpt@yahoo.co.uk w: www.katherine-sullivan.co.uk
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