2020
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A I
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SAIL AWAY
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Our next cruise is cancelled. The daily announcements simply reflect our concerns. Narratives waft between crew members, anxious for the uncertainty of ‘afterwards’. Anchored until further notice. Many are enjoying the endless days of blissful sunshine; for me, it remains work as usual. Make this, install that. Savouring the creation of new ideas and making this tangible. I am in leisurely isolation. Floating in a quarantine space, inspired by our community of creatives.
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There is a cruise ship; it can’t dock so it goes round in circles on the edge of the horizon. On board you’re getting dizzier and oblivious. The sea still surrounds you and you could be anywhere. I would never go on a cruise ship I say. A “holiday” with no escape, the lapping of water you can’t touch and you’re stuck and it sways and you’re sick and now anxious and all you tried to do was sail away. A ferry, perhaps… A row boat is better, around a lake, Or a slender narrow boat cruising the canal, the edge just 2 meters away, or maybe, actually just the boat that’s docked in the harbour, the big one with the garden that bobs with the wind… But the windows are too small for a view. Perhaps I will paddle, or wade out in the tide. I will let it stroke my ankles and maybe I’ll slip in for a swim.
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It’s not all ‘arggh’ and ‘matey’, alright? And sometimes it’s not just Polly that wants a cracker.
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Pointy hat Black crown Sleeves outstretched Feathered gown, The shadow of my chest to west waves whisper... A flight in winter That knot in my net. A feather for a thought, Flock flow far Star in the sea The sweet fruit tree, This island our nest In may to be left Bid Adieu, to the rest
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Resign and Glide IIIIIIIII /on a cline/ For a moment – we kline/in/by. I hesitate to say sail and it’s not for a dislike for water.
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I always find that I come back to the sea. A gravitational pull tethers me to it, a desire to roll my trousers up and stand in the shallows when the tide is out, puddle hopping as far out as I can go before the water wets my clothes. It’s less about what the water gives me, and more about what I take from it, drinking it in, how it feels to be here where the horizon expands out before me and the people shrink into dots behind me. I want to drift towards the edge of the world where the sea drops off and the sky engulfs my sight, let the tide drag me over the cliff and awake on another shore. I dig my feet further into the silt, steadying myself instead. I allow the push and pull of the current to sway me in my place; this feels nice too.
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THE ARTISTS
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20-21 SADIE-MAE ARELLANO @ex.icon / @ex.icon.studio ex.icon@outlook.com exicon.cargo.site 22-23 JOSIE ARGYLE josieargyle@outlook.com
42-43 TODD CLARKE toddclarkestudio@gmail.com 44-45 SULI CONROY suliconroy.com suli2.conroy@live.uwe.ac.uk 20-21
22-23
42-43
44-45 46-47 CHARLIE CUNNINGTON-SHONE charlieccunnington@gmail.com @charlescunningtonshone
24-27 LEVI BAINBRIDGE levizerf@outlook.com
28-29 HARRY BEAVER @harry_beaver_art
24-25
28-29
46-47
48-49
50-51 EMMA DAY eday.emma@googlemail.com @eday____
30-31 ROSIE COURT BENDALL r-c-b.co.uk r.c.b@live.com 32-33 SARAH BIOGLOU sarahbioglou@gmail.com @sarahthemagicalgoatoflimassol
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32-33
50-51
52-53
34-35
36-37
54-55
56-57
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56-57 ISOBEL GAGE isobelgage@hotmail.com @iagart 58-59 ERIN GILLIES-LANGDON erin.gillies.langdon@hotmail.co.uk eringillies.myportfolio.com
38-39 ELLA CAIRNS ellacairns.art@gmail.com @e_m_b_c
40-41 CALVIN CLARKE
52-53 LINDSEY DUNNE contextualart.l.jane@gmail.com @context_art_lou_lou-jane 54-55 MILLY FRANCIS millyjfrancis@gmail.com @millyjfrancis
34-35 AMBER BOWER beaniebower@yahoo.co.uk www.the-dots.com/users/529737 36-37 KATIE BRUNT kttt@hotmail.co.uk
48-49 APPLE COUSINS-SCOVELL abcscovell@gmail.com @fruit_ladyy
38-39
40-41
58-59
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60-61
60-61 LOWRI HARRIS lowriharris.lh@gmail.com lowriharris.bandcamp.com
62-63 ESTHER HESKETH esther.hesketh@btinternet.com estherhesketh.myportfolio.com
82-83 ISAAC JORDAN www.isaacjordan.info isaacjordan@gmx.com
64-65 GEORGIA HESS georgialhess23@gmail.com @georgiahess.art
84-85 JESSICA KINNEY jessicakinney@outlook.com @jessicakinneyart
62-63
64-65
82-83
84-85
66-67 LAUREN MARIA HILL laurenmariahill.com @laurenmariahill
86-87 KATIE LEWIS @bitsandblobs katielewisartist@gmail.com
68-69 DAISY HILLS hills.daisy.p@gmail.com daisyphills.wixsite.com/artist
88-89 NAOMI LARH naomilarh.com naomilarh@hotmail.com
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68-69
86-87
88-89
90-91 JOEL MANSFIELD joelmansfieldfineart@gmail.com almanacarts.squarespace.com
70-71 KATY HILLIER katyhillier.art@gmail.com @katy.hillier 72-73 LAUREN HORRELL horrelllauren@gmail.com laurenehorrell.wixsite.com/laurenhorrelltextile
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72-73
90-91
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94-95 BEN MARTIN bmarts636@gmail.com lordandlionart.co.uk @Skinny_Gud
74-75 WINSTON IRUNGU winstonmino@gmail.com @ohyoumadhuhh 76-77 CONNOR JACKSON con.jackson@hotmail.com connorrjacksonn.tumblr.com
74-75
76-77
94-95
96-97
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96-97 EMILY MATTHEWS emayaartstudio@gmail.com @emayaartstudio 98-99 ROBERT MILLS www.robertmillsartist.com robertmillsartist@yahoo.co.uk
78-79 DAISY JONES daisyjonesart.wixsite.com/portfolio 80-81 LAURENCE JONES @laurencejonesfa
92-93 LUCY MARDELL lucymardell@gmail.com artluc.wordpress.com
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80-81
98-99
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100-101 BECKIE MITCHELL beckiemitchellart@outlook.com @beckiemitchellart
122-123 TINA SALVIDGE tinasalvidgelimited@hotmail.co.uk
102-103 BETHANY MONELLE bethanytamsinart@gmail.com @beemonelleart 104-105 LAURA MONELLE laura.monelle@icloud.com @lauraemilymonelle_art
124-125 REA SCOBELL rea.scobell@gmail.com @Readoesart 102-103
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106-107 HELENA MRVOVÀ VINE 108-109 ADIBA NDIWE adibandiwe@gmail.com @adibandiweart
128-129 FRANCESCA SPENCER franspencerfilm@gmail.com @frennypak 106-107
108-109
126-127
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110-111 MADELEINE OLIVER maddieerosa@gmail.com 112-113 BETHANY PALMER bethanypalmerfineart@gmail.com @bethany_palmer_
126-127 HANNAH SMITH monkeynutshannah@gmail.com @hxzanna
130-131 ASHLEIGH SWAIN ashleighswainfineart@gmail.com @ashleighswainart
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112-113
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132-133 KATYA SYKES katya.morgansykes@gmail.com @katyasykes
114-115 CATHERINE PRITCHARD contactcritch@gmail.com
134-135 MEGAN TAYLOR taylormeg19@gmail.com @artbymegtaylor
116-117 RUANE PUTZ ru.a.neigh@gmail.com @Ru_a_neigh
136-137 FRASIER THOMAS frasierthomas@btinternet.com @frasier77777
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116-117
134-135
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138-139 ORLAIGH TILLEY orlaigh123@outlook.com @oorlaart
118-119 WILLIAM QUAYLE williamquayle@live.co.uk @quaylewill 120-121 LIBERTY ROSE liberty.e.rose@gmail.com
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120-121
138-139
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140-141 ALICE TO alicejaneto@hotmail.com @alicejanetoart
142-143 CLARA TROY troy.clara@yahoo.co.uk www.claratroy.co.uk 144-145 KLOE VINCENT kloe.vincent98@gmail.com kloevincent98.wixsite.com/kloe
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146-147 CALLUM WHITE callumjohnwhite@outlook.com callumwhite.co.uk 148-149 SYLVIE WHITFIELD snail.tears.uk@gmail.com snailtears.com @snail.tears
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150-151
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150-151 EBONY WRAY apricot-to-Rot.tumblr.com @Ebonyawray 152-153 ANNA YOUNG annayoung977@gmail.com @satiricalneeds
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THE ART
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SADIE-MAE ARELLANO Constantly shape-shifting between multiple mediums across a network of digital alter-egos, my practice attempts to objectively investigate the subjective experience of chronic human mortality bound in the matrix of advanced capitalism; decode the mythology of binary dualism humans have been programmed to believe in: (Mind/Body, Natural/Synthetic, Digital/Physical); and reveal the intrinsically organic nature of technology. I do this through various forms of playing. I play with my food, with artificial intelligence, and also with words and meaning. My work and I often exist in the virtual plane, though occasionally we return to the physical world and venture into a studio. When this happens, you can expect to find curious objects, visuals, and sounds that evoke a range of familiar human emotions such as apprehensive happiness, ecstatic disgust, giddy confusion and existential lust.
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JOSIE ARGYLE What can you see when things stand still? Arrested moments and stilted movements Movements which come back on themselves; hovering and circling A reoccurrence, a non-occurrence The corners of rooms; gathering dust Milky blue and lavender grey It doesn’t look like anyone sits in these chairs White shutters, wide open Vignettes and such Junctions; junctures Much of the same Spilling and sliding through multiple existences Echoes of regeneration Foraging in earnest along an unearthed path Memories exist in various iterations; evocations of collective experience Telling a story which belongs to no one
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LEVI BAINBRIDGE Absence Manifesto Caveat: meta-manifesto The manifesto holds political origin, a proposition or proposal; its existence is a refusal to accept a prevailing condition, its presence is an ambition towards viable alternative. The manifesto offers us an ontological vista, a phastasmic glance into how one might live. The manifesto, like the blueprint or design is a proposition not yet fulfilled; these ideas are sat in the waiting room of materialization. It is no wonder then that the manifesto has been appropriated by artists who desperately want to overcome the barriers of perception and suggest new way of being in relation to the visual world. The manifesto then does not have to be serious as it does not have to be materialized, in fact a manifestos true power can only be understood in its dematerialized form. It is delusion after all that separates man from animal, the manifesto allows the fantasmic grandeur of the imaginary without the disappointment of actualization. The hypothetical realties generated by the manifesto have the emancipatory power to suggest that things could be different. Introduction: “All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.�– Karl Marx, the communist manifesto. The association between the notions of the object and the tangible is an ideological one. The object is a relational concept; the dialectic between object and subject is one of location, in the subjects strive to remain the subject proper it must establish the object as something outside of itself. Like maps objects are a collective fiction used to navigate space. The tangible object is then used ideologically to sustain order; uphold the fictionalized distinction between objects and subjects and their social organization. The
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object circumscribed by the limits of the subject’s perception is an apparatus to natural-
Assertions:
ize a fragile constructed order. Acceptance of the dematerialization of objects is then an emancipatory act. The dominant ideology will no longer sustain itself through the dema-
I. The object should not be circumscribed to the limitations of the subject’s perception
terialization of objects, the relational nature of object and subject acts as a mirror, we see
II. The object should be liberated from the material realm
ourselves in a spatial and hierarchical relation to the order of objects; if the objects are to
III. Artists should no longer make physical forms, it demoralizes the sanctity of the non-
dematerialize the mirrored effect will assume it is our response to dematerialize in return.
material realm IV. Artists themselves should work toward their own physical dematerialization
They hyper object is an object the expands the horizons of perception, like licking the backs of your teeth, it can only be experienced in parts, never all at once. The hyper object is larger than the vistas of perception. A testament to absence asks us to meditate, why should the object be constrained by our ability to perceive it fully or at all? The objects reality is not Grounded in its materialization; when for instance, you lose a pen; the absence of its material form does not deprive us of its substance, we can still remember its weight and colour, its purpose, all of its affective qualities remain despite is dematerialization. Moreover, if we are to invert this, is not the acme of ideology the object deprived of its substance? Coffee without caffeine, sex without love – the substance is an affect not grounded in materiality. Professor Zizek remarked that the opposite of existence, is not death or extinction but insistence. Whatever ceases to exist insists. When we regret not doing something it haunts us, the thought of its non-existence persists in our memory. Absence creates an impression, just as discourses shape the objects of which they speak. Coffee without milk and coffee without cream are different because of their negations, negative space is required to define matter.
Marx, K. & Engels, F. (1992), The communist manifesto, Oxford University Press. Zizek, S. (2008) Violence. London, Profile books LTD. Zizek, S. (2002) Welcome to the desert of the real. London, Verso. 4 Foucault, M. The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). Routledge, 1972. 5 Zizek, S. (2019) Slavoj Žižek: Down with ideology! Interview with Barbara Bleisch. SRF Sternstunde Philosophie, 18 January [Online]. Available from: https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=Zm5tpQp6sT4 [accessed 30/10/2019]. 1 2 3
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HARRY BEAVER Artist block is my default setting. I convey my feelings and emotions through movement in which the medium is applied to the canvas, being expressive with the layers of paint using different size spatulas or mark making with charcoal, pencil or oil pastel. It’s chaotic at times. It’s personal. It’s a release for me to make my art, only revealing what I want the audience to see. The creative process begins when constructing canvases. Before stretching the material, I place it on the floor and leave it to be stepped on so once stretched I lose the anxiety of an empty canvas because of the markings that appear. Throughout, I’m writing thoughts, poetry and places in my work. Then continuing to layer on top with different mediums, making barely visible or not at all. Again, only showing a glimpse into my thoughts. My ideas are rather thinking of the ‘painting’ as something you make methodically, it is more like a site or place I keep returning to, each time attempting to make it ‘right’ but fighting against myself, burying and erasing things, allowing the painting to take different journeys. So, the idea of what a painting is, and the position as a painter is different. I’m not in total control, after I let loose on the canvas, I try ro find the calm between the chaos refining a few bits that won’t be wiped away, or the stuff left in the morning after party.
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ROSIE COURT-BENDALL For this piece I wanted to create something that would confuse and intrigue the viewer, contributing to the recurring theme I have used as an artist of influencing and changing my audiences view of reality by distorting and playing with the boundaries of everyday items or sights. I like the way it forces the audience to question what they’re seeing and invokes a sort of double-take response in which they are encouraged to question the boundaries of what they perceive as reality. Something it occurs to me that we do less and less as society continues to change and evolve around us. In the initial stages of developing this piece I wanted to create a large-scale installation that would tower over the audience as they moved through the space. I wanted to create a piece that demanded attention from the viewer and even made them feel slightly intimidated. It was about the response from the audience in the sense that there would be a perceived danger or risk of this huge -supposedly unstable- object possibly losing its stability. I created the objects to look wrong, as if they shouldn’t be standing and it’s a mystery as to how they still are. This added to this dramatic and imposing affect I was trying to achieve.
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SARAH BIOGLOU ‘25 or 6 to 4’ (1970) by Chicago. Waiting for the break of day Searching for something to say Flashing lights against the sky Giving up I close my eyes Sitting cross-legged on the floor Twenty-five or six to four Staring blindly into space Getting up to splash my face Wanting just to stay awake Wondering how much I can take Should I try to do some more? Twenty-five or six to four Feeling like I ought to sleep Spinning room is sinking deep Searching for something to say Waiting for the break of day Twenty-five or six to four Twenty-five or six to four
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AMBER BOWER How is it looking? It is not finished yet, would you like to see it? No, not if it isn’t finished. But it may never be finished. Then I may never see it.
I have been looking at the imposition of time and the feeling of it’s heavy construct in daily routines. I am interested in the commitment one has to time, the marriage between a person and timekeeping.
3/8 Rolls
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KATIE BRUNT At first, I thought, this bench will do. And then I became obsessed.. a little possessed... I have been investigating it for 242 days. For 68 of these days we were in self-isolation – the break did us good. Yet, despite my efforts, I still don’t think we really know each other. But this has changed my view on benches forever.
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ELLA CAIRNS Never comfortable, never satisfied. Keep moving, stay uncertain. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. I trudge along, looking often. Question and be questioned. Let us be certain in our uncertainty. Thrive on the lack of understanding. Chant to the silence of disinterested folk. Did I trip up or was that the start of a very well choreographed dance routine? All you see is a glimpse, never the whole. Like passing a scene of people whilst riding the bus. One raises their hand as if about to exclaim, but you’re already gone. I wonder what he was going to say. I am interested in chaos, and at the same time structure. I look for that space in-between, the gap, that pocket of air, the nothing that could be something. The centre of tension, the push and pull from order to disorder. I weave historic notions of superstition and storytelling with modern behaviours and beliefs. Nameless figures form a circle. They move in agitated, decisive steps. The dislocated rhythm is that of a ritual. Or maybe they’re just drunk. Is there really a difference between ancient myth and modern rumour? Anyway, must keep moving. Wrong turnings, doubling back, pauses and digressions, all contribute to the dislocation of a persistent self-interest. – Thomas A. Clarke
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CALVIN CLARKE Working with digital drawings Calvin creates graphic images. Funny little men, jumping out of doors high in the sky. A fire down below. A policeman running along an alleyway, the click, click, click of his shoes on the floor. Just above a low brick wall, a pair of eyes gleam bright.
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TODD CLARKE The seagull was dead. Still, at least he wouldn’t steal your chips anymore.
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SULI CONROY Female artist Suli Conroy is an architectural practitioner, who generates powerful spaces. There is a character to Suli’s work, a pallet of raw tones that collates in an organic aesthetic. Linking varied but primitively kindred works. These earthly colours are frequently produced from an affinity to Spices. Turmeric, paprika, black onion seeds. By using this signature material she creates fragrant works that have intense, rich colours. Though vast scale is a love song to Suli’s work she also creates sculptural paintings and smaller pieces. Working in a visceral way by using burning to form organic patterns into plastics and other matter. Engaged with spacial encounters and the sensuality of things in both installations and text based practice. As a whole her work makes noise; it is strong, humming and it moves you. An art which has presence.
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CHARLIE CUNNINGTON I’m not an artist. I’m just a guy who makes stuff. Physically I’m not the same person as I was in first year. I don’t have tits anymore, I have a kind of fucked hormone profile; but stabbing testosterone into your leg every three weeks without checking on your blood levels will do that. Puberty number two has sucked but here I am, still kicking. It took a long time but I’m finally at something close to peace with my body. I’m fascinated by the mundane. Using everyday materials to process and understand my own experiences. Clay becomes the body, and the body becomes the mind, the space becomes time and here you are tiptoeing around fragile sculptures that will likely end up in landfill in a matter of days. After years stuck in queues waiting for help, I’m kind of running out of work to make. My work is the discussion between me, my body and others and with next to no conflict, what is there left to make? It’s time to continue not being an artist, and maybe to start helping others instead.
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APPLE BLOSSOM COUSINS-SCOVELL I am a social media concerned, satire obsessed, and enthusiastically disturbed consumer of popular culture. Utilising the historical medium of illusion and façade in theatre and performance, my films explore the ever-present and growing relationship between media corruption and the sexualisation of our younger generations, most recently coined ‘The Lolita Effect’ (M.Gigi. Durham, 2009). My work is designed with the intention to be viewed in an online space and is produced in a format that mimics the short, to the point and eye-catching media found on sites like YouTube and Instagram. Visually my work imitates the safe, clean spaces depicted in children’s entertainment, television and media, whilst utilising their predictable and inane story lines to, not only entertain and engage all types of viewers but also to strike up conversation and debate around uncomfortable yet important topics. My focus being on our societal fascination with eroticised imagery of children’s bodies, the commodification of this and my concerns around the dangers of combining adult sexual motifs with childhood innocence. I aim to bring attention to the prevalence of child sexual victimisation in our culture, and to provide commentary on the problems with those in high places of power who seek to normalise it and who happily fuel the cycling nature of mistreatment of the most vulnerable and impressionable in our society.
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EMMA DAY Mankind’s adoration for beauty is as old as mankind itself and cosmetic surgery dates back to the very beginning of medicine; though the cultural concept of beauty continually shifts over time, the desire to attain it prevails. As social media becomes entrenched in people’s lives it continues to operate as a hyper-consumerist space that ranks image above all else, in a world of artificiality where physical beauty and perfection act as a paradigm we can see this ‘image’ shifting further and further from reality… By dissecting and reconstructing media-generated images and collective corporeal desires, I project dystopian visualisations of self-indulgence, excessive consumption and vanity through a pink, glittery lens. Underpinned by a tension between attraction and repulsion, my work directly reflects my inner conflict when confronting contradictions and dilemmas surrounding the beauty craze. Notions of authenticity and emulation, empowerment and oppression, desire and excess are all at odds.
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LINDSEY DUNNE Art Makes People Feel. Humanist, socialist and politically minded, my obsession with what makes people tick or more specifically what generates the instinct in us all to look away from the uncomfortable social issues we all too frequently see around us produces this inner drive to unravel and ultimately express the vulnerabilities of human life and human nature. My mixed media approach to each subject is dependent on the context, and often instinctually leads to a 3D piece that demonstrates the nature of the concept. Art becomes my tool and I endeavour to use it to push the audience to ask questions of themselves or take more notice of those around them. It drives my ambition to make social commentary through processes that link to political and humanitarian themes. Previous work has had a much more socially engaged aspect involved with the development and the end-product of my pieces. However, recent times have an unprecedented feel, self- isolation proves to send one a little mad. Installations, large sculptures, and assemblage pieces of previous work do still play their part in the working process. Although the new skill learned on the forge was but a day of workshops before retreat to the deep dark depths of Devon. The Large Set of Scales give a tongue in cheek way of weighing social justice and although this will be but a small part of a larger piece. I am hoping that playfulness will create a friction with dark humour on such serious issues.
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MILLY FRANCIS In my practice I am interested in the themes of time and decay and how the passing of time can be observed in the surrounding architecture and environment. For the past couple of years my work has focused primarily on the environment – making work based on ideas of geology and the marks that humans leave on the landscape. Recently, however, my focus has shifted onto ideas of heritage, ruins, preservation, collections and display. In my final year I have been exploring these ideas through the context of the English stately home and how these houses can often present us with a romanticised view of the past. I am interested in the ways in which these heritage sites attempt to preserve history through the preservation of interior scenes which in turn offer visitors a rose-tinted of our history. In my final project I have focused specifically on the interior spaces and collections of National Trust properties including Tyntesfield, a Victorian Gothic House and Charlcote Park, an Elizabethan country house. I have explored the ways in which these heritage sites choose to display their collections and the contrast between the opulence of the interiors and the gradual decay of the houses.
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ISOBEL GAGE ‘Disgust and Fascination are two sides of the same coin’. Upon hearing this at a lecture on ‘the Grotesque in Archaeology’ at King’s College London in 2015, it struck a chord on something I had been trying to articulate for quite some time. The bliss point between these two impressions was where I found the most interest when it came to people, society and the visual arts. That edge is what drives my interest, and what I strive for in my own practice. From mainly working in small scale 2D drawings in pencil, biro and ink, I have been building my skill set in materials and methods of construction by transitioning into increasingly larger 3D works, made in plaster, clay, willow, bamboo, papier-mâché and other materials. My work has always had an expressive element, a sketchy and textured approach, providing kinetic energy and movement. Now, moving into larger scale work in the form of mural-sized charcoal drawings and wearable, willow and papier-mâché armature puppets. The theatre, and specifically mime, directs the process and subject matter. Humans, and how we have interpreted and attempted to communicate our world, is what I make a study of. How we find meaning in everything and nothing. Exploring this through mythology, folklore and society, is another strong factor that influences the subject matter of my practice. A further exploration would include studying different cultures, looking into their mythology and god-bases, seeing how it influences their society, past and present. Highlighting this in a humorous and satirical way through the medium of drawings, sculpture and theatre.
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ERIN GILLIES-LANGDON Step out of your door. Onto the street, wherever that may be. Take a left. Notice the mundane. Take in your surroundings that usually pass you by. Go the opposite way. Catch the tail end of a conversation, peer into a door stood ajar, notice the sticker on the lamppost, take the alleyway you never take, count the railings on the bridge, observe the way your feet sit on the surface you walk on. Deviate from the path, move with desire, take a shortcut, take the long way, take it all in. I like to spend time at home, I like talking to my grandparents, I loved my sofa, I visit places that I’ve never been before, I like to read and read and read and read, I listen, I watch, I talk to my kettle when there’s no on around.
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LOWRI HARRIS Often encapsulating and atmospheric, this work envelopes the audience in a miasma of anxiety and discomfort. Generating and composing sounds described as ‘ambient’ and ‘otherworldly’ which are dynamic and stimulating, the use of sensory deprivation constructs a more intense experience for the listener. Looking at how the human body responds to specific aural stimuli and frequencies; this work aims to represent these disharmonious outcomes through composed and constructed experimental and minimalist sounds. The focus of this work is to examine and experiment with how an audience reacts to unknown sounds. Using a mixture of analogue synthesis and digitally manipulated field recordings, the intention is to construct a soundscape. Still, the audience, not knowing how these sounds have been created, provides a thoughtprovoking reaction. Constructing a purpose-built room specifically for these sounds enables the work to manipulate the audience through the listening process. The room is entirely dark, so the listener can focus in on the sounds and feel vibrations throughout their body. The work intends to suspend traditional forms of listening in favour of reduced listening. This makes the listener unable to associate what they hear with the real world, rendering it devoid of meaning and allowing it to exist as a perceptual object to be studied and observed as opposed to a means of information delivery, resulting in Schizophonia. This work invites the audience to alter their perceptions of sound and become more sonically aware of the environment that they are in.
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ESTHER HESKETH Chairs lining the streets, no room left in the stands, we sit at the end of the drive and wait for it to pass. There’s a stool at the end of the bed, a 3-legged perch with a pentagon top, the seat in front of the dining table, after a meal with the gold fish trifle, the upright sofa, too tall and pink, a seat out of slates like a step in the sand, the balcony greenhouse and the flats too high, the last bench around the lake. A walk to stop and wait. The chairs too have now become spectacle. You’re sitting in your cart, at the front. You missed the parade. All you can see is high vis jackets showing the way and the sound of the bidabada bidabada bidabada bom.
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GEORGIA HESS Reminiscing on home from a distance. Photography, Film and Installation communicating the neglect of the Working-class. A reflection of fear and frustration.
Don’t buy the S*n.
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LAUREN MARIA HILL My practice involves a combination of painting, assemblage and object-type sculpture. When following new directions in my work, I allow the medium to develop the idea, thus creating new meanings. Transformation / Utilisation / Placement / Association / Limitation / Scale / Transparency / Deception / Existence / Connection / Memory / Experience / Intent / Perspective
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DAISY HILL I am a text-based artist that is interested in creating a narrative that blurs the line between the subjective and the objective. My work is a combination of anecdotes, media, and fiction, and by interweaving these types of storytelling I create worlds that exist in liminal spaces of material cultures. These texts manifest in performance, projection, posters, and poetry, all existing in an instant and under exact circumstances, and then never truly re-experienced. Small spaces, demands of interaction, and far too much over-sharing force an intimacy between me and the audience in a desire for understanding. My work is permeated by a sense of nostalgia, recreating memories that never existed and conversations that never happened. I am interested in the politics of taking up space, and the spaces in-between public and private; coded love letters on the internet and whispers into pillows.
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KATY HILLIER How am I here? Why? How do I feel? What is a feeling? How do I think? How is it something, but intangible? How do I describe something inside me? My brain feels like mush. Hmmmmm… I’m squishy. What is this squish? What is it? I’m anxious. I pick. Pick. Breaking things. I scratch things. Bite too. Am I better? More of the same. Stress. Pressure. Building. Hmmmmm… Their healing is only temporary. I want to see it. Describe it. I need to separate it from me. I need to do something, anything, with it. I can’t stand it. I get this urge for it. Building. It becomes a compulsion, a part of me and my routine. It’s an obsession - repeating, exploring, feeling. Hmmmmm… From this they form. Transformed from intangible to real. They hold that which they have been created from. They have this quality. They bring out an urge. Not the same, different. The opposite. A need, to reach out, to feel. Their details, their texture. What is it? Why do I feel this way? This satification? There’s a feeling in the process, the form, the detail. I feel it in others too, not just my own. Do you feel like this? Do you see these shapes? Feel them inside? What are these things inside us? Do they exist? Do I exist to them too? Feel this thing. Look at it. It came from me. That one came from you.
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LAUREN HORRELL Where the wild things are, is where wild things be, They’re tied up in knots too tangled to breathe. Darkness uncovered and hidden inside, Moments of timings that let it all dry. Waiting for you to dig deep down beneath, Hold onto your breath, if you want to breathe. Hidden interior, waiting on light, Silence can cause you a terrible fright. Size only matters, when you’re at the top. The smaller you are, the bigger the drop. Taking it’s time to tame the down under, Surface of shallow, takes from the wonder. What do you mean? Where is it they do hide? Absorbed in the darkness, fear from outside. Who knows what could happen, where they might be. Down in the shadows, that’s not you. It’s me.
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WINSTON IRUNGU I can describe my style of practice as simple as placing a microscope on black culture, a process in which I rediscover hidden history, atrocities, agendas and dilemma struggles of the dynamic Afrodiasporic group, highlighting the negative and positive that all the while history forgot to acknowledge. I paint, collage, stencil, sculpt and also print make, I am fascinated by mixing media and making new outcomes from old scrapheaps. I experiment with the use of paint/colours on different surface and textures to give an interesting feel to the outcome within the canvas. Most of my works are portraits and murals of black composite figures, I aim to communicate subjects such as racism, injustice, history and popular culture.
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CONNOR JACKSON Technology can imitate nature; the other way around seems impossible. The computer can virtually create anything. A naturally formed rock can have a life in the real world and digitally on a computer screen. The aura is different with the two but both are connected through the form of creation. The digital version is inspired by the natural form and with this holds similar values to one another. Cooling magma clumps together to form holes of all sizes creating igneous rocks. The man behind the computer attempts a replication of this natural formation, can you feel the texture through the screen? The digital replica contains numbers, dates, variables, code, calculations. Similarly, the story of the natural rock is complex and detailed. The age, unknown to the eye. The distance it has travelled, undetermined. Where it was created, anonymous.
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DAISY JONES In times of turmoil it is common for the brain to revert to the past, entwined in nostalgia. Within my practice I provide a safe space for those going through times of grief, pain and confusion. Be it through satire, sensory spaces or surreal imagery to bring these sometimes indescribable emotions to life, I explore dark and troubling subjects through a rose-tinted gaze. Exploring the winding paths of anxiety, I aim to spin and challenge its negativity into more of a fun and tangible object to play with. Aesthetically I appreciate the things many don’t; the kitsch, tacky and grotesque. I am not afraid to use bright colours within my practice and use this as a tool to evoke emotions from the viewer. My deep love for retro interiors and set design recurrently spills over into my art practice, developing a whimsical and dramatic sense to my creations. The hyper-pop, DIY-aesthetic of my work is influenced by my own wistful tendencies of my childhood. The nostalgic and dream-like symbolisms I am currently exploring relate to my Grandmother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, as I am depicting her memory loss within these faux realities.
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LAURENCE JONES My current work has no context. It is the expression of a human. It is me being an expressionist, not working in expressionism. My movement and energy control an assortment of tools through a process, to manipulate paint on canvas. I am not afraid of mistakes, I embrace them. It is part of the painting; my work comes as it is. My colour pallet is always changing, each painting is different from the last. I tend to add a few rules before I begin, this is to uphold a level of structure, for example the direction of which the lines run remains the same or I restrict myself to only 3 colours. As the paintings progress and more marks layer up. The painting comes together like an architectural drawing. its visually pleasing attributes allow it to be easier to read for the normal viewer. As there is no specific context, you are invited to explore it alone and come up with your own thoughts. The layering of paint over time brings identity to the canvas, the colours and marks initiate emotions. These are what initiate different responses. The abstracted visuals do not confuse but just satisfy. With no hidden connotations the paintings are left open. My works do not conclude.
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ISAAC JORDAN Once full, a pulled back head of white hair, now transparent through the backlighting of stage lights surrounds the pale green face. The feathery wisps flicker from a nearby fan. Chunky plastic glasses and handlebar moustache (well groomed) shift up and down in time to a lone John Carpenter melody. Shirt collars and a surge of a theme song. For Isaac, small paintings contain fragments that sometimes fall, or maybe dance? They hover in groupings and have small holes for eyes that look inwards and outwards. He is interested in the gaps between things, at times nothing is as important as something. Depicting figures who are comfortable with the constrained sketchy way they are represented. They begin to look out over the edge, across the room and wonder, does John Carpenter paint?
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JESSICA KINNEY I am an open book. No relationship is perfect. Not just the intimacy between you and your partner, but a friend, a family member, a work colleague, and so forth. Truth be told there are a lot of things we keep private. A lot of things we keep to ourselves. It becomes a secret. Either kept between yourself and another, or to be heard by your ears only. This can make you vulnerable. Anxious inside. Perhaps makes you question your own identity? Through a sequence of objects, imagery and text, I am taking you on an intimate journey through recent year’s. Sharing with you my thoughts on experiences of mine I am yet to share. Stories I have kept conceived, that I am revealing to you now. They are short stories waiting to be pieced together to unravel the truth. These fragments of work have been carefully considered to reflect on my feelings towards telling stories I haven’t yet exposed. Exposing my vulnerability as all this time I have been keeping it protected behind closed doors.
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KATIE LEWIS I find myself working mainly with textiles as sculptural pieces. I enjoy the shapes, shadows & outlines created when twisting, filling, pulling & contorting materials, as well as the way they feel. Through earlier education I found comfort in painting. Now – after three years at university I’ve found that I’ve found my footing in sculpture; taking on a more hands-on and touch-feely approach. I want to create work that is fun to view; that isn’t too serious and encourages people to engage with it through touch. My work is visual and experimental, and whilst it may seem simple, the result is from plenty of trial and error in order to reach a finished piece which is appealing not only to the eye but to the touch for myself and (hopefully!) others, too. For me, I want my work to be more than just appealing to the eye and I want to encourage viewers to break out of their comfort zone by interacting with my artwork – rather than observing from a safe distance.
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NAOMI LARH How can time feel sticky? A traumatic moment can imprint on our subconscious, like a memory trench, the loss itself becomes a rogue matrix; a perpetual past that prints over the present. Trauma returns to a tear, a loss; how can this loss replace and form space? I relate to Ettinger’s psychoanalytical theories of a matrixial border space; an affinity with other, formed prenatally with m/other, ‘an unconscious space of simultaneous emergence and fading of the I and the unknown non-I which is neither fused nor rejected.’ (Ettinger, 2006) It’s from this copoietic border space that I display and dissipate pictographic figures in motion; headless, weightless, swimming or dancing. I use the body like a cell or a fluid fractal form that is simultaneously created and destroyed in looping layers, like sublimation or condensation, navigating vertiginous voids, pixelated biospheres or nephophobia; consuming, duplicating, mirroring, dividing, reforming or re-deathing. A recurring dream, stuttered words, glitches in the subliminal stream. I generate work within the thin depth of haptic surface that spans the cybernetic ether and physical wastelands of Western decay, one that is boundlessly confined to rectangular posters, windows, walls and screens. I revisit, build, edit and tear-away layers on prints and videos, accentuating and echoing the mistakes to create a cumulus hoard of condensed imagery. I intend to be expressive, instinctive and non-sequential; finding patterns in errors and catharsis in process-led chaos. Repetition is a therapeutic trance, almost delirious, a wafting rhythm slipping away and re-emerging in waves of spiralling shells.
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JOEL MANSFIELD I have always tried to generate a playful side to the work I create. More often than not, I find it difficult to create work that doesn’t feature an element of playfulness within its core. I am passionate about the language of storytelling and much of my work reflects a sense that the telling of stories, from one person to another, holds within it a sense of magic and wonder, an element of humanity that is uniquely our own. Therefore, I prefer to work in more physical, performative mediums, using masks and costumes or even sets to generate an atmosphere to the work I make. I have to make work that really excites me and engages my imagination. I cannot separate my personality from what I make, and therefore I often generate work that is tonally playful, possessing a sense of childish imagination with it. I like to dress up and build stuff, so maybe I’m just a big kid at heart. But who isn’t really? It just takes a good story to stoke the fire.
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LUCY MARDELL I enjoy making installations, sculptures and allowing them to tell stories. I like working in multimedia projects: I am excited by knowing and using many different techniques and applying them to a single project. It is very fulfilling for me to see how the different mediums reflect and echo the same idea, making it richer. But the stories which inspire my art are also very important - creating a world and the characters who live in it so the work is truly absorbing and to immersive to me as an artist as well as to the viewer. I believe more and more in interactive art because I want to make people think and use their imagination. I don’t want to tell someone what to think but to present them with an idea they can find their own meaning in. Mainly I have worked with clay, for instance creating a clay octopus/alien and a tree, which was part of an intricate overall story. More recently I’ve been working with metal and can’t wait to incorporate it into more projects. For the future combining 2D and 3D works is something I would like to explore more, lino prints and sketching are also incorporated into many of my pieces.
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BEN MARTIN “My life is like a movie... Only its the Shawshank Redemption and it’s played in reverse”.
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EMILY MATTHEWS Matthews’ practice flows with colours and shapes, the motifs are reoccurring and she holds a recognisable style. The graphic way she works with forms is evident in painted and digital pieces and a satisfying consistency remains across them. She created pieces that you would stare at on a wall. Each glance at it, a speck to be revealed; the movement she took, the plan or process, the imagery that inspired it, to be guessed upon and pondered; you make a link to the tropics of summer, the image down a microscope, the monument of a city. She works freely and controlled.
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ROBERT MILLS Masks in wild landscapes, derelict buildings, demolition projects and disused public lavatories. The grotesque body, unsealed and in process. Anxiety, symbols, dreams, myths and nightmares. Paintings, cartoons, videos and performances that are hard to see, frustrating or have to be climbed up to. Unanswerable questions, carnival and death. I am a very old artist living in Bristol and Oxford. I paint my dreams, private stories, myth, fairy tales and religion. I work with my early life and culture (anxious, suburban, bourgeois, Anglican, snobbish, racist, but secretly loving) and I engage with theorists such as Sigmund Freud (the unconscious impulses of sex and death), Carl Jung (archetypes and the collective unconscious buried in myth and dreams), Mikhail Bakhtin (the polarity of the sealed perfected classical and the wild grotesque of carnival), Julia Kristeva (Freudian insights on the “abject” and melancholia), Joseph Campell (analysis of myth, the “Hero’s Journey”), and Keith Johnstone (Improvisation and mask.) I like the work of William Blake, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Paula Rego, Hyon Gyon, John Glashan, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Peter Greenaway and Derek Jarman.
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BECKIE MITCHELL Typing is being stuck in the repetitive motion of one letter at a time. The writer is consciously choosing which letters are the best. I am stuck on this letter; in this moment I am regretting my previous choice of letters and I am struggling to choose the next ones. Typing is different from speaking; speaking is immediate and therefore can be forgotten in time. Writing can be considered and constructed but when made physical it marks this page with ink to be read multiple times. I was asked to write a piece of text for a publication.
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BETHANY TAMSIN MONELLE How can we turn the ordinary into something extra-ordinary? That is a question that I choose to explore thoroughly throughout my practice. I have always seen the beauty in the simplicity of the everyday, and by incorporating it within my work and highlighting it’s properties, I strive for others to see how the plain everyday surrounding us can become a work of art. Through the variety of both art mediums, and upscaled everyday objects, I aim create boundless works and sculptures in place of where the considered conventional should be, to induce the realisation of just how beautiful our everyday world can be.
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LAURA EMILY MONELLE Bodies, they’re beautiful and we all have them. Yet it’s one of the most criticised aspects within our society, no matter the size, shape, colour, alterations, etc. Tattoos can be seen as one of the most controversial, yet popular alterations that a person can do to their body. A tattooed body is an art form in itself, a canvas for permanent artwork and a chance for the artist and the tattooed individual to create their own expression as well as collaborating ideas and artistic view points. So why not photograph those living canvas’, or be inspired and make art of those living canvas’?
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HELENA MVROVÀ VINE work [art]work I had a few conversations [conversations are work] I flicked through some pages [flicking through pages is work] my eyes doing the left-to-right thing where they could words, words [again] I spent a lot of time thinking [...] and a lot of time trying not to think I talked to an empty room [language] I wanted to hear what the room had heard [language?] I contemplated duality I contemplated duplicity built-in contradictions I spend a long time thinking about if if< if> potentiality condition regret if // these are unprecedented times all times are unprecedented times // I wrote some time ago: “I go for a walk I walk in the dark I don’t feel safe I carry on” I carry on
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ADIBA NDIWE Adiba Ndiwe is a 22 year old, queer, artist of colour who’s based in Bristol and Cardiff. The artist’s thematic interests usually revolve around issues that she can personally identify with, addressing topics such as race, sexuality and various philosophical and existential concepts. Ultimately, Ndiwe’s individual artworks serve as documented segments of her life experiences, furthermore offering an uninhibited insight into her soul. Her work is said to contain elements similar to the 1920’s Art Nouveau movement, commonly expressing weighted topics through stylised opulence and detail, alongside the ideologies of creative liberation and abstractism witnessed within Dadaism. Ndiwe has previously confirmed both these movements to be of notable influence and inspiration. Her 2018 oil painting ‘Look At The Sky’ (pictured) is a visualisation of the overwhelming sadness and sheer loneliness felt as one’s burdened with depression, but ultimately finding hope in a place of hopelessness. Although the majority of her work is oil based, more recently the artist has explored different mediums such as film, sculpture and textile. ‘She Waits In Her Nest For Her Lover’ is a 2019 video piece on observed crossovers in human behaviour and the behaviour of birds.
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MADELEINE OLIVER I have an illogical fascination with finding beauty amongst the obscure. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m drawn to the seductively bizarre, and all things that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make sense, so you make sense of it. My work has always been grounded in pleasure and aesthetics. I rely on our desires for beauty, fantasy and seduction. Fragments from the world of fashion, media and magazine are reconstructed in order to recontextualise. Through the window of collage, an invention of unwordly creatures are created to demand a different type of gaze. The beauty that once compelled your sight has changed into an irrational attraction to the unusual.
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BETHANY PALMER Bethany Palmer is a multidisciplinary artist focusing on the interaction of performance and sculpture. Often starting with an idea of repetition, she creates durational pieces that require patience and precision culminating in simple performance films. Each sculpture sits quietly within the space, employing the same colours and shapes as the space it is placed within. The creation of the sculptures is quiet also, made up of thousands of small actions, rolling and placing. Flour, salt, water, sand, all mundane and pale, materials perfect for the production line approach Palmer uses to create large repetitious pieces. The work is never finished, sculptures become performance which become sculptures which become films. No object is discarded, each piece becomes a relic which is reimagined within the next performance. The focus is on this durability of each piece, that pieces arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t required to be finished with, nothing is made for one purpose. Infinite possibility is continually referred to within the performances, reflecting back the audienceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s numerous interpretations. No story is offered to the audience, no reference point or background, instead they are invited to watch simply as the artist and materials move within a space.
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CATHERINE PRITCHARD To believe we are all simply human is reductive. To believe we are all composite parts, cohesive, in creating a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, is foolish. To know who you are is a reflection. Personality is a nomadic shapeshifter. States of being are fluid. I am rarely me. I am, who I choose to be when I open my eyes at sunrise.
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RUANE PUTZ Who is coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? Under the apple tree I awakened you. There your mother conceived you, there she who was in labour gave you birth. Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house for love, it would be utterly scorned. English Standard Version
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WILLIAM QUAYLE My practice is a balance between creating geometric paintings and observational drawings, usually in pencil. My paintings strive to achieve a balance of colour and space using geometric shapes. I attribute qualities such as weight and hardness to the shapes I use to achieve a harmonious equilibrium across the page or canvas. I have also collaborated, which was enjoyable as it enabled me and the other artist (Isaac Jordan) to jointly find an equilibrium of ideas, whilst exploring our own individual styles. Finding the right composition is an organic process: I start by drawing one simple shape, usually a circle or triangle and then add another, using the previous shape to inform my placement of the next. I never know what the final image will look like, and that’s exciting. If I am happy with how the image turned out I will scale the image up and paint it large. The other side of my practice focuses on observational drawing: From people to panoramic images of rooms. I mainly draw on a small scale, finding I can obsess over tiny details, fastidiously trying to replicate what I see, then ‘zooming out’ and finding another area to do the same thing. It intrigues me how different people use different marks and techniques to express textures and light, sometimes using abstract shapes to evoke familiar sights, proving observation is not absolute. I always look for new ways of using new marks to communicate my version of reality.
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LIBERTY ROSE When observing the natural world, many people feel a sense of admiration and awe. Beauty cannot be artificially fabricated to the same standard that is present in nature. From mountains and oceans to a tree in a back garden, all are beautiful, yet all suffer the effects of humanity. Many people are blissfully unaware of the environmental issues happening in the current day. My artwork aims to raise awareness of the problems facing us and the consequences of our impact if we do not change. I want people to be able to admire the environment for many generations to come.
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TINA SALVIDGE Inspired by what I see around me - the extraordinary in the ordinary often to be found at a speculative interface between rural and urban environments - I try to capture uncanny observational moments of the everyday within the possibilities of video, sound, photography, found objects, performance and text intuitively following an investigation of deeply mined emotional and physical connections. The relationship with my work is both co-dependant and alien with a certain disjunction and disorientation. Video work is used specifically to cultivate an anthropological investigation, often with one element dominating and sound is an increasingly important element. I endeavour to use my own thinking and independent research to link my ideas and refine my concepts to create a world of observation, which at times can be melancholic, yet without being overly nostalgic. Overall I am an artist documentarian who is curious and non-judgemental in my approach.
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REA SCOBELL Time travelling through paintings. Flashbacks that materialised but happened. The layers of time and memory intertwining. Memory, or a dream. Look at it but don’t see it. Think you see it but actually it’s something else altogether. Don’t try to figure it out too quickly let it unravel before you, like time unravels around you. Unravel like paint thins.
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HANNAH SMITH Inspired by the world and it’s strange coincidences, My work is made entirely from recycled materials, thoughts, concepts, signs from the cosmos and reactions to surreal surroundings. Appropriation artwork is definitely something that I am interested in however I am absorbed by making original collage from pre-made imagery and content like patchwork, drawings and obscure objects with hidden meaning, painting, pop art and graffiti. I enjoy photography too capturing auras and memories has always been important to me and I customise clothing and domestic objects on commission. I am involved in decor and event set ups, I make album artwork for upcoming musicians and have directed and taken edited photos for magazines such as @ladscollective which is a punk feminist Zine group based in London. Personally I like to continue to roam the South West areas in the UK specifically Stroud and Bristol but at some point the big city calls my name. My work is usually 2d however I would aspire to make sculptures one day out of useless trash. For now I am an expressive freelance illustrator and designer with a passion for fashion and obsession with the old and dead over the new and fresh. I leave my mark on the world by creating pieces from the junk and the rubble, nothing is precious except the joy and the “art of doing”. The Wutaii movement is extremely important to me and a way of existing, Life is self Creation and what you make of it. Artwork is the most important, personal and perfect act of rebellion as anyone has the ability to create something which is the only that we can actually own.Originality stems from knowledge, experiences and discovery in a world that becomes increasingly more controlled, institutionalised and capitalist by the day.
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FRANCESCA SPENCER I am a multidisciplinary artist who seeks to communicate messages through allegorical pictures. I often imagine my work as scenes or plots to a narrative, which revolve around themes of family, sacrifice and worship. I contemplate the representation of God, who in my eyes is a psychological phenomenon that we plead to, surrendering inhibition to a divine force. This interest partly derives from my religious background to which my family devoted two generations of their lives. In my images I look to dismantle detail; I use symbolism to convey the power of the human psyche. In simplistic style I work to deconstruct complicated human experience. By using deconstructed imagery, meaning becomes rich in subtext and surrealism. My painting often suggests an unknown narrative, alluding to a sense of mystery and replicates the subconscious experience. And by limiting myself to block colour and shape it encourages the audiences to build on a set of visual elements. My work identifies with the human psyches ability to invent a consciousness in the inanimate. Drapery is a motif I focus on in order to simplifying fabric into form. When working with sculpture, I experiment with removing features to evoke a vacuous, ‘inhuman’ feeling in order to create life. Essentially my art revolves around the line between form and the inanimate and looks to represent the symbol of a higher power.
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ASHLEIGH SWAIN filled with fragments of a rebellion, I can enrapture and nauseate your emotion, I then create system change, I create, I embody, I display, what it means to be the species of the past, present and future, I arrive on our streets, inside institutions, or spaces I have fabricated, I am there but of another representation, oil, sticky, dark, blood, taking all in my path, then you can listen, eyes wide, ears roused, when you grasp, through performance I grab your attention, to tell you, to allow the world to breathe, take a breath, take a breath from toxic systems, the noisome vapours from the smouldering waste, and tell the oil firms, banks and power relations, you cannot continue to murder our home, children of all beings, and create war between. my silence and stillness within performance, it asks you to join me, to make this emergency known.
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KATYA SYKES dreaming invention mycelial intervention human interpretation of trans-species contemplation I see you seeing me I feel you feeling me you make me. synchronised giving rise to colliding visions dismantling hierarchical divisions hyphae like extensions entangling dreams into decisions coined… ‘utopian visions’ observe mind body human body fungal body digital light body
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MEGAN TAYLOR Exploring personal relationships between identity and insecurity, my artwork presents self-portraiture through the combination of abstract and realism. Focusing in on the masking of particular elements of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s self; revealing only the parts you want others to see and hiding those you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t.
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FRASIER THOMAS I like it when things are the same but different; like my canvases. I make my frames 120x120cm or 100x100cm; each side the same length. I’ve stretched one with nails, one has a cross beam; one doesn’t. I don’t pay attention to the sides of the canvas, if they are marked and painted then that’s fine. If they have a clean edge, that’s fine. I don’t force the difference. If they are all the same then that’s fine. But somehow they always seem to come out different. I don’t want to force anything into my work, it has to be natural, unless it is obviously forced. My process is impulsive and considered. I like contradiction. I like when something is off and awkward. When something is on the edge of looking wrong; or just looks wrong. There is a link between drawing and painting. My drawing informs my painting and vice versa. I recycle, evolve and merge together characters and motifs that I carry throughout my work. I like things to be hidden. Sometimes things are hidden so that I’m the only one who has seen it. Hidden bird behind swirling paint and charcoal; tangled and spiralling; red faces and spiderwebs; hats, cowboy hats, wizard hats. I find satisfaction in things that do not fit together. When you can’t tell if someone is joking or serious. Confusion, distrust. A finished work has to be on the edge of being good/bad, me liking it/not liking it. The work is unsure.
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ORLAIGH TILLEY The works Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m always drawn to create, happen to be intricate, labour intensive and centred around repetition. They require a lot of patience; something I have forced myself to gain more of over the years, purely so I could create the artworks that I visualised in my mind! I like to make intricate sculptural wall hangings and more recently I have discovered my love for wall painting. My work is almost always abstract exploring concepts such nature vs the digital, the possibilities of architectural spaces and movement through form.
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ALICE TO My creative expression appears spontaneously and intuitively, occurring like eruptions within the self. When the time arrives, it becomes clear and obvious. If it’s not the moment, it’s not happening. These experiences, of what feels to be the language of my spirit, humble and pure, draws me closer and closer to the mysterious potential of the present moment. I’m interested in surrendering to humility and fragility, and in turn sharing honesty and vulnerability, this feels essential. My artistic self follows me wherever I go, she’s constantly revealing herself to me, and prefers not to be overly defined or categorised. Journeying through my creations of art brings me to find truth and clarity, operating as a kind of sensory-based exploration of the human sphere. My physical body along with my senses, are my primary tools and source of material, as well as my main interest of discovery. The teachings I collect from my art practice, allow me to touch upon a fullness of being, sparking a liberated form of self-healing.
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CLARA TROY Playing with provocative form, my practice is celebratory of nakedness. Evoking story, underpinned by archetypal language. Transformation occurs where found objects meet. Collecting is integral, passing things from one life to the next. Moving across media, a feminine sensibility remains. She is my muse. I see through her, her gaze is my gaze.
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KLOE VINCENT â&#x20AC;&#x153;Flowers giggled as they undressed themselvesâ&#x20AC;? Rupi Kaur My environment is my muse I take in her beauty and the way that she holds me She has seen me at my worst, in my most vulnerable state Naked She has seen me laugh and sleep She knows me so well She knows I love nature because I told her so she surrounds me with flora Comforts me She keeps me inside of her Not by force I have so much choice I choose her / Texture : soft smooth coarse velvet stringy fragile Organic : leaf petal wood stem wing Form : breeze fall mist wilt
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CALLUM WHITE In an attempt to navigate my understanding of my own class identity, my practice utilizes the often-hyper-commercial visual space of 3D animation to create crude, gaudy snapshots of my own personal experiences. Utilizing my own lack of competence with such 3D technology as a story telling device, I try not to let concepts like “craftmanship” and “quality, meaningful practice” get in the way of my creative process.
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SYLVIE WHITFIELD I stitch fears into my teeth, chew the threads, each word I speak tangles, strands in knots, pierce, breathe in, puncture, breathe in, push and pull, breathe in, tie, repeat tongue held hostage, in a self inflicted, non-consensual bondage, breathe in, choking, breathe in, drowning, breathe in, suffocating, breathe, breathe, breathe.
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EBONY WRAY Conversations in the ocean A body- slow motion The silent melody Buried endlessly Swam in waves woven. Pitted potent ocean The siren so speech-less Spitting sea swallowed (w)hole But buried pip A breathless drip, The silent ship Of lonesome serenity No place heavenly This sound-less Melody. Now gap be closed Core exposed Fruit decomposed The skin unclothed, A doves message Deep sea wreckage The mothers message Sea soaked dressing Wound be stung Salt filled tongue Now waves begun.
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ANNA YOUNG My name is Anna Young (b. 1999) and I am an upcoming creative and collaborator currently based around the South West. Anthropology and sociology are things that I am very drawn to within my practice, learning about interactions that people have in our current society intrigues me. This involves learning about political and social movements. I have a strong attentiveness towards feminism, but often like to include other ideas in my work and play around with this by merging concepts. For example, consumption and connection. I enjoy using satire to respond to these ideas, as I find it very appropriate to the reality of them. Aesthetically, my work tends to be chaotic, colourful and exaggerated, using characters and the medium of film. My practice, however, varies between collage, photography and 3D work as well. My main inspiration for my style is Rachel Maclean, I find her films which exude mockery and fantasy, to be refreshing. I relish in combining fantasy and realism because I find it a physically engaging way to discuss darker subject matter in art, whilst also allowing a sense of fun interactivity between a character and message. The tone of my work could be described as very comical, as I love playing with idea of the grotesque, which effectively feeds into the concepts of my work well. Overall, I want my work to inspire response in peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thoughts and actions and allow open conversation. The aim being to be accessible for all to see, understand and respond to.
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COLLABORATIONS
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ASHLEIGH SWAIN AND BETHANY PALMER A performance duo that formed from the artists shared desire to explore their understanding of sculpture in performance and the performers body within that space. Starting with a focus on walking, pouring and dripping, Swain and Palmer create a series of performances that use these actions to create live work and subsequent sculptures. Never knowing what the exact outcome will be, the audience is invited to watch as the work is created, the final piece being both sculpture and performance. Using primarily metals they construct hard, heavy pieces that are used to weave sand, oil and salt by the performers slow and soft movement. Longing to perform without the attention being on the performer, they choose to take on mannequin appearances. Pursuing the neutralising of a human body which can never become neutral. Within their studio they have spent two years investigating the movement of simple materials, challenging notions of scale and how to use time as a medium culminating in a series of performances that highlight the versatility of their materials and bodies. Ps. continue to build on past work, recycle motifs, breaking down and rebuilding. Their work will remain unresolved for as long as possible.
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ERIN GILLIES-LANGDON AND ISAAC JORDAN A fish falls out of the sky, it hits the van in front of you, sliding slowly down the side and landing on the pavement. Every time you pass it, you look through the window at the bottom of the street. Even if you have to crane your neck to see in. Your sight is slightly obscured by the net curtain, the tv is on in the corner. It’s early. You look out to the house across the way. The light pushes round the edges of the blind. The window glows orange in the grey. Only temporary, but for that time it’s yours and for that time it’s true. The blind is up. The fish falls down. The tv isn’t on. Maybe she’s out. That Chopping Sound is a sporadic zine, sometimes taking a month to make, other times only a day. A collaboration of fragmented writings, small town news stories, blind dates, trout, unruly pigeons, long lost sofas and successful car boot sales. Formed around an interest we both have in the scattering of narrative, the publication is a platform for us to share ideas and stories, expanding our own practices in the process.
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THINGS WE HAVE LEARNT
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In Art School How to look at art in different ways Putting on exhibitions is a self-indulgent way to get drunk But put on as many exhibitions as you want Work hard play hard Don’t get stuck in your bedroom How I've never wanted to be somewhere more excruciating than a crit Spike Open is so much fun Don’t overthink, just make …! Art is the best things ever Art is a piece of crap Art can be literal crap It’s useful to go to all the lectures Check your bloody emails Most of the art you make will be shit and that ok, keep learning and creating! Biking to uni is the ultimate ride Be yourself entirely Get involved in everything you can, it’s hard work but it pays off No one wants to see any artwork about tights
In Isolation The world slowing down outside, creates less distractions and with no choice but to delve inwards, can do wonders for your practice Food is the best thing ever Virtual life is challenging I miss the studio You have time for self-care and healing Its ok to go to the fridge It's important to connect with neighbors Time is relative Art is about adapting to your current situation. Your work should be created in response to the present as a way of reflecting on the past. I find people exhausting Read all the books I've never hates a desk in the corner of my room so much Treating a desk space at home the same way you treat desk space in the studio will make fellow house habitants angry My bum gets bored just as quickly as I do Your bread knife is not a good substitute for a saw
How to describe shit work I’ve never felt so attached to a wall desk and chair How to cope with a lack of windows A busy studio/going to the studio is so helpful when working on ideas Read all the books Let yourself be shit. It’s called art practice for a reason How crisps from McColl's can heal a third year How sad I could be about the toasty machine
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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Thank you the most to those that have seen us through the past years of this degree. To Wayne Lloyd, Simon Morrissey, Mike Ricketts, Judith Dean, Sophie Hayes, Kit Poulson, Markus Eisenmann, Lizzie Lloyd, Monika Oechsler and Marie Toseland, our tutors. To Harry Thomas-Fricker and John Steed our technicians. To the fabrication team and technical staff over at Bower Ashton . To the library staff, with special credits to Steve Norton. To our Graphic Designers that helped us pull this all together: Ella Staines and Emilia Bermejo-Ford. And to each other, across the year group, we bloody made it.
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Fine Art
Bainbridge Levi Beaver Harry Bendall Rosie Bioglou Sarah Brunt Katie Cairns Ella Clarke Calvin Corder-Gill Isobel Cousins-Scovell Apple Cowlishaw Eva Day Emma Dunne Lindsey Francis Milly Fursdon Annabell Gage Isobel Harris Lowri Hess Georgia Hill Lauren Hillier Katherine Horrell Lauren Irungu Winston Jackson Connor Jones Daisy Jones Laurence Jordan Isaac Kinney Jessica Lewis Katie Mansfield Joel Martin Ben Matthews Emily
Arts and Visual Culture
Arellano Sadie-Mae Argyle Josie Bower Amber Clarke Todd Conroy Suli Cunnington-Shone Charlie Gibson-Young Matilda Gillies-Langdon Erin Hesketh Esther Hills Daisy Mardell Lucy Mills Robert Mrvova-Vine Helena Rose Liberty Salvidge Tina Sanna Marissa Taylor Megan Whitfield Sylvie
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Mitchell Rebecca Monelle Bethany Monelle Laura Moura Borges Francisca Ndiwe Adiba Oliver Madeleine Palmer Bethany Pritchard Catherine Putz Ruane Quayle William Scobell Rea Smith Hannah Spencer Francesca Stone Jake Swain Ashleigh Sykes Katya Thomas Frasier Tilley Orlaigh To Alice Troy Clara Vincent Kloe Warner-Hughes Naomi Wheddon Hannah White Callum Wray Ebony Young Anna