Associate Lecturer Virginia Verran: Showing in London

Virginia Verran, Associate Lecturer on BA(Hons) Fine Art is showing two large paintings in Rules of Freedom, curated by Rosalind Davis, at Collyer Bristow gallery in Holborn, until 19 February 2019.

Virginia Verran’s paintings suggest other-worldly battlefields and virtual warzones that show the traces of action and process, of a personal world of invented motifs and symbols. Multiple perspectives, aerial scanning and surveillance, lines and motifs track back and forth between nodes. These paintings and drawings utilise signs and symbols that work at a percussive, graphic level, sitting on the surface of ungrounded spaces, adding celebratory, playful and dark undertones. Drawing has played an important role in this layering of information, bringing across to the paintings an intuitive language. Rhythm and gentle light, exuberance and complexity of information are necessary components, giving way, to darker elements of disruption. Impermanence is alluded to via ‘encampments’, equally working as lumps of colour, existing alongside more permanent structures. Striped ‘ladders’ pass through like conveyor belts and metaphorical ‘toy’ bombs are plugged in at the edges. All represent threats to general security and stability. Fluidity and control are Verran’s primary focus.

 

Virginia Verran was born in Falmouth and has taught Fine Art since 1990. She is an Associate Lecturer on Falmouth’s BA(Hons) Fine Art course, and also teaches at Chelsea College of Art and Design.

In 2010 she won the Jerwood Drawing Prize and this year her entry in the 2018 John Moores Painting Prize is titled ‘Black Star’; a large piece measuring 6ft x 5ft6ins.

She lives in London and works in her studio in Bethnal Green.

Visiting Professor Hew Locke exhibiting in New York and returning to Falmouth

Ahead of his forthcoming lecture at Falmouth, multimedia artist Hew Locke, has a solo exhibition opening at the PPOW Gallery,  New York, 11 October to 10 November. Patriots is the gallery’s first exhibition with Hew; they also showed works by him at their stand at Frieze London this month.

Serpent of the Nile, C-type photo 30” x 40”, from the series How Do You Want Me?

Detail of Golden Horde 2, mixed media sculpture, 273cm high

An alumnus of Fine Art at Falmouth, Hew returns to Falmouth School of Art on 14 November for the final visit of his Visiting Professor tenure. He will deliver his lecture titled ‘Identity and Autobiography’ and will also work with BA(Hons) Fine Art students.

Registration for Hew’s lecture is free, but required: Register here.

Locke’s investigation of the display of power includes areas such as royal and swagger portraiture, coats-of-arms, public statuary, trophies, financial documents, weaponry and costume. Maritime imagery and symbolism has been a constant in his work, along with reflections on his upbringing in Guyana.

Born in Edinburgh, Locke spent his formative years in Georgetown, Guyana, before returning to the UK to study. He received his BA(Hons) Fine Art in 1988 from Falmouth, then an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London in 1994.

Locke has work in the collections including Tate, the British Museum, the V&A, Brooklyn Museum and the Perez Art Museum Miami. He has had solo shows in public galleries in the UK and the USA, and has taken part in Biennials in Hangzhou, China; Kochi, India; Prospect3, Miami; Guangzhou, China; Valencia, Spain and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Drawing staff and students present at Symposium

Artist, drawing researcher and lecturer in BA(Hons) Drawing Dr Joe Graham, and some of his Falmouth School of Art students and alumni,  presented papers and workshops at The Embodied Experience of Drawing event at The Drawing Symposium, Plymouth.

The event responded to the increasing proportion of artists in the South West working in performative drawing practice. It gathered contributors, to acknowledge and interrogate this movement and to discuss ideas around the future of drawing research, philosophy and practice.

Image: Aleksandr Chotilovskij

Image: Aleksandr Chotilovskij

Image: Aleksandr Chotilovskij

Image: Aleksandr Chotilovskij

Image: Aleksandr Chotilovskij

Image: Aleksandr Chotilovskij

Dr Joe Graham discussed his paper The Utility of Drawing: Drawn and Withdrawn.  “This paper sketches a nascent ontology of drawing, one that uses Heidegger to explore the idea that drawing is a fundamentally useful type of thing for those who draw. Within this understanding however, the utility of drawing appears withdrawn, so to speak. It requires being ‘drawn out’ (freed) when drawings are viewed for some purpose – as pictures, diagrams, maps, plans or other forms intended for use.”

Image: Aleksandr Chotilovskij

Image: Aleksandr Chotilovskij

Image: Aleksandr Chotilovskij

Kayleigh Jayne Harris, a recent graduate from BA(Hons) Drawing at Falmouth University, primarily focused on the identity of line within contemporary drawing practices. Her paper  Drawing line through performance: does the drawing live as an immaterial trace, a material document, or both, through the experience of line? explored whether performative acts be identified as a form of drawing, through the acknowledgement and experience of the lines generated during and by gesture.

Bhuvaneshvari Pinto a current student of BA(Hons) Drawing and Ralph Nel (Alumni) presented a joint workshop Drawing as a Tool in Cultivating Awareness – A Workshop in Observational Drawing.  The workshop explored the idea that observational drawing nurtures mental stillness and sharpens our awareness of ourselves and our surroundings.

Video with kind permission of Stuart Bewsey

Drawing and Fine Art alumni present new work

Alumni Theo Crutchley-Mack and Sam Wood have announced a joint exhibition showing new work based in and around Falmouth town.

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In recent months, both artists have been working on small en plein air paintings, used to develop more sustained works, all of which will be exhibited at The Poly, Falmouth, from Tuesday 24 July (including private view on 24th 6-9pm).

Theo graduated from BA(Hons) Drawing, and Sam from BA(Hons) Fine Art, in 2015. Both have since pursued their art full time, with exhibition, prize and residency success.

Theo is currently based in West Wales; he has this year undertaken a 6 week period as Artist in Residence at the abandoned whale station in Grytviken, for the South Georgia Heritage Trust. Sam now lives and exhibits in Newcastle, so it’s great to be able to see work from both artists in Falmouth once again.

• https://samwoodart.format.com/ 
• https://www.crutchley-mack.com/
• www.facebook.com/crutchleymack
• instagram @crutchleymack
• instagram @likessam

Fine Art Senior Lecturer Mercedes Kemp on 100:UnEarth by WildWorks

BA(Hons) Fine Art Senior Lecturer, Mercedes Kemp, is also Community and Research Director of international site-specific theatre company WildWorks. Here she talks about the company’s current production, at the Lost Gardens of Heligan – outdoor promenade performance 100:UnEarth – for which she is Lead Artist, Writer and Researcher…The acclaimed production is on until 22 July 2018, tickets from Hall For Cornwall…

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‘100:UnEarth tells the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. A tragic love story. Orpheus returns to his beloved wife Eurydice. On the day they are reunited she is killed in a tragic accident. Orpheus cannot accept her death and embarks on an audacious quest to pluck her out of the Underworld. Our telling of the story is set in the vast grounds of the Lost Gardens of Heligan, and is told in a grand scale.

In 100:UnEarth, WildWorks have set the myth against the background of the First World War and the catastrophic losses it produced. The war has ended. The men are coming home. Many are damaged, broken. They return to the families they left behind. Their women have learned to survive alone, to be self-reliant, work the land, feed themselves and their children. Nothing will ever be the same…

As we journey through the Underworld we encounter the souls of those who lost their lives in the Great War, but also of those who died in more recent conflicts. Hades, the great Lord of Death continues to reap his harvest.

The Lost Gardens of Heligan give us the perfect metaphor. A place where growth and decay co-exist. A place full of promise. A place that teaches us a valuable lesson. Death is inevitable. Gardens die out in the winter, but they return back to life in the spring. And love goes on, endlessly regenerating itself.

This multi-disciplinary promenade production uses every art form: stage design, installation, performance, music, soundscape, video projection. And its connections to Falmouth University are strong: students from AMATA have done an amazing job, alongside 200 community volunteers and a team of sixty professionals. Production Designer Myrddin Wannell and Community Projects and Underworld Designer Ellie Williams are both BA(Hons) Fine Art alumni and were my students twelve years ago. Undergraduates and graduates from the School of Film and Television have been capturing our every move. Associate Lecturer in Dance and Choreography, Emily Dobson, has given performers all their moves.

I am immensely proud to have led this project to completion. Catch it if you can. Until July 22^nd at the Lost Gardens of Heligan‘.

100: UnEarth is co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and The Lost Gardens of Heligan

“Last night, some magic in the mist. 100: UnEarth a beautiful immersive experience, A love story inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice. See this if you can.” Falmouth University Chancellor Dawn French on Twitter

Circle Triangle Square presents ‘Remades and Readymades’

Bronwen Anwyl, Daniel Bethell and Edward May graduated from BA(Hons) Fine Art at Falmouth in 2017. Recent work by the three artists is being shown in Peckham, London, this July.

Remades and Readymades is presented by Circle Triangle Square, an art platform set up by Edward May following his degree. The exhibition explores the aesthetic and theoretical themes surrounding man-made objects and the natural environment (and the crossover between them), in the context of the art gallery.  

BA(Hons) Illustration Collaborative Project in Bristol

BA(Hons) Illustration Senior Lecturers Linda Scott and Natalie Hayes recently accompanied a group of second and third year students to Bristol, for a week-long trip focused on studio visits, professional practice talks and workshops, as well as an exhibition of work produced by them during their visit in response to a brief.

Dave Bain talking about his projects

Falmouth Alumni Dave Bain, who graduated in 2006, as established himself in Bristol as a lynchpin of the thriving Illustration scene. As well as being a successful Illustrator, Dave is responsible for setting up illustration studios in Hamilton House (in the Stokes Croft area of the city) and the Illustration Collective, ‘Drawn In Bristol‘.

A good number of Falmouth Illustration alumni have relocated to Bristol, as an alternative to London; many have studio space in Hamilton House, which Dave modeled on the Falmouth course’s studio set up. Our students were given a tour of Hamilton House, and also The Island, a converted police station on Nelson Street.

At Hamilton House, Illustrators Lara Hawthorne, Paula Bowles, Freya Hartas and others talked informally about their experiences as Illustrators since graduating; at The Island, collective Sad Ghost Club talked about collaboration, the merchandise they produce and what brought them together as a group.

Coordinating the visit for us, Dave Bain booked The Square Club as a meeting space for us, and as venue for speakers Lara Hawthorne, Joe Roberts and Laurie Stansfield, who are working together and have developed a mentoring scheme suitable for graduates who are unable to work in studio spaces and who might otherwise be subject to isolation. Joe and Laurie meet monthly to support one another with projects and business, holding one another accountable for developing projects and setting schedules. Dave talked about his experience setting up the studios and working collaboratively, and spoke about his role as a ‘connector’ of people, bringing them together to develop public realm projects which directly benefit the local community.

Before their trip, students had been given a brief, focusing on themes of Regeneration and Collaboration. The culmination of their research was the formulation of visual outputs for exhibition in the Space Gallery, in the Old Market area of Bristol. Student exhibits ranged from 3D objects to customised shirts, a video and a 3D mobile.

Limbic Cinema workshop

A private view of the exhibition followed a final day of workshops, from Tom Newell of Limbic Cinema. Tom digitised drawings from students’ sketchbooks and mapped and projected these onto plinths and walls; he taught students how to do the same, with the outcome being several visual collages projected onto 2D and 3D spaces.

We commend our students for their high level of engagement throughout this intensive professional practice study visit, and for their participation even when treacherous weather threatened to impact heavily their activities.

 

Wunderkammer 2018: Hot off the Presses!

This year’s much anticipated edition of Wunderkammer flew off the presses literally a day before both London and New York study trips. This year’s cover has been illustrated by Falmouth Illustration alumna and rising star Ana Jaks.

The standard of work in this year’s book is extremely high, showing the full range of talent that is about to graduate from the BA(Hons) Illustration course here at Falmouth. All staff that have taught the current final year students through the course can, alongside the students, take a share in the high quality of the work published in the book. Particular credit goes to the third year staff for the huge effort that they have made to research, design co-ordinate the production of this book.

Thanks also go out to the alumni who have contributed insightful interviews. These include: Calum Heath, Beth Wheatley, Owen Gent and Hugh Cowling (Uncle Ginger), Jamie Edler, Thomas Pullin.

Here’s a sample of spreads from the book.

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Andrew Mania, BA(Hons) Fine Art Alumni – Exhibition at Spike Island starts 05 May 2018

Andrew Mania, who studied BA(Hons) Fine Art here at Falmouth between 1994 and 1997 has an exhibition Snapshot of a Collection at Spike Island, opening on 05 May until 08 July 2018.

Andrew Mania (2018) Collage featuring Carl Van Vechten 1940s portraits of Marlon Brando and Sidney Lumet

“Andrew Mania explores identity, sexuality and nostalgia through portraiture drawing.

His works have been described with the Portuguese term saudade: a word with no English equivalent, meaning a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone beloved.

Mania develops these drawings within assemblages set on decorative backgrounds such as hanging printed fabrics. A voracious collector, he here creates a dialogue between a series of early vintage photographs selected for their aesthetic or mystery, and his own drawings that capture a state of mischief and yearning” (Spike Island).

MA Illustration: Authorial practice graduates win Laydeez do Comics Graphic Novel Prizes

The Laydeez do Comics Prize exists to provide “recognition and celebration of the wealth of comics work currently being produced by female-identifying people based in the UK”.

 

Emma Burleigh, a recent graduate of MA Illustration: Authorial Practice has won the first £2K Laydeez do Comics; Women’s Prize for Unpublished Graphic Novels in Progress for her graphic novel My Other Mother, My Other Self .

Emma is an artist and art teacher who is passionate about the vibrant, glowing and mercurial qualities of water-colour and mixed media. ” I’m interested in everyday life, the inner life and the layers of life in between.”  In 2015, she completed an MA in ‘Authorial Illustration’ at Falmouth University, with Distinction and My Other Mother, My Other Self is a development of her MA graphic novel, Birth Mother.

Birth Mother was an exploration in words and painting about her journey … Emma says ” It’s about tracing my birth mother who I traced about ten years ago, and it’s really just the story of how I found her and how our relationship unfolded. It actually becomes more about my relationship with myself.”

Emma was thrilled to be shortlisted for the prize as she has been working on her book for many years.

 

Rebecca Jones, a 2012 graduate also from MA Illustration: Authorial Practice, came fourth.

She said about her entry into the competition… “I’ve been making comics properly for about five years – cat zines that are a little bit fantastical and a bit silly. I’ve been trying to make something new by moving into social issues and doing something that’s a bit more personal. It’s called Boomerang and it’s about an unemployed psychology graduate who’s moved back home after graduation and it’s an exploration of issues around the 2008 recession and the following economic crash. It’s about a rite of passage of a few months of not knowing what to do and what it means to be an adult.”

Fine Art Alumni showing at Belgrave, St Ives. Exhibition runs 2 to 23 April.

Recent Fine Art Alumni Sarah Woods and Jack Paffett are showing their work at the Belgrave St Ives from 2 to 23 April 2018. The exhibition is entitled Artscape: New Contemporary Painters and Sarah and Jack will be exhibiting alongside Jack Watson.

Sarah Woods: FSA Alumni BA(Hons) Fine Art

Jack Paffett: FSA Alumni BA Fine Art

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The New Contemporary Painters will be shown in conjunction with the key St Ives Modernist W.Barns-Graham: A Unique Collection of Works on Paper.  This is an exciting exhibition of previously unseen wave/line works by the artist, that have been held in a private collection since the 1970’s.

W. Barns-Graham

Falmouth School of Art Summer Intensives: 9-13 July 2018

Falmouth School of Art will again this summer be running its popular five-day Intensives delivered by specialist tutors. Intensive courses in Abstract Painting, Drawing and The Figure offer practicing visual artists and art educators the opportunity to immerse themselves in their work with daily guidance and input from the School’s expert tutors, including some of Cornwall’s leading artists.

 

Participants take part in studio tutorials, group discussions and practical sessions, working alongside other practitioners in well-appointed studios in the subtropical garden setting of Falmouth Campus. Nearby are Falmouth’s vibrant town centre and glorious beaches; our participants tell us that we offer the ideal place for concentrated creative activity.

 

 

Dr. Ginny Button, Director of Falmouth School of Art, comments: ‘Our students benefit from our unique mix of beautiful location, great facilities, inspiring legacy, pedagogic excellence and friendly, supportive atmosphere. We’re delighted in the summer to open up our facilities and offer our teaching expertise to artists and creative practitioners who want to further develop their work and their professional networks too.’

Previous Intensives participants’ testimonials:

“The course was perfect – very well planned and organised with good mixture of presentations, tutorials, studio development and opportunity for socialising”.

“…the best thing I have done for years: It was like a creative vitamin injection. My practice travelled a very long way in a short space of time.”

“The opportunity to take time out from a busy teaching schedule to focus on producing my own work was energising and inspiring…the course has enriched me on both a personal and professional level, giving me ideas for teaching at sixth form.”

“I loved the studio space and the time spent contemplating work with no distractions…There was a great balance of tutorials and time to work. Met some great fellow artists, there was a great buzz of creativity.”

The deadline for applications is 5th May. For more information and how to apply, please visit:  www.falmouth.ac.uk/fsaintensives

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Congratulations Tacita Dean

Congratulations Tacita Dean!

This spring artist Tacita Dean, one of our most celebrated alumna who studied BA(Hons) Fine Art here between 1985 and 1988, has been given the unprecedented accolade of three major museum exhibitions running concurrently in London. Over the last 30 years in different ways – though primarily through the medium of analogue film – she has imaginatively explored and reinvented the genres of Still life Portraiture and Landscape. These aspects of  her work are now the focus of dedicated solo exhibitions at three of London’s most prestigious venues, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts, running from March to August 2018. Don’t miss it!

For information and a review see: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/mar/18/tacita-dean-portrait-still-life-national-portrait-gallery-review

We are delighted that there’s also an opportunity to see her work in Cornwall this May as her 2015 film Event for a Stage will be presented for four days at Falmouth University’s performing arts centre, AMATA. Originally commissioned as a live performance over four consecutive nights for the 2014 Sydney Biennial, it became her first foray into theatre and her first experience of working with an actor. This screening is part of the ambitious international art project Groundwork, organised by CAST (the Cornubian Arts and Science Trust, based not far from Falmouth in Helston). Groundwork – featuring many other internationally celebrated artists, such as Steve McQueen, Janet Cardiff and Francis Alys – launches over the May Bank holiday and runs to September in venues across Cornwall For information see: http://c-a-s-t.org.uk/projects

Tacita Dean has been the recipient of various awards including the Kurt Schwitters Prize in and the Hugo Boss Prize and a nominee of the Turner Prize. Other recent exhibitions include a major solo presentation at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City in 2018; JG at Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, Utah, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and Arcadia University Art Gallery, Pennsylvania; Tacita Dean: The Measure of Things, Instituto Moreira Salles, Rio de Janeiro; Tacita Dean, De Mar en Mar, Botin Foundation, Santander, Spain; and Tacita Dean: The Studio of Giorgio Morandi, Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna.

Catching up with Kate Holford, Falmouth Fine Art alumna

Kate Holford is an artist based in South East London.  Kate graduated from BA(Hons) Fine Art at Falmouth in 2013 and has since been involved in numerous curatorial projects, including group shows, Now Falmouth (2013) Shoreditch, and Doppelgangers (2015) at The Strand Gallery.  Kate’s personal practice, having strong foundations in Drawing, has included video installation, sculpture and writing, and most recently the incorporation of oil painting.  Conceptual drives have included the critical approach to culturally inherited narratives, the translation of mediated information, and embodiments of power.  Kate has been working as a manager at Stillpoint Spaces London since 2017 and here Kate tells us about her upcoming exhibition and life since graduation:

Cadences/An Affray, or , “The mobs don’t like their gods to be human”, Falmouth Fine Art Degree Show, 2013

On 15^th April, I will be exhibiting In the Stories There is an Abundance at Stillpoint Spaces London in Clerkenwell, which will include pop-up installations to mark the opening of a solo exhibition. A new body of work combining drawing, painting, writing, and sculpture, this exhibition will conjure themes of homemaking, reimagined stories of religiosity, the suggestion of journeys taken through ‘carceral’ landscapes, and the ultimate search for ‘Home’. In the Stories… further explores a personal relationship with universal narratives of pilgrimage, the myth of the ‘Promised Land’, and the archetype of the Western frontier, ideas which first became clear preoccupations for me when creating my Fine Art degree show at Falmouth School of Art in 2013.

Recent paintings, soon to be exhibited as part of In the Stories…

Since graduating I have put on shows a few times, always as both artist and curator, and in many cases continuing to work on projects with fellow Falmouth alumni. As is natural in group endeavours, for each show we developed specific themes or currents between our work to pull the exhibitions together. For one, a large 45-artist strong show in Shoreditch called Now Falmouth, we operated on the premise that our collective would be giving London a snapshot of newly graduated artists from outside the capital – a “showcase”, not unlike the annual selected shows ran by the art school, but on a much larger scale. Another exhibition, co-curated with fellow alumni Julia White, focused on the output of artists living double lives in the city: the life of the “artist” and the life of the “young professional”. By starting with this binary outlook, we attempted to build a show that in fact challenged the assumed limitations of that paradox. I contributed to both of these shows by building installations as well as playing a central role in their organization. This upcoming exhibition In the Stories… then, is the first time I will be showing work as a solo artist (although I haven’t quite shrugged off the responsibilities of curating the show), and the first time I will be occupying a considerably-sized – if unconventional – exhibition space on my own.

Stillpoint Spaces – recent exhibition opening (Surasti Puri’s Ordinary Joys)

 

I started working as the Manager for Stillpoint Spaces London almost exactly a year ago, having left my previous job as a Bookshop Manager for Waterstones. I had, in the recess between employment, rediscovered a neglected arts practice, and for the first time took up oil paints as a way back into making work. I walked into Stillpoint then, this time last year, as an artist.

Stillpoint Spaces was created with the intention of exploring psychology in all aspects of culture, where we are building a community of psychotherapists, practitioners – artists – psychologists – activists – anyone interested in applying psychology to the everyday (and if art isn’t that, what is it?!), through events, coworking, and an onsite community of psychotherapists. Since I became involved with them I have been developing the inclusion of artists and the creative practices in that discourse; it has since become a key element in the way we develop our events programme. To play such a part in that process by having my own work included is a privilege.

 

It is also exciting that we will be marking this with a talk and reading from poet and professor Andrea Brady of Queen Mary University, titled Close Up is Far Away. Andrea will read from her poem The Blue Split Compartments, an extended work which incorporates found text from military manuals and the chatroom banter of drone pilots, along with myth, personal history, and writings on sculpture and psychoanalysis. She will also speak about the proliferation of artworks which have been inspired by drone surveillance.

 

Part of the exhibited installation Vanitas at The Strand Gallery, London 2015

If anyone would like to find out more about the exhibition on 15^th April, the accompanying event, or the exhibition space itself, they can visit the website page here: http://www.stillpoint-lab-london.com/event/openhouse/ and follow the links. Mostly though, I am always looking to make contact with artists who are interested in psychology – be it political, anthropological, or personal – and who think their work would be appropriate for Stillpoint’s programme. Do get in touch via email at kate@stillpointspaces.com if you want to pitch a project or start a conversation!

Simulacra/An Escape, or, “Leaving it all, like something dropped in the corner by the wind”, ‘Now Falmouth’ group show, Shoreditch Town Hall, 2013

Further Links:

https://blog.stillpointspaces.com/2017/12/kate-holford/

http://www.kateholford.com

http://instagram.com/kateholford

Last chance to see…at Imagine Falmouth

Beth Garnett, alumna of MA Illustration: Authorial Practice, is currently showing a collage – From the Headland at Mawnan I – as part of Falmouth Art Gallery’s Imagine Falmouth exhibition until this Saturday. The piece was produced during Beth’s participation in Falmouth School of Art’s Observational Drawing Intensive last July.

Beth Garnett, From The Headland At Mawnan I, 2017, Collage

After the success of Falmouth Art Gallery’s inaugural submissions show last year, ‘Imagine Falmouth’ has grown in scale, and is now a bi-annual exhibition and arts prize. The gallery invite emerging and established artists from across the county to submit their work. With no theme and no restriction on medium, the exhibition has reflected the very best of Cornish art today. The exhibition, which opened in November, closes on Saturday 20 January.

Falmouth School of Art Intensives offer a selection of 5-day courses for artists and art educators, all taking place in the studios and grounds of Falmouth Campus, and the surrounding area. Of her experience at last summer’s Intensive, Beth says, ‘The course was a really great timeout from real life to get back to drawing again, in beautiful surroundings. The tutors were supportive and offered really practical advice. The group size wasn’t too big and we had a lot of fun. I was able to find new directions for my work and new ideas for my process which has really refreshed my practice. I’m am sure will continue to impact on my drawing work for a long time to come’.

for 2018, Falmouth School of Art will run three Intensives; in Drawing, Abstract Painting and The Figure. Course descriptors will soon be available online, at www.falmouth.ac.uk/fsaintensives, where you can also find images from previous intensives, terms and conditions and a short application form.

Reflections on a Venice Research-Steward Fellowship…

Abbie Hunt, graduate of BA(Hons) Fine Art and recipient of a 2017 Venice Fellowship, funded by the British Council and Falmouth School of Art, reflects on her experience of one month living in Venice as part of the British Council’s Research Stewardship Programme at the 57th Biennale Arte…

 

‘I don’t think I knew what to expect until my first day on the job, but that was the exciting part. Stewarding is hard work; I never anticipated the endurance of standing in a corner of a room, observing the visitors, observing the work. It’s mentally draining to be with your thoughts for so long. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t stop, so for my job role to suddenly be so stationary was a shock.

Furthermore, I never realised how little the ideas surrounding art fell away when you become a Steward. You spend such an unnatural amount time with a piece of work that you have phrases of being grossly interested and unexpectedly numb towards it. I spent lull periods scribbling personal observations down, but when it came to discussing the artwork with a visitor, it was as if I was reciting a script. People wanted a 3-minute summary of the work before they moved onto the next pavilion, there was no time for contemplation and it was strange to be so detached.

 

Entwining my research project with my stewarding duties made my experience so insightful. I focused on observing visitors’ reactions and opinions surrounding Phyllida Barlow’s Folly. I was already well versed in Barlow’s career, therefore the experience contributed to my work as a form of practical research.

What I gained from the Venice Fellowship was an intense period of learning about myself. I have never traveled alone before and it completely changed my perspective on how I acted. I didn’t feel like a tourist but neither a local, and it was strange limbo I endured whilst discovering things about me as a person that I have never noticed before. It was an emotional roller-coaster, but I think I’ve gained a greater understanding of who I am.

Overall, I think I gained confidence and independence. Talking to strangers on a daily basis and having the knowledge to pass on to others was a good feeling because I’ve never had the opportunity to do so before. Giving people an insight or starting point to lead them through the maze of art within the Biennale was satisfying. I’d see their face light up with understanding and know I’d made a difference to their experience.

Similarly, confidence fed into my research project. It was an opportunity to collate research and write about my findings without the baring of education. Research is a guilty pleasure and it was strange to realise I still had the motivation to learn without the bounds of getting a grade at the end of it.

The biennale has a hub of social activity on throughout the time it is open; other countries create events so stewards can mingle, and are very appreciative when you make the effort to join in. Reflecting on the experience would be incomplete without mentioning my extended family of my October Fellows. Our intense company definitely kept us all going and I honestly wouldn’t have been able to get through my experience without them. We’ve already met in London since being home before Christmas. Our unexpected bond of being in the same bizarre situation has gave us all such a strong friendship.

Of course the art was memorable; I’ve never been so immersed in an abundance of artwork to observe and it definitely made me speechless on many occasions. My favourite was the Intuition Exhibition at the Palazzo Fortuny. I also felt we were the luckiest of months out of the Fellowship scheme as I actually got to meet Phyllida Barlow herself! It was a huge moment for me. Just days before we were set to go back to reality, Barlow visited the Biennale with her family and hadn’t seen her own work since the opening in May. I fangirled hard and was pretty star struck. You read so much about an artist, they inspire your practice and you empathise with their work…I thought spending time with her sculptures was gratification enough but seeing her next to them in the flesh was the cherry on the top. It’s a moment I’ll never forget and just seemed like the perfect present, a personal nod to keep going after three years of my degree.

From my experience as a steward, I’ve realised that the public face of the artwork is not who I want to be; but the gallery still remains my focus. I am ideally looking towards a technical position within a gallery, since the install and de-install of Phyllida Barlow’s work was a continuous consideration. Being hands-on and retaining that essence of practice is my ideal route.’

Keiken Collective – a productive finish to 2017…

Keiken at FOMO

Keiken, a collective of artists comprised of alumni from Falmouth School of Art, co-founded by Tanya Cruz, Hana Omori and Isabel Ramos, have enjoyed success since graduation and regularly provide opportunities for recent graduates and current students to collaborate with them. Autumn and winter 2017 saw Keiken engaged in projects around the UK…  

Keiken performance and installation at Clinic //2

Keiken performance and installation at Clinic //2

Keiken’s performance and installation piece, Silicone_Animism | The Birth of Mother Digital, was presented at Clinic //2 at the Oxo Tower, London, as part of a group show for the London Design Festival. The piece included the collective’s virtual reality film @MotherDigital (Tanya Cruz, Hana Omori, Jess Pemberton, Isabel Ramos, video design by Keiken’s George Stone and sound by Oak Matthias), alongside durational performance accompanied by live sound; a truly visceral atmosphere was created by 700ok (current Falmouth School of Art students Jasper Golding, Auguste Oldham and Zac Pomphrey) using generative code, in conjunction with sound artist Nati Cerutti.

Performers occupied the installation wearing costumes designed by recent graduate, Nine Derricott. Clad in silicone pregnancy bellies and PVC and reflective 3M garments, performers, in reference to the revolution of AI, explored innate feelings of connection usually associated with mother and child, in a world where the human is intertwined with the digital. Current BA(Hons) Fine Art student Alberta Shearing wrote the score and with another student Haruka Fukao performed extraordinarily alongside other performers, Nine Derricott, Kat Cashman, Sian Fan, Monty Fitzgerald, Si Garner, Sam Hall, Coral Knights, Beth Mellet and Julia Mallaby. In November, the film @MotherDigital was transmitted into space by Jon Pettigrew as part of Planet3artnews.

Keiken at Disturbed, Hacked, Reassembled

A group show curated by Drive-Thru at Lewisham Arthouse featured an adaptation of Silicone_Animism | The Birth of Mother Digital, as part of ‘Disturbed, Hacked, Reassembled’, an event which explored how artists are employing technology to stage, interrogate and celebrate the digital female body. Keiken’s interactive installation, again with sound designed by 700ok, used VR, video and sound to trace the birth of the digital; a giant networked space fused with human interaction and technology.

The installation, representative of an office environment, featured a pregnant woman working in Silicon Valley, who has

Agatha Gothe-Snape, Every Artist Remembered with Keiken, 7 October 2017, Frieze London, Regent’s Park, London. Photo: Sofia Freeman/The Commercial, Image courtesy The Commercial, Sydney

relationships with the office furniture in an allegory of Late Capitalism and animism (video design Keiken and George Stone, sound by Nati Cerutti). This adaptation was re-exhibited by Keiken as part of ‘Hervisions’ at Second Home, London.

In other recent projects, Keiken performed in Every Artist Remembered (2017) by Agatha Gothe-Snape at Frieze Art Fair, London; in November they led a performative workshop for Goldsmith University’s BSc Digital Arts Computing, and in a return to Falmouth, they performed at FOMO, the first Falmouth Art Publishing Fair.

In January 2018, Keiken will be hosting a workshop and event under keiken° mind u as part of Vorspiel transmediale, Berlin.

‘An Hour to Sing – A Journey of Following’

An Hour to Sing – A Journey of Following by Kym Martindale and Caroline Blythe, is a collaboration featuring drawing and writing, published in Edition Three of Elementum Journal.

Images of ‘An Hour to Sing – a Journey of Following’ by Kym Martindale and Caroline Blythe from Edition three of Elementum Journal

Caroline Blythe, a recent BA(Hons) Drawing graduate of Falmouth School of Art, and Dr. Kym Martindale, Senior Lecturer in Falmouth’s School of Writing and Journalism have, over the last three years, been collaborating on a project that has sought to explore and respond to Edward Thomas’s In Pursuit of Spring, an account of a bicycle ride from Guildford to Somerset in 1913.

Between 2012 and 2017, poet and cyclist Kym Martindale began the pursuit of Edward Thomas, riding and writing parts of Thomas’s journey from Winchester to the Quantocks in Somerset. In 2014, Caroline Blythe joined in, equipped with OS maps, and a copy of In Pursuit of Spring, and set off to explore and discover the landscape and locations described in poetry and prose by Martindale and Thomas.

For practical reasons both Kym and Caroline split Thomas’ journey into three distinct areas, visiting these when time allowed, following Thomas on bicycle, foot and at times by car. They recorded snippets of time and place ­– observing and notating the landscape as they travelled. The result is a collection of poems by Dr Kym Martindale and drawings by Caroline Blythe recently published in Edition Three of Elementum Journal.

Images of ‘An Hour to Sing – a Journey of Following’ by Kym Martindale and Caroline Blythe from Edition three of Elementum Journal

We talked with Caroline and Kym to find out more…

Caroline says, “It has been an absolute pleasure to discover and explore both the countryside in the south of England, described so beautifully by Edward Thomas, and also respond to and work with Kym’s wonderful poems, while at the same time recording my own visual observations. As I travelled through the locations described by Edward Thomas and Kym, capturing fleeting moments in sketchbooks, I kept thanking them for introducing me to these beautiful and interesting places. It was a privilege to experience the landscape through their eyes as well as observe for myself. It was a fascinating process. Perhaps the most exciting visual outcomes from this project evolved through this collaborative working process which led to the creation and compiling of palimpsests – an interleaving of tracings of drawings.”

Kym adds, “This research project combined two great passions of mine, poetry and cycling. In Pursuit of Spring describes a landscape on the brink of change, but it is the cradle too of so much of Thomas’s poetry, and an index to the man himself. The poems and drawings are ‘re/tracings’ of journeys made by Thomas, then myself, then Caroline, through a landscape that is constantly changing economically, politically, and aesthetically. And about halfway through the project, we suddenly realised that although we each travelled alone, we were also together in the journey we were making. I am sorry in some measure, that we have arrived.”

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Elementum, founded by Falmouth MA graduate Jay Armstrong, is a biannual publication of new writing and visual arts that explores the natural world and our role within it. Through folklore, literature, poetry, science and specially commissioned art and photography, Elementum quietly brings the reader back to what really matters by nurturing our connection to the natural world and the myths that surround it. The theme of the third edition is ‘roots’ and explores our origins and what sustains us.

If you would like to know more about Elementum journal or purchase a copy of the publication, you can do so by visiting their website: https://www.elementumjournal.com/

Catching up with Katie Sims, Falmouth Fine Art alumna

Katie Sims graduated from BA(Hons) Fine Art at Falmouth in 2010. Since then she has pursued her art, enjoyed competition and exhibition success and had a spell teaching. She reflects on her time at Falmouth, and talks to us about her life as a professional artist…

Katie Sims

Describe your life since graduating back in 2010…

Things kicked off for me when I was selected for Saatchi’s New Sensations and the Midas Award, two competitions that afforded critical exposure and led to further opportunities to show and collaborate with curators and galleries. The Midas Award provided tremendous professional support during that daunting first year with the prize at that time including a solo exhibition, materials grant and yearlong mentorship programme through Falmouth University. None of this would have happened had I not entered those, proving it’s worth putting yourself forward for things.

Trinity After Ribera and Portal (Opening Gambit, Hoxton Art Gallery, London, 2010), Image courtesy of Hoxton Art Gallery

That led me to establish a working relationship with Hoxton Art Gallery (2011-13). At the time, Hoxton was a new venture and I made work for their launch show. We grew together; things went well and they asked me to be one of their represented artists. We were a good fit and shared a similar ethos so I accepted. The gallery acted as my agents, taking care of all sales, promoting my work, providing exhibiting opportunities and inclusion in key art fairs and events whilst I was able to concentrate solely on painting. For that privilege I promised exclusivity to them, and they would take a commission on all sales. One of the highlights was my solo show, Opening Gambit. I spent 9 months working toward this exhibition and to see the work in situ and how the public responded was moving. It completed the whole cycle for me.

One of the biggest challenges has been trying to create freely whilst feeling the pressure of deadlines and accountability.

I started teaching art to sixth form students in 2013 in order to have more social contact and a regular income alongside painting. Three years later, with a PGCE now done and a ton of experience and newfound knowledge about my work, and myself, I’m shifting the emphasis back to painting. My experience of teaching was brilliant, but I struggled to balance both careers with equal intensity. I still want to teach though; perhaps as an artist that delivers workshops in schools. I loved working with my students.

What are you working on now?

Fleeting Agony, oil on panel, 24x30cm (2010)

I’m working on a new body of paintings to exhibit. I’ve also been archiving my work and recently launched a new website – www.katiesims.co.uk. Revisiting ten years worth of work has been cathartic and essential, allowing me to notice which pictures resonate most with me now. For example, I made a painting whilst at Falmouth called Fleeting Agony, the first picture that was discovered through the process of painting. It remains a monument to what I’m trying to do now – taking on my historic influences, memories and experiences as they affect me now. Trying to fix the quiddity of that impression rather than objective reality.

Osmosis, oil on panel, 24x30cm (2017)

 

What is a typical day for you?

Studio, studio, studio. I need to be here and cut off from life outside in order to focus. Large parts of my day are spent thinking rather than physically painting. When I do pluck up the courage, I have a window of a few hours to get something down. It’s always been that way, even as a student. The process itself is full of risk and I’ve watched many paintings close down from overworking or overthinking them, but sometimes you have to sacrifice things in order to potentially realise something greater. I’m always learning and each painting proposes a new challenge, leading me on to the next. As I’ve matured I’ve learnt creative down time and play is as important as production, otherwise you burn out. You need to keep nourishing yourself as an artist to remain fresh and engaged. I love to walk and go off exploring new places. These trips feed my work and keep the days varied.

Trinity after Ribera, oil on panel, 30x24cm (2012) Image courtesy of Hoxton Art Gallery.

What’s next for you?

I’d like to kit out a van and create a portable studio to travel around Spain. I’ve returned to the country each year since winning The Ford Award in 2012 (a travel bursary to study at the Prado in Madrid) – it’s my second home.  As time goes on there is something about the landscape, the people, and the light that is of interest and speaks directly to me. I have a collection of drawings, some from life, some from memory which I intend to re-familiarise myself with and work into paintings too.

Why did you choose to study at Falmouth?

I needed a supportive environment where I could really focus on exploring my ideas with fewer distractions. Falmouth instantly felt right. As students we were spoilt – top facilities, resources and tutors available to us. Such accessibility and personal relationships with staff are rare to come by. It’s what makes it unique. I knew I would be a person here and not a statistic.

 

What is your favourite memory from studying at Falmouth?

There are so many, and the most precious for me seem to be in the everyday stuff. I remember walking the tree-lined passage to the Falmouth Campus at Woodlane from my home in Falmouth each day. The light present in my studio building, the buzz surrounding the campus, everyone doing something different – it was a remarkable, concentrated moment in my life. I look back with fondness. They all stay with me.

How did Falmouth influence your career?

Falmouth gave me the space required to find my own language. Its strength as a university is in encouraging each student to have the confidence to do this. I left with a definite sense of who I am and the type of work I want to make.

I also gained a remarkable set of friends, which continues to stand the test of time. Anyone that studies here is part of something bigger, akin to family. When you meet a former Falmouth student, regardless of age or course, you share an instant connection.

If you had to give one piece of advice to a new Falmouth student, what would it be?

Studying at Falmouth is a brilliant opportunity in a truly inspiring place, make every moment count and experience it to the fullest.

 

FOMO – Introducing Falmouth’s first Art Publishing Fair

F O M O – the first ever Falmouth Art Publishing Fair – opens at 4pm on Friday 29 September for a weekend of talks, workshops, screenings, artists’ book works, performances, zines and comics and readings.   

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Organised by Falmouth School of Art’s Senior Lecturers Neil Chapman, Gillian Wylde and Carolyn Shapiro and Associate Lecturer Maria Christoforidou, F O M O will take place at Falmouth Art Gallery and the Library of the Municipal Buildings, The Moor, Falmouth, and brings together Falmouth School of Art staff and students with local participating institutions including: Falmouth Art Gallery, Falmouth Library, Tate St Ives, Stranger Collective, Urbanomic, Atlantic Press, Burning House Books, BLNT Collective, Keiken and Krowji. 

F O M O will include contributions from academic and research colleagues from: Royal  Holloway University, Cambridge University, West Dean College, Aarhus University, Plymouth University, Goldsmiths University of London, Research Center for Material Culture Netherlands and from across Departments at Falmouth University.

Generously supported by Falmouth Art Gallery, the event has grown out of discussion between colleagues across different departments at Falmouth University. From meetings as a Research Forum, finding common ground between their varied interests, the group started to consider joint research and how best to team up for that work. One of the organisers, Neil Chapman, reflects on the development of the event, and what we can look forward to over the weekend…

‘As a research group, we share a commitment to collective work. That’s both a pragmatic interest and a critical position too. Most often, when people work together it’s so that a workload can be shared. But collective work is unpredictable and inefficient too and these are values that might tend to be lost in the current climate. There is a lot of emphasis in the contemporary workplace on individuals’ success and the competition that results can be destructive. Our title for the event – Fear of Missing Out – is on some level an ironic allusion to these issues.

We are all of us, in different ways, committed to discursive work, to the climate of ideas that surrounds ‘making’ in our different disciplines. And that’s a foundation for the publication fair too, reflected in the many talks, screenings, readings and performances scheduled over the weekend. F O M O provides an opportunity for us to invite our colleagues and friends to Cornwall. It’s good for the cultures of creative practice here in Falmouth. F O M O will bring lots of people into contact who might not have met otherwise. We’re excited to imagine the new partnerships and the new work that might result.

The aim has been to inaugurate the kind of event that we would want to go to ourselves, also the kind of event that students would be excited about. Henrietta Boex, Director of Falmouth Art Gallery, has been extremely supportive. We’ve made all kinds of demands on her and she seems never to say no to anything; the Gallery’s Glyn Winchester has also been a great support. The independence of the project is a way of underscoring our own priorities, which are evident in all kinds of ways through the framing of the event: the name, the graphics, the publicity, the choice of which artists, writers and publishers to invite. There are many Art Publishing Fairs in the UK and abroad and we have had an eye on some of those. But in another sense this Fair has been invented from scratch. And for that reason it will work well as a foundation for bigger and more varied research initiatives to come. We’re talking about a future peer-reviewed journal, discursive gatherings – dream dinner date/fantasy football team type things with exciting living people—maybe some dead folk too, ghosts. No zombies. Digital Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida . . .

It’s particularly good to be working with current students and recent Falmouth University graduates. As part of FOMO, Graham Taylor who studied Fine Art and who graduated in 2015 is curating an exhibition entitled Practically Outside, involving a dozen or more Falmouth alumni. His contribution makes a direct engagement with the FOMO ethos, looking critically at what it means to be an ‘emerging artist’, engaging in the most thoughtful way with different platforms of exhibition and print publication.’

F O M O also includes contributions from writers, artists, poets, publishers, activists, hackers, Falmouth University alumni and musicians both national and international.

F O M O is an inaugural event, bringing a new art research collective into being, which, over forthcoming months will stage events in different forms and at different locations, connecting diverse networks.

https://falmouthartpublishingfair.wordpress.com/

New digital artwork from Rosie McGinn, on AVD

…“Tonight you’re mine, completely…”, the lyrics from a Shirelles’ classic play out to a pumped up Prince Naseem Hamed staring down his opponent Kevin Kelley

…The scene features in new artwork from British artist and 2015 BA(Hons) Fine Art alumna Rosie McGinn. Boxing Series 1  is released on AVD, a digital art platform designed for mobile consumption. Artists provide the art, and AVD provides the coding. Not only offering an alternative to the white gallery space, the technology reduces work to the width of a mobile screen, allowing the viewer to determine their journey through the artwork by finger swipes, rather than having it curated for their physicality.

McGinn’s video pieces are embedded within a stream of fake adverts, porn, betting deals and forums, in the midst of which is the video piece ready to be played. McGinn brings the ever-popular, often controversial sport of boxing to the art world for evaluation, juxtaposing animalistic pre-fight stare-downs with love songs.

The first of the series of four Boxing Stare Downs was released on 17 September, with the next being released at three-day intervals. To view, go to a-v-d.xyz on your mobile.

 

FSA Visiting Professor, Hew Locke, exhibiting in Bremen and Miami

Hew Locke, our Visiting Professor of Fine Art, has two new projects; ‘Cui Bono’ in Bremen, and ‘Reversal of Fortune’ in Miami.

Cui Bono installed at Bremen Rathaus. Photo ©Indra Khanna 2017

‘Cui Bono’ is a 4 metre long ship that Hew has created.  The work was commissioned by Kunsthalle Bremen and installed at Rathaus Bremen, Germany, as part of the exhibition ‘The Blind Spot: Bremen and Art in the Colonial Era’.  A video on the installation can be found here.

Detail of Cui Bono ©Hew Locke & DACS

The installation in the Town Hall’s upper gallery is an invitation to grapple with Bremen’s maritime commercial and colonial history.  The exhibition takes place in Bremen Town Hall, Germany, from 5 August to 19 November 2017.  For more information on the project click here.

 

‘Reversal of Fortune’ is a new commission for Fringe Projects Miami, in an empty jewellery store in downtown Miami’s historic Art Deco Moderne DuPont Building.  The exterior of the installation is viewable from SE 2nd Ave, 24 hours a day, from 8 September 2017 to 31 January 2018.

Chinese Imperil Gold Loan 10 ©Hew Locke & Hales Gallery

Since the financial crash of 2008 Hew Locke has been buying original antique share certificates from old companies, and painting directly on them.  In ‘Reversal of Fortune’ fifteen have been selected and printed up to create an installation on the facade, and inside the vault, of an empty store.  He has chosen these defunct shares sometimes for their interesting history, and sometimes for their beauty.  He highlights historical and economic cycles. Commerce has its’ ups and downs, yet it is human nature to be optimistic, to continue to trade.  New-born companies garland their shares with confident typography and classical motifs implying stability and worth.  Figures representative of the local population in the areas in which the companies operated are sometimes seen breaking-through.  These are silent witnesses, those who paid the most to create the wealth without receiving the benefit.  Locke’s series of shares is also a wry acknowledgement of the commodity value of contemporary art.

Falmouth’s Visiting Professor programme brings international speakers of the highest calibre to the university to share their knowledge, insights and experiences with students, staff and wider public.  Visiting Professors are appointed for three years, delivering both public lectures and working with our students during their annual visit.

 

Sophie Wright, BA(Hons) Fine Art student – new exhibition

Final year BA(Hons) Fine Art student Sophie Wright, has and exhibition opening in Penryn on 5 August, with fellow artist and student Rebecca Pearce-Davies. Heretics of the Mundane runs until 26 August, and all are welcome to the Private View from 6pm on 4 August.

https://www.facebook.com/HereticsoftheMundane/ 

‘f u t u r e – o r e’ Private View on Friday 30 June

Future-ore resides in the cortex of Redruth and is powered by their profitable history in copper and tin mining. The success is now grounded into a state of absence. A memory awaiting rejuvenation. The streets appear empty as imagery of the past paints a distance between the present. The community is tethered to the past without any direction of the future. Whilst the location is scattered with engine houses and chimney stacks all overgrown with nature, they stand as monuments. This architectural heritage is stamped with high street branding to regenerate the area but transcends into a pit of sameness. These issues point towards a new mineral.

Daniell Bethel and Sonja Johansson present ‘f u t u r e – o r e’ at Back Lane West on Friday 30 June 5 – 9pm and Saturday 1 July 10am – 4pm.  A ‘Transitions’ graduate residency supported by Falmouth University.  Daniell and Sonja have just completed their final year at Falmouth School of Art, studying BA(Hons) Fine Art.

 

 

Images from Falmouth Fine Art London 2017 Private View

The Private View for Falmouth Fine Art London took place on the evening of Thursday 8 June at South Kiosk Gallery, Peckham.  The Private View was attended by Falmouth School of Art Visiting Professor, Hew Locke, and artists Mark Francis and Lisa Wright, amongst many others.

 

 

 

HOW TO SWIM Exhibit B: Treading Water

HOW TO SWIM – a series of six contemporary art events in different spaces across Manchester’s Victoria Baths site.

Over the six events artists will react to the site, installing sculptures, paintings and video as well as performing live movement and spoken word pieces, holding workshops and giving talks.

Exhibit B: Treading Water is the second event of the series, and includes work by recent BA(Hons) Fine Art graduates Tanya Cruz and Jess Russell, and Mercedes Kemp, Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art.

These events are organised and curated by recent Falmouth Fine Art graduates Polly Maxwell and Lulu Richards aka WHATCHAMACALLIT collective.

http://www.whatchamacallitcollective.com/the-collective.html

The events take place at the historic Victoria Baths in Manchester a listed Edwardian swimming pool and Turkish Baths complex.

BA(Hons) Fine Art alumni Polly Maxwell and Lulu Richards Cottell curate contemporary art events across Manchester’s Victoria Baths site.

14 May 2017 11:00 –  12 Nov 2017 16:00

HOW TO SWIM is an exciting series of six contemporary art events in different spaces across the Victoria Baths site in Manchester, featuring a number of other Falmouth alumni. Over six events, all taking place in conjunction with Victoria Baths Open Days, artists will react to the site, installing sculptures, paintings and video as well as performing live movement and spoken word pieces, holding workshops and giving talks.

The project is curated by 2016 BA(Hons) Fine Art alumni Polly Maxwell and Lulu Richards  Cottell,  who go by the name of WHATCHAMACALLIT collective.

‘Trying to Float’, is the first exhibit in the HOW TO SWIM series of exhibitions and artists events at Victoria Baths Open Days in Manchester.

Opens: 14 May 2017 11:00 -16:00

‘Trying to Float’ explores collective and social memory.

Artist Maddie Broad invites group reminiscence on the theme of swimming in her interactive workshop Standing together in an empty pool.

Video and sculptural works address collective domestic experience in Ting Waterhouse’s piece, ‘Laundry’.

Polly Maxwell’s ‘Stairs’ is accompanied by interactive spoken word from poet ‘T.S Idiot’.

‘Trying to Float’ takes place alongside the Victoria Baths Open Day and public swimming event. Entry to the building allows people to view the art and view swimming.

Adults £4, (standard prices £3) FREE for under 16s and VB Friends

http://www.whatchamacallitcollective.com

http://www.victoriabaths.org.uk

Victoria Baths, Hathersage Road, Chorlton-on-Medlock,  Manchester, M13 0FE.  Tel: 0161 224 2020

 

 

 

Jessica Warboys, Falmouth alumna – talk at Falmouth and solo exhibition at Tate St. Ives

Hill of Dreams 2016, Performer Oliver Baggott, Video, High Definition, colour, sound; 11 minutes
© Jessica Warboys and 1857

Jessica Warboys,
Sea Painting, Dunwich, October, 2015
canvas, mineral pigments
Courtesy the artist & Gaudel de Stampa, Paris.

In association with Tate St. Ives, artist Jessica Warboys, who graduated from BA(Hons) Fine Art at Falmouth in 2001, joins us for a talk on 29 March, to mark her first solo show at a UK national gallery, at Tate St. Ives this Spring.

Warboys works across painting, performance, film and sculpture; her work is informed by personal or collective memories – historical, mythical or fictional. In her Sea Paintings, Warboys explores the connection between painting and performance, submerging damp, folded canvas scattered with coloured pigments into the sea, and allowing the movement of the waves to ‘paint’ the canvas.  The show at Tate St. Ives will feature films, sculptures and paintings, including two specially commissioned works:

Sea Painting, Zennor 2015, was made on the Zennor coast near St Ives.

Hill of Dreams 2016, is a new film that draws from Welsh fantasy writer Arthur Machen’s book of the same name, that relives his memories of rural Gwent, where Warboys was born a century later. Hill of Dreams has been commissioned by Tate St Ives, Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy and Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway and will tour to each of these venues throughout 2016−17.

Warboys currently lives and works in Suffolk and Berlin and has enjoyed wide international exhibition success, including solo exhibitions. After graduating from Falmouth she completed a Masters of Fine Art at Slade School of Art in 2004. Her work was recently included in British Art Show 8.

Register Here for Jessica Warboys’ talk on 29 March, 6pm, Lecture Theatre 1, Falmouth Campus. Please note the later than usual start time.

Jessica Warboys at Tate St. Ives runs from 31 March to 3 September 2017.

Beatrice Brown – THE N0THING SERIES – 23 March–23 April 2017

Falmouth BA(Hons) Fine Art alumna Beatrice Brown is about to open her first solo exhibition in London. ‘THE N0THING SERIES’ is curated by James Birch and opens at Gallery 46 in Whitechapel on March 23, 2017 until 23 April. 

The works in this exhibition bear witness to inner visions that Brown has had from as early as six years old, when she transposed her inner turmoil and confusion onto seeing the ‘Fire Child’, a character that spoke to her from within the flames of a hearth. The sheer compressed power of the sculptural work is analogous to the potency of material transformation in alchemy, of the Jungian Nigredo, the black beginning – The Nothing Series.

Beatrice graduated from Fine Art in Falmouth in 2013, and was shortlisted for the Midas Award in that year, exhibiting that autumn at Millennium Gallery, St. Ives (now Anima-Mundi). Her solo exhibition features a new collection of drawings.

Gallery 46 is a new art-space from Martin J Tickner, Sean McLusky, Martin Bell and Wai Hung Young in Whitechapel, London’s long-standing centre of radicalism and independence, has developed from the non-conformist curatorial approach they deployed at Redchurch Street’s infamous MEN Gallery.

http://gallery46.co.uk/Exhibitions/beatrice-brown-the-nothing-series/

http://beatricebrown.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Installation by Fine Art graduate Sandi Carr in the Clearwell Caves, Royal Forest of Dean

Sandi Carr, 2016 graduate of BA(Hons) Fine Art at Falmouth, has installed 450 metres of cotton wick in her latest site responsive art work, which has opened at Clearwell Caves in the Royal Forest of Dean,
 Gloucestershire, where she has been undertaking a residency.

Founder of Flow Contemporary Arts, Carolyn Black, writes of the installation:

‘The forest has some fascinating places that many people consider to be merely tourist destinations. Yet some provide brilliant locations for contemporary art to be shown in, and Clearwell Caves is one of them. The exhibition by Sandi Carr that opened last night, is one worth seeing. If you take a peek at her website you will see she’s interested in visceral materials, and this new installation reflects that’.

Check out Sandi’s work here: http://sandijade.weebly.com

 

International awards for Falmouth Illustration alumni

Two of this year’s four winners of the BolognaRagazzi Award are alumni of Falmouth’s BA(Hons) Illustration. The BolognaRagazzi Award is one of the world’s most highly regarded international prizes in children’s publishing, giving winners extraordinary visibility, including through high profile recognition at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair.

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Emma Lewis won the Opera Prima category for The Museum of Me, by Tate Publishing. She said, ‘Winning the award was an amazing surprise, as I hadn’t even considered that I would be put forward. I’m also pleased because it reflects all the brilliant hard work put in by my publishers, Tate’.

2012 graduate William Grill won the Non-fiction category for his book The Wolves of Currumpaw, published by Flying Eye Books. Grill said ‘I am over the moon that Wolves was chosen for this year’s non-fiction category, I had never imagined that it would be so well received overseas. Since my aim was to bring Seton’s tale to a modern audience, I now feel more hopeful that more people will appreciate the story’.

The Wolves of Currumpaw has also been long listed for this year’s CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal, the UK’s oldest award for Children’s literature, previously won by some of the best loved children’s illustrators, including Quentin Blake and Raymond Briggs. Grill won the Medal in 2015 for his acclaimed Shackleton’s Journey.

Alongside Grill on the Kate Greenaway Medal long list is Levi Pinfold, who graduated from Falmouth in 2006. Pinfold – also a previous Medal-winner, in 2013 for Black Dog – has been selected for his picture book Greenling, published by Templar Publishing. The Kate Greenaway Medal short list will be announced on 16 March, with the winners announced at a ceremony in June.

Cafe Morte – The Tears of Things – exhibition and events

This weekend sees the opening of Cafe Morte’s The Tears of Things at the Exchange Gallery, Penzance

A growing collection of broken objects, to initiate conversation around the emotional value and attachment we have to something that is broken in our lives. The collection will form the beginning of a growing body of research relating to death and loss. The show includes work from current Falmouth BA(Hons) Fine Art students, alumni, and lecturers, as well as other established writers and artists. As well as work artists from the UK, the exhibition features submissions from artists from Cyprus, Tunisia, USA, Poland and Spain.

CAFE MORTE: THE TEARS OF THINGS | 11Feb – 18 March 2017 | THE EXCHANGE – PENZANCE

OPENING EVENT FRIDAY 10^TH FEBRUARY, 7pm – 9pm, ENGINE ROOM: EXCHANGE GALLERY PENZANCE  Join us for an evening of performance, video, objects, narrative and stories generated by Café Morte to celebrate the life of a broken object.

EVENT: SATURDAY 11^TH 10.00 – 4.00 BROKEN WRITING OPEN INVITATION  Members of the public are invited to participate by bringing a broken object to the gallery to be documented photographically and to write a short piece of text that will be added to the collection. The collection will form an online museum of broken objects reflecting the power that these objects still hold.

Two BA(Hons) Fine Art alumni, Polly Maxwell and Lulu Richards Cottell will be returning to install and help curate the show, and as part of their visit will also be talking to current Fine Art students about their experiences since graduating last year.

Café Morte is a research group led by Falmouth Fine Art Senior Lecturers Mercedes Kemp and Lucy Willow, involving undergraduate and postgraduate students from Falmouth University, along with other artists and curators. Its central focus is to create projects that enable audiences to discuss the rich and varied themes of death found in art and literature. This is an adaption of the recently popular model of the ‘Death Café’, which has arisen worldwide as a meeting place in which to discuss death over a cup of tea.

Café Morte provides Falmouth students with the opportunity to research and make work around a focused theme. It enhances their research capability and enables them to experience the setting up and curating of a show, work collaboratively, experience working directly with audiences and networking with established artists. Each year, Café Morte welcomes a number of new students, and continues working with alumni.

The group started three years ago, working with BA(Hons) Fine Art students at Falmouth to develop research and ideas. The second year culminated in an exhibition at the university, curated by students and showing student work alongside that of established artists. The exhibition coincided with a Symposium by Moth, a research group concerning death and design run by colleagues in Graphic Design.

The Tears of Things exhibition follows a public testing of the project at The Exchange last December.

Interview with BA(Hons) Fine Art alumna, Zoe Spowage – Young Artists in Conversation

Zoe Spowage graduated from BA(Hons) Fine Art at Falmouth in 2013. Born in Long Eaton, she now lives and works in Leeds; her studio is based at Assembly House. Since graduating, she has worked as a freelance scenic artist and won the Nottingham Castle Open Main Prize in 2016 and the Surface Gallery Prize Residency and Exhibition in 2017.

Zoe describes her work as ‘furnished with loose narrative, I play with the decorative motif and the female form to create scenery. I am attracted to bold and direct visual language’.

Young Artists in Conversation have featured Zoe in an interview by Yasmin Rix –http://youngartistsinconversation.co.uk/Zoe-Spowage , in which she talks about her work and working process, and her forthcoming exhibition with Rufus Newell following their month-long residency in Com Peung, Thailand.

Get Me Bodied, from I’m in Love with Rococo Exhibition in It’s All Tropical, Leeds, 2015

A Bleaching Madden – mural detail

Maritime Mural Project – a collaboration with Falmouth, National Maritime Museum Cornwall, Spectrum, Exeter University and street artist Marc Craig

Our Foundation students here at Falmouth are involved in a community project ‘The Maritime Mural Project‘ between partners The National Maritime Museum Cornwall, Spectrum Autism Charity, University of Exeter, Falmouth University and street artist Marc Craig.

The project is about celebrating ‘difference’ and coincides with the opening of the Maritime Museum’s Captain Bligh and Tattoo exhibition. Members of the community are being asked to draw a doodle which celebrates their difference, under the title, ‘Everyone is Different, Who are You’?

The students have decorated 16 bespoke postboxes, which are displayed around the town and also in local libraries, galleries and schools; it is hoped these will inspire the community to doodle. The doodles, together with other images researched by the students, alongside daffodils which represent Falmouth’s Spring Festival, will contribute to a 100-foot long mural which will be created by and painted onto the wall of the Maritime Car Park on Bar Road by street artist Marc Craig.

Marc Craig is based in London, and works primarily with large scale murals, both on his own and as part of the street art collective Psychodoodlz. He is also an alumus of Falmouth, having graduated with a degree in Studio Ceramics in 2003, and an MA in Contemporary Visual Arts in 2004.

 

BA(Hons) Fine Art alumna, Katrina Cowling’s solo exhibition opens February 10th at The Henderson Gallery, Nottingham.

Katrina Cowling graduated from BA(Hons) Fine Art at Falmouth in 2013 with a first class honours. In 2012, during her time on the course, she was the recipient of the Cornwall Denis Mitchell Sculpture Award. Now based in Leeds, this is her forthcoming show in Nottingham.

Falmouth Fine Art Alumnus Ed Burkes selected for BEERS London Contemporary Visions

Ed Burkes, A headlight looks into the dark, but shimmers and tells you it’s cool, 127×127 cm oil on canvas

2016 BA(Hons) Fine Art graduate Ed Burkes, has been selected for BEERS London Contemporary Visions.

Burkes was on of eleven artists selected from an open call of over 4000 applicants, by a panel that included Philly Adams, Senior Director of the Saatchi Gallery, and Kurt Beers, Director of BEERS London and author of 100 Painters of Tomorrow.

This is the seventh year of BEERS London, a group exhibition that has sought to identify current trends in contemporary art. The artists selected for this year’s show are described as ‘posess[ing] a strong point of view as well as an artistic practice that shows distinct promise’. Burkes himself is described by the exhibition organisers as ‘one of the UK’s most sought-after young artists.

Burkes says, ‘My work is sparked from a commonplace drawing or situation: A friend drinking coffee, a buddy pulling up his socks, a pretty girl in the fruit and veg section of Tesco express. Through the process of painting these preliminary considerations begin to wobble out of sync to a point where their distinctiveness as a primary source slips away. This Introduces the opportunity for the work to embody its own honesty where identity stands as a framework to the painting, unfixed in its dwelling as the viewers’ considerations take hold’.

His work is also currently on display at Mall Galleries, London, as a part of FBA Futures 2017 (until 20 January) and was shown at The Other Art Fair, London, as a part of the Saatchi Invest in Art programme. Burkes was also shortlisted for the 2016 Bloomberg New Contemporaries, and was the recipient of the Falmouth School of Art Purchase Prize 2016.

Ed Burkes in his studio

BEERS Contemporary Visions previews on Thursday 19 January, open 20 January – 4 March, at 1 Baldwin Street, EC1V 9NU

Hew Locke in conversation with Alex Schady at the Tate Modern, London

Falmouth alumnus and current Visiting Professor of Fine Art, Hew Locke, will be speaking about his work in conversation with Alex Schady at the Tate Modern, London, at 4pm this Monday 9 January 2017.

Installation shot of Locke’s solo exhibition ‘Beyond the Sea Wall’, Hayles Gallery London, 2014

This talk is part of the Central Saint Martins ‘This is An Art School’ in Tate Exchange.  The public are invited to enrol in the temporary art school and explore what the future of arts education might look like.  The art school is created by students, staff and alumni of Central Saint Martins.  The venue is Switch House, Level 5 in the Tate Modern, and the art school is open from 9 – 15 January 2017 from 12.00pm – 6.00pm each day.

Falmouth’s Visiting Professor of Fine Art, Hew Locke, exhibits in XIII Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador

Exhibited for the first time, Locke’s bill-board-sized print The Canal Interocéanique de Panama will be applied directly to the side of a building at the junction of Vargas Machucha and Calle Larga, Cuenca, Ecuador. This work is part of his on-going series Share, investigating the cycles and histories of international finance and trade, where Locke works directly onto actual antique share certificates.  

Hew Locke joined Falmouth as Visiting Professor of Fine Art in 2016, an appointment that will see Locke work with Falmouth for three years delivering both public lectures and working with students during his annual visits.  Locke’s inaugural visit as Visiting Professor took place earlier this month and we are very much looking forward to the next.

 

Highlight Creative Fair Saturday 3rd December

The Highlight Creative Fair was founded by students Lucy Rivers (BA(Hons) Illustration) and Megan Fatharly (BA(Hons) Drawing), and FXU Falmouth President and former Fine Art student Chris Slesser, as a way to utilise the new Fox café atrium space and for students’ work to be celebrated and highlighted and for students to meet, collaborate and create.

Entry is free and open to the public.  Holding a stall is free and open to staff, students and alumni. It is hoped that this will become a regular event.

Visiting Professor appointments at Falmouth School of Art

Falmouth’s Visiting Professor programme brings international speakers of the highest calibre to the university to share their knowledge, insights and experiences with students, staff and wider public. Visiting Professors are appointed for three years, delivering both public lectures and working with our students during their annual visit. The Falmouth School of Art is delighted to announce new appointments this autumn of the artist Hew Locke as Visiting Professor of Fine Art and illustrator and writer Graham Rawle as Visiting Professor of Illustration.

Hew Locke, 2016, by Charlie Littlewood

Hew Locke is one of Falmouth’s most celebrated alumni and he’s keen to revive his special connection with the university: ‘I am very much looking forward to taking up this appointment, and to travelling down to Falmouth once again. My time at the School of Art was an important part of my career, and experiences I had there still resonate in my work today.  I hope in (my) turn to be able to make my own positive contribution to students’ development over the next three years.’

Born in Edinburgh, Locke spent his formative years in Georgetown, Guyana, before returning to the UK to study. He received his BA(Hons) Fine Art in 1988 from Falmouth, then an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London in 1994. His investigation of the display of power includes royal and swagger portraiture, coats-of-arms, public statuary, trophies, financial documents, weaponry and costume.

The Nameless (2010), Installation view, Hew Locke. Photo courtesy Hales Gallery.

 

Maritime imagery and symbolism have been ongoing preoccupations in his work, along with reflections on his upbringing in Guyana. Locke has work in numerous collections including Tate, the British Museum, the V&A, Brooklyn Museum and the Perez Art Museum Miami. He has had solo shows in public galleries in the UK and the USA, and has taken part in Biennials in Hangzhou, China; Kochi, India; Prospect3, Miami; Guangzhou, China; Valencia, Spain and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Locke’s inaugural Professorial Lecture, for which registration is now open, takes place on Wednesday 16 November, 2016.

Graham Rawle. Photo credit: Jenny Lewis

Internationally admired, Graham Rawle is one of the UK’s most interesting and original visual communicators, perhaps best known for his long running ‘Lost Consonants’ strip, which first appeared in the Guardian in 1990. His flair and passion for education has also been recognised through honorary appointments and awards. As a previous contributor to both Falmouth School of Art’s guest speaker programme and its Illustration Forum he already has a strong interest in Illustration here.

Of his appointment, Rawle says, “It’s a great honour for me to have been made Visiting Professor of Illustration at Falmouth University. I have long admired the School of Art’s commitment to nurturing original and individual thinking in art and design. My own research in sequential design and visual narrative spans across illustration, literature and, more recently, film. I’m interested in how the principles of storytelling, particularly three-act structure, can be employed in the development of design strategies across a wide range of disciplines. I look forward to finding ways of making connections with students, staff and researchers at Falmouth”.

(C) Graham Rawle, Woman’s World, close-up

Rawle is a writer and collage artist whose visual work incorporates illustration, design, photography and installation. He has produced regular series for The Observer, The Sunday Telegraph Magazine and The Times and among his published books are The Card, The Wonder Book of Fun, Lying Doggo, and Diary of an Amateur Photographer. His collaged novel Woman’s World, created entirely from fragments of found text clipped from vintage women’s magazines won wide critical acclaim, described by The Times as ‘a work of genius…the most wildly original novel produced in this country in the past decade.’ His reinterpretation of The Wizard of Oz won the Best Illustrated Trade Book Award as well as 2009 Book of the Year at the British Book Design Awards. The Card, was shortlisted for the 2013 Writers’ Guild Award for fiction.

Rawle has established himself as a ground-breaking research-led writer, illustrator and designer, evidenced through the range and depth of key scholarly texts that cite and analyse his work. He teaches on the MA Sequential Design/Illustration and MA Arts and Design by Independent Project courses at Brighton and in 2012 he was awarded an honorary doctorate for Services to Design from Norwich University of the Arts. He will give his inaugural Professorial Lecture at Falmouth in March 2017.

Fine Art Alumna has film selected for the Cornwall Film Festival

We are thrilled to announce Tanya Morel, a BA(Hons) Fine Art alumna has recently co-produced and directed a film which has been selected for the Cornwall Film Festival.

The screening will take place this Saturday 05 November, 1.30pm at The Poly in Falmouth.  The screening will follow with a Q&A/panel discussion, tickets are available to buy here.

Diary of a Madman “follows Poprishkin, a low ranking civil servant with ideas above his station, who has fallen in love with the Director’s daughter.  Coupled with delusions of grandeur and an inability to accept his lot in life, this obsession becomes a catalyst that sets him on the road to madness.  A journey that is both absurdly funny and heartbreakingly tragic” (Devon and Cornwall Film).

Tanya, who originally trained as an actor, graduated from Falmouth in 2006 with a 1st class BA(Hons) in Fine Art and has since gone on to work with drawing, sculpture, printmaking, painting, animation and film making.  Tanya co-founded Oddbodies, a critically acclaimed and award-winning production company that specialises in innovative and highly visual work.

Skeleton: New Sculpture from Old Boats

Skeleton 190x55x53 cm

“A boat is but a shell.  Shells grow in increments, bit by bit, compartment by compartment.  So does a wooden boat hull.  Frame by frame.  Plank by plank.  The tiny increments of boat construction enable graceful curves to grow.  The result is a hull that will curve through water, smooth as silk.” (Rob Johnsey).

Transom 44x44x21 cm

Ship 90x33x82 cm

Lifeboat 108x45x45 cm

Keel 80x33x33 cm

Coracle 113x87x38 cm

Carcass 50x50x65 cm

Coil 42x14x34 cm

The exhibition ‘Skeleton: New Sculpture from Old Boats’ opens on 10 November and continues until 30 April 2017 at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.  It features 8 wooden sculptures by artist Rob Johnsey, and is inspired by boats in the NMMC collection and Rob’s time as a boat building volunteer.

Rob Johnsey is an alumnus of Falmouth University, he studied BA(Hons) Fine Art and graduated in 2014.  Rob’s spent the past 18 months working on a sculpture exhibition for the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, and was the very first Artist in Residence at the NMMC for the period of the sculpture project.

Spotlight on Falmouth Fine Art Graduate Michael Cox

 

Somerset based artist and Falmouth BA(Hons) Fine Art graduate Michael Cox will soon be exhibiting ‘New Works‘ at Art Represent, London, E2 0JD.  Opening from 28 October until 1 November Michael will be collaborating with another graduate artist, James Briggs.

During Michael’s third year at Falmouth, he was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2016.  As part of the touring exhibition Michael’s work has already been exhibited at the launch exhibition at Bluecoat, Liverpool, forming part of the Liverpool Biennial.

Following the success at Liverpool, Bloomberg New Contemporaries featuring Michael’s piece ‘De Beauvoir, 2015‘ will move on to London, exhibiting at the ICA from 23 November 2016 until 22 January 2017.

Michael has previously exhibited in London, most recently as part of a curated show selected by critic and curator Sacha Craddock and Falmouth Associate Lecturer Jesse Leroy Smith.  Selected artists were chosen from the BA(Hons) Fine Art final year student cohort and the exhibition took place at the Underdog Gallery, London in July 2016.

Falmouth Fine Art London 2016

Michael’s work has also been featured recently as part of a 2016 graduate piece for the ‘It’s Nice That‘ platform, which also featured him six months before he completed his studies at Falmouth (Here).  Michael discusses his Somerset countryside childhood and the influences this has had on his urban style of painting, the highlights of studying the BA(Hons) in Fine Art at Falmouth University and his future plans.

http://michael-cox.co.uk/

 

MA Illustration graduate receives glowing review from InterAnima

Lucy Rose Kerr, who graduated from MA Illustration: Authorial Practice at Falmouth in 2014 has received a glowing review from Becalelis Brodskis, Creative Director at InterAnima.  Lucy was taken on at InterAnima under their placement scheme and has been named as an “outstanding employee”.

InterAnima are a community interest company ‘who use interdisciplinary arts to animate the stories that need to be told.  Celebrating individual expression and breathing life into community led positive solutions.  All profits support their social objectives: to use interdisciplinary arts to facilitate community development.’

Lucy was tasked with turning an extraordinary manuscript by artist Nicky Loutit – New years day is Black  into a format ready to approach to publishers.  Lucy worked with ‘sensitivity, creativity and diligence’ when taking on the manuscript and it certainly paid off as InterAnima were overjoyed to confirm last week that New years day is Black will be published this coming Autumn!

The book has also been given a glowing review from Eimear Mcbridge, Author of “A girl is a Half-Formed Thing”

Right from the start I found it completely gripping. Beautiful and horrifying… The human story had me at its beck and call the whole way through – utterly extraordinary. The evocation of that very particular loneliness irrelevant children feel was almost unbearable: Congratulations to Nicky Loutit for making work out of the terrible. Eimear McBride

Published by Propolis, New years day is Black is available to buy now, direct from their online book store – https://propolisbooks.co.uk/products/new-years-day-is-black-by-nicky-loutit 

 

Falmouth School of art Guest Speakers announced for autumn 2016

We’re excited to announce the line-up of Guest Speakers for our autumn programme, commencing Wednesday, 28 September. All events are free, but booking is required, as spaces are limited. To register for any of these events, use our Eventbrite page: https://falmouthschoolofart.eventbrite.co.uk

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We start with Alan Kane, on Wednesday 28 September at 5pm, whose installations and photographs often question the distinction between high art and everyday creativity, often bringing commonplace objects into artistic contexts. His most celebrated work is Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art from the UK (2000-5), co-curated with Jeremy Deller. The archive brought together drawing, film, performance, costume, decoration, political opinion, humour and objects in a celebration of the diversity and richness of Britain’s folk art. Life Class: Today’s Nude (2009) involved broadcasting a life drawing class nationwide on Channel 4, sharing with daytime TV audiences the esoteric world of the artist’s studio.

On 12 October we’re joined by James Binning, of the Turner Prize-winning collective Assemble. Assemble are based in London and began working together in 2010. Encompassing the fields of art, architecture and design, Assemble’s practice seeks to address disconnection between the public and the process by which places are made. Their working practice is interdependent and collaborative, actively involving the public as participants and collaborators. Assemble’s 2015 Turner Prize winning project in Liverpool involved the refurbishment of a group of houses in Toxteth, Liverpool, worn down by neglect. Some residents had began the process of regeneration – planting gardens and painting murals – and the community land trust that now runs the neighbourhood brought Assemble on board. Binning completed his Foundation in Art and Design at Falmouth in 2006.

In association with CAST and The Cornwall Workshop, Ruth Ewan is our guest on 19 November. Ruth’s work includes events, installation, writing and printed matter. Her practice explores overlooked histories of radical, political and utopian thought, bringing to light specific ideas in order to question how we might live today. Always engaging with others, her projects involve a process of focused research and close collaboration –  recent projects have led her to develop context specific projects within schools, prisons, hospitals, libraries, universities, Parliament and London Underground.

On 2 November, we welcome Tania Kovats. Kovats’ sculptures, large-scale installations and temporal works explore our experience and understanding of landscape. Best known for her large-scale works in the public realm, Kovats produced Tree (2009), a wafer thin longitudinal section of the entire structure of a 200-hundred-year old oak, permanently inserted into the ceiling of the Natural History Museum. For Rivers (2012), she collected water from one hundred rivers around the British Isles. Oceans (2014), explored her preoccupation with the sea. Kovats’ interest in drawing is reflected in works including British Isles and All the Islands of All the Oceans. She is also author of The Drawing Book – a Survey of drawing: the primary means of expression (2007), and Course Director for MA Drawing at Wimbledon College of Art, London.

Finally this term, Falmouth alumnus Hew Locke returns, this time as our Visiting Professor of Fine Art, an appointment that we are delighted he has accepted for the next three years. Locke’s investigation of the display of power includes areas such as royal and swagger portraiture, coats-of-arms, public statuary, trophies, financial documents, weaponry and costume. He states: ‘This …(work is) essentially about power – who had it, who has it and who desires it’.

 

 

Falmouth Alumni exhibit in London

Falmouth University Alumni, who are all part of the Krowji community in Redruth have come together for an exhibition titled ‘Krowji’ in the Beside The Wave gallery in Primrose Hill, London between 09 – 29 September 2016.

The eight painters, all Falmouth alumni are:  Imogen Bone who studied BA(Hons) Illustration and MA Art & Environment; Kerry Harding who studied MA Fine Art; Alasdair Lindsay, Amy Albright, Lizzy Bridges and Elisa McLeod who all studied BA(Hons) Fine Art and Siobhan Purdy and Joanne Reed who studied the Foundation here.

Krowji (Cornish for workshop or shed) is an up-cycled grammar school in Cornwall’s former industrial heartland and provides an invaluable workspace for hundreds of creative businesses since 2005.  Krowji is Cornwall’s largest creative hub and provides studios, workspaces, offices, cafe, meeting rooms and more.  The community at Krowji includes painters, jewellers, furniture makers, ceramicists, textile artists, web designers, theatre companies and musicians.

Beside The Wave was established in 1989 in Cornwall, and is one of the best known and well established contemporary art galleries in the County.  The London gallery is Beside The Wave’s second space, which opened in 2015.

For further details about the show and to view/purchase works online that have been selected as part of the exhibition see the Beside The Wave website.

Fine Art Alumna talks about life after Falmouth and her upcoming solo exhibition

Colouring Out by Millie Laing-Tate

After finishing my BA(Hons) Fine Art degree in Falmouth last summer, I have spent much of the last year travelling around Italy and Peru. The impact these adventures have had on me has proved invaluable, directly inspiring 2 site-specific installations and continuing to affect my ongoing practice.

‘Loop’ Wool and wood

I have been lucky enough to spend the last 4 months in my own studio for the first time and it is the results of this challenging and fun experience which make up ‘colouring out’, my first ever solo exhibition.

‘5:2 (the blue one)’ Fabric painted wood with stones

It is the exciting possibility of change which underpins all of my work, connecting it to the unstable nature of the world around us and challenging us to question what we see. Not confining myself to a particular medium or category allows for a level of unpredictability and surprise, two things I feel are very important both when making and viewing art.

untitled felt-tip and fabric on wood

By crossing boundaries between painting, sculpture and installation I have been trying to find ways of incorporating both my innate love of form and aesthetics with my intrigue in conceptual art. I have been making work which can be touched and moved by the viewer as well as some pieces with a more specific social commentary in response to the current political climate in Britain. Guided by my intuition, surroundings and ongoing interest in abstraction, I’ve been exploring the potential of using all materials in the creation of art.

‘Democratic (in)stability’ Ink, bubblewrap and wood

Millie’s next show opens next Saturday 24 September until Friday 30 September, open daily from 10am until 5pm.  The show takes place at Redearth Gallery, Tiverton, Devon.  Redearth Gallery is situated in a beautiful tranquil waterside location at Bickleigh, right next to the famous Bickleigh Mill, EX16 8RG. The studios are easy to get to with good parking.

‘Different aspirations, Shared destination (21st Century British Politics)’ Acrylic on toilet roll

‘7:3:1 (the green one)’ Fabric on painted wood with buttons and stone

Fine Art Alumna installs piece at Lyme Regis Arts Festival

Camilla Laing-Tate, who completed her BA(Hons) Fine Art degree at Falmouth in 2015 is continuing to exhibit her work throughout the Country.  Camilla’s latest piece has been installed as part of the Lyme Regis Arts Festival 2016.  ‘Wrapt’ is located at Leper’s Well on the Riverside Walk near the Town Mill and will be there until the end of September 2016.
Camilla has kindly provided us with some words and images about her latest beautiful installation piece.

“Directly influenced by this site and its origins, the materials reflect the nature and ‘fabric’ of the building that stood here hundreds of years ago. Once a 14^th century medieval hospital, all that now remains is the well which was used solely to supply water to the patients, many of whom suffered from leprosy.”

“Growing and breathing, the trees act as the pillars around which everything is wrapped and suspended, highlighting the important role they play in our everyday lives.”

“Stitched bedsheets and blue lias stone reference both interior and exterior features of the hospital. Placed in a new context, they morph into one another to form a reinvented structure which crosses the border between the well and the river, forming a link between the two separate water courses.”

“Connected by primary colours and string and left open to the unpredictable elements, the materials highlight the fragility of our shelters and question our attempts to make them secure.  Unattached and moveable elements heighten this sense of instability and allow for the possibility of change and reconstruction, whereby the old can be transformed into the new.”

 

Theo Crutchley-Mack at Gallery Tresco

(c) Theo Crutchley-Mack | Towards Teän, 72x50cm, Acrylic, Ink, Spray, Graphite on paper, 2015

BA(Hons) Drawing alumnus Theo Crutchley-Mack will this month exhibit 10 new works from his residency on Tresco Island.

Last summer, Theo was awarded the Tresco Prize for Drawing, an award created by Lucy Dorrien-Smith, owner of Tresco after she was inspired by Theo’s work during the Drawing course’s study visit to the island.

Of his new work, Theo says, ‘the residency was a rare opportunity to spend 100% of my time focusing on drawing and painting, which resulted in a very productive month. Tresco is somewhere that I can see myself returning to many times in the future. The seamless tropical landscape pushed my work to a new area, which is evident in this series”.

Theo’s work can be seen 16-23 July, at Gallery Tresco, and more of his work can always be seen on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theocrutchleymack

(c) Theo Crutchley-Mack, Apple Tree, 76x55cm, Acrylic, Ink, Spray, Graphite on paper, 2015

(c) Theo Crutchley-Mack, Eastern Isle, 77x56cm, Acrylic, Collage, Ink, Spray on paper, 2015

(c) Theo Crutchley-Mack, Enys Samson, 79x56cm, Acrylic, Collage, Ink, Spray on paper, 2016

(c) Theo Crutchley-Mack, New Grimsby at Dawn, 75x52cm, Acrylic, Collage, Ink, Spray on paper, 2015

(c) Theo Crutchley-Mack, The Blockhouse, 59x39cm, Acrylic, Collage, Ink and Spray on paper, 2016

(c) Theo Crutchley-Mack, The Road Makers, 42x42cm, Acrylic, Ink, Spray on paper, 2015

(c) Theo Crutchley-Mack, The Scillonian, 67x52cm, Acrylic, Charcoal and Ink on paper, 2015

(c) Theo Crutchley-Mack, Through Trees, 52×46, Acrylic, Ink, Graphite on paper, 2015

(c) Theo Crutchley-Mack, Towards Round Island, 68x47cm, Acrylic, Collage, and Spray on paper, 2016

 

 

Falmouth Fine Art London – artists announced

We’re delighted to share the names of the final year BA(Hons) Fine Art students selected to exhibit at Falmouth Fine Art London, this year taking place at Underdog Art Gallery from 1-3 July.

Max Aspin Radford | Jamie Battersby | Ed Burkes | Ella Caie | Ed Carter | Finbar Conran | Michael Cox | Rob Davis | Joe Fenwick-Wilson | Kerry Foster | Freya Goodwin | Amy Jefferies | Zoë Pearce | Calum Rees-Gildea | Jess Russell | George Stone | Amelia Tinton | Tabitha Tohill Reid | Matthew Vaughan | Sandi Williams | Mara Zaice

Falmouth Fine Art London promises to be a diverse celebration of Fine Art at Falmouth, and will be curated by artist and Falmouth Associate Lecturer Jesse Leroy Smith. Exhibitors were selected from the recent degree shows by critic and curator Sacha Craddock. The event, now in its fourth year, gives those artists selected an additional professional practice experience as they complete their studies at Falmouth, and gives contacts based in London and the surrounding the opportunity to view our students’ work outside of Falmouth.

A private view of the exhibition will take place 7-9:30 on 30 June, with an alumni happy hour from 6-7pm the same night. Exhibitors will also benefit from an in situ crit with artist Graham Gussin.