MA Illustration: Authorial Practice – Exhibition Next Week!

We are excited to announce an exhibition taking place next week as part of the Cornwall Contemporary Poetry Festival.  Seeing Voices is an exhibition of illustration and poetry, celebrating recent work by students, alumni and staff of Falmouth University’s MA Illustration: Authorial Practice course.

The exhibition will open Tuesday 20 November – Saturday 24 November in the Upper Gallery of The Poly, Falmouth

All welcome to the private view which is taking place between 5.30pm – 7.30pm on Thursday 22 November, followed by Poetry Slam from 8.00pm.

Fine Art Senior Lecturer Neil Chapman – recent practice.

Dr Neil Chapman, Senior Lecturer in BA(Hons) Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art, was recently among contributors to a Speculative Art School event.

The Speculative Art School is a public programme of free talks, walks, discussions, workshops, study sessions and sonic explorations that explore provisional territories in past, present, and future thinking. It was curated by Sarah Bowden who runs the Hardwick Gallery in Cheltenham.

Neil contributed a written piece specifically for The Speculative Space; the event provided a public opportunity to browse a  compilation of speculations and proposals submitted by some of The Hardwick Gallery’s favourite thinkers in a form of independent group study.

Dr Neil Chapman is an artist, writer and researcher. His current work explores material textual practices, artists publishing, art/philosophy interdisciplinarity, questions concerning visuality, collaborative method, the evolution and politics of art-research.

 

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.

StreetDraw24 Exhibition | Not One Place

NOT ONE PLACE | REPORTAGE DRAWING EXHIBITION

Students of Falmouth’s BA(Hons) Illustration have designed and organised an exhibition at The Poly, Falmouth, to share work created by students and staff during their 24-hour drawing event on the streets of Falmouth in August, #streetdraw24, an event which aimed to raise awareness of street homelessness.

The Poly have generously provided their upstairs gallery free of charge for the two week exhibition, in support of the #streetdraw24 team’s aim of raising funds for St. Petroc’s Society, which undertakes valuable work with the street homeless.

Alongside the drawings created, the exhibition will feature an eerie soundscape created by second year BA(Hons) Film student Aaron Mason. Also featured are quotes from those who know what it’s like to live on the street. The exhibition reminds us that many different lives are lived in one town and that the street becomes another place when you have no home to go to.

The exhibition will be fascinating for anyone interested in day-to-day life in Falmouth, in the arts or in the social challenges facing this county. It also raises the question – what can art and artists do to help make the world a better place?

During the exhibition there will be opportunities to learn about the work of  St Petroc’s Society, a Truro-based organisation providing accommodation, support, advice, training and resettlement services to single homeless people in Cornwall. Funds will be raised for St Petroc’s through Donate& Draw – donate what you can afford and enter a draw to win a signed drawing by one of the #StreetDraw24 artists.

Student Helen Trevaskis was among the organisers of StreetDraw24. So far, over £700 has been raised through donations. Helen shared the learning from the 24-hour drawing event in a blog post back in August, and you can hear her talking to SourceFM the day after the event (Helen is introduced at 12:50)

Not One Place opens at the Poly Tuesday 2nd October, with a Private View open to all from 5:15-7:15. 

The exhibition runs until Saturday 13 October, Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5pm.

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

MA Illustration – Private View, Show and Performance Event

We are delighted to announce NEXUS, the MA Illustration: Authorial Practice end of year show at Falmouth Campus, and accompanying event and performance at The Fish Factory Art Space, Penryn…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Private View and End of year show – All welcome to the Private View of the end of year show: 6-9pm on Tuesday 4 September, Tannachie Garden Studios, Falmouth Campus, Woodlane, Falmouth, TR11 4RH. The show then runs from Wednesday 5 to Sunday 9 September, 10am–5pm.

For more information, view the fantastic show website, featuring images and text from all the contributing artists. Also see the show Facebook page, and Instagram feed.

Performance Event – There will also be a special performance event on Thursday 6 September, 7-11pm at the Fish Factory Art Space, Commercial Road, Penryn, TR10 8AG. From the weird to the lyrical, the playful to the polemical; this year’s graduating MA Illustration students hold a night of performance, storytelling and song to accompany their end of year show; NEXUS. The evening also launches an exhibition of the artists’ manifestos, on show throughout the following week. – click here for the Fish Factory’s Facebook event.

 

 

Recent Practice: Drawing Lecturer Dr Joe Graham

Joe Graham Lecturer on BA(Hons) Drawing was among the contributors to ACTS RE-ACTS,  an annual laboratory of performance, new media, workshops, lectures, discussions, events and installations.

This year Acts Re-Acts, at Wimbledon College of Art, took the form of an intensive two-day laboratory of selected performances, exploring the borderzone between Theatre and Fine Art.

Other contributors included: Eleanor Bowen & Jane Bailey, Henry Bradley, Greig Burgoyne, Angela Hodgson-Teall & Miles Coote, Richard Layzell & Bruce Barber, Jozefina Komporaly & ZU-UK & guests, Robert Luzar, Melanie Menard, Lucy O’Donnell, Ken Wilder & Aaron McPeake, Alex Reuben, Lois Rowe & The Haptic Collective, Aminder Virdee.

 

Falmouth School of Art lecturer Joe Graham is ‘in conversation’ with artist Lucy O’Donnell, March 2018.

Falmouth School of Art student exhibition at Porthmeor Studios, St Ives

Following a month long residency at the historic Porthmeor Studios in St Ives, six second year BA(Hons) Fine Art students are opening their studio space to the public for an exhibition of their resulting work.

Olivia Brelsford-Massey, Holly Doran, Sofia Fernandes, Samuel Morris, Sophia Rosenthal and Edward Spencer were selected for the opportunity of a month long artist residency at Portmeor Studios. With the cost of studio hire and a materials bursary funded by Falmouth School of Art, the residency will provide these students with an invaluable experience of working within a professional studio culture.

As well as being home to acclaimed contemporary artists, Porthmeor Studios has a long history of prestigious inhabitants. The studio provided for this student residency – Studio 5 – has perhaps the most compelling heritage of any artists’ studio; it appears to have been constructed around 1895 for Olsson’s School of Marine Painting, but is best known as the studio used for 50 years by two of the most influential painters of their generation – Ben Nicholson, followed by Patrick Heron.

The residency is delivered by Falmouth School of Art in partnership with Borlase Smart John Wells Trust, as part of a series of residencies and professional practice opportunities offered to students studying BA(Hons) Fine Art at Falmouth University.

The exhibition will feature an Opening Evening on Saturday 28 July between 5-9pm, and continue with two further days on Sunday 29 and Monday 30 July between 10am – 5pm.

Fine Art students’ residency at CAST, Helston

BA(Hons) Fine Art students Ella Schlesinger and Nicholas Sanderson recently secured one of Falmouth School of Art’s studio residencies, at CAST, Helston, where they have been working together for the past month. The result is England your England, an installation comprising sculpture and video, to be shown to the public at an open studio event to mark the end of their residency.

Ella says, “The piece presents a search for a more democratic and honest space to create a conversation about Britain. We see a massive emphasis put on verbal and written language: in other words, the tyranny of the spoken and written word. With the cultural weight of the English language and its global historical context, it leaves us with a predefined and therefore limited platform to connect with and express our individual selves. We want to challenge this vacant gap these words leave and how, using the language of materials we can reown the identity to our country. Humans, as multi-sensory organisms, are constantly reacting against spaces and places, objects and feelings, so why do we settle on such a single faceted form of communication? And how can we create a more immersive and inclusive form of communication through art?

 

 

 

Congratulations Class of 2018!!

Wow! What a fantastic degree show. After all the hard work and energy that went into the conversion of studios into exhibitions over the last month – not to mention the brilliant achievement of having created the work itself – we hope our final year students are recovering from the celebrations marking the culmination of their three years of degree study.

To mark the end of the year, Falmouth School of Art hosts an awards ceremony; a chance for third year students to come together with their peers and tutors to reflect and to celebrate one another, before joining wider friends and family for the official opening of their degree shows. The Awards recognise Outstanding Achievement, Studentship and Dissertation in all our subjects; announcement is also made of the recipients of a raft of residencies arranged by Falmouth School of Art with external partners, to provide graduating students with further opportunities to test their work in public contexts and to network with other artists.

Thank you to all our students and tutors for making this such a celebratory occasion, and we hope you all enjoyed your evening and one another’s exhibitions as much as we did.

Here we share with you some scenes from our end of year awards and the degree shows opening – thank you for your support this year.

(Class of 2018 – please get in touch if you want a high-res version of your photo).

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Coming Soon…Falmouth School of Art Degree Shows

The studios are cleared, third years have moved in with paint, tools and the labours of their final year and are already transforming the spaces into what promises to be a diverse and vibrant degree show from Falmouth School of Art this year.

Students of BA(Hons) Drawing, BA(Hons) Fine Art and BA(Hons) Illustration will open their shows to the public on Friday 25 May, including a launch that evening, 6-9pm, all welcome. As well as final degree work from our third years, separate exhibitions will showcase work from our first and second year BA(Hons) Illustration and BA(Hons) Drawing students.

The shows will be open as follows:

• Friday 25 May, 10-4pm
• Friday 25 May 6-9pm exhibition launch, all welcome
• Saturday 26 May 10-4pm
• Sunday 27 May 10-4pm
• Monday 28 May (bank holiday) 10-4pm
• Tuesday 29 May 10-4pm
• Wednesday 30 May 10-4pm

Get the dates in your diaries and we’ll see you in three weeks!

For details of all Falmouth University summer shows, see the website.

Student exhibition opening at The Fish Factory – Tristiam and Iseult

 

A group of BA(Hons) Fine Art students have put together an exhibition at the newly re-located Fish Factory Art Space in Commercial Road, Penryn.

 

‘A group exhibition of our most recent works.

Titled ‘Tristiam and Iseult’, inspired by the Cornish myth, this exhibition presents a group of artists who moved to Cornwall, fell in love and never left.

The hypnotic and dreamlike environment that is Falmouth, we present to you a snippet of our creative processes and a look at our last 3 years here.

From painting to illustration to sculpture, expect a range of different works and see how we inspire each other.’

Falmouth School of Art Drawing Forum 2018

The Falmouth School of Art Drawing Forum 2018 posed the question ‘What Does Drawing Do?’

It has been a long established assumption that drawing underpins most disciplines within the creative sector, but what drawing does, and how it functions for different practitioners, is probably an ever-changing and essential component.

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By asking a series of speakers to talk about what drawing does for them, this forum hoped to develop a better understanding of the possibilities and functions of drawing. As well as Falmouth-based researchers, the event welcomed guest speakers of national and international standing, including:

Storyboard Artist Jay Clarke worked on the Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit & the Curse of the WereRabbit and other projects with Aardman and was lead storyboard artist for The Grand Budapest Hotel, which won Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Production Design. He is currently storyboarding Universal’s The Voyage of Dr Dolittle and creating an illustrated children’s novel.

Multi-disciplinary artist Solveig Settemsdal lives and works in London and Bristol; she won the Jerwood Drawing Prize for her video work Singularity in 2016.

Ed Eva and George Baldwin formed the drawing research partnership eegb after graduating from Falmouth’s BA(Hons) Drawing in 2014. eegb’s practice lies at the intersection of drawing and technology; they build machines that draw, have been awarded a number of residencies and grants and have exhibited in the UK, Ireland, Germany and the USA.

This video shares sections of the eight short talks on how drawing is used in contemporary creative practice:

 

 

 

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.

First look at this autumn’s Guest Speaker programme…

This autumn we welcome five outstanding Guest Speakers to deliver lectures to students of Falmouth School of Art. Speakers include return visits from our two Visiting Professors, and an exciting event in association with the Groundwork project. Places are available at each for members of the public, our arts partners across the region and our alumni.

Places limited, registration required. Click here for more details and links to registration.

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/

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

 

 

 

Visiting Professor Graham Rawle to give inaugural lecture at Falmouth

(c) Graham Rawle, from The Wizard of Oz

Author, artist and designer Graham Rawle will give his inaugural lecture as Falmouth School of Art’s Visiting Professor of Illustration on 22 March 2017.

Internationally admired, Rawle is one of the UK’s most interesting and original visual communicators, known by many for his long running ‘Lost Consonants’ strip, which appeared in the Guardian from 1990. A writer and collage artist whose visual work incorporates illustration, design, photography and installation, Rawle has a strong following for his eagerly-awaited published books, which include The Card (shortlisted for the 2013 Writer’s Guild Award), Graham Rawle’s Wonder Book of Fun 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 Book of the Year and Best Illustrated Trade Book at the 2009 British Book Design and Production Awards. Alongside these works, Rawle has produced regular series for The Observer, The Sunday Telegraph Magazine and The Times.

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Graham Rawle. Photo credit: Jenny Lewis

Rawle’s flair and passion for education has 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 in 2016, Rawle said, “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”.

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.

Graham Rawle’s lecture at our Falmouth Campus is free, but registration is required, as seats are limited: Click here to register through our Eventbrite page.

Find out more about our BA(Hons) Illustration and MA Illustration: Authorial Practice.

 

Fine Art Course Coordinator performs sell out live performance for Glasgow Film Festival

Gillian Wylde, Course Coordinator on BA(Hons) Fine Art presented a sell out live performance and lecture as part of the 13th annual Glasgow Film Festival.

The Festival featured a programme packed full of premieres, previews, unique pop-up cinema events, themed screenings, discussions, Q&As and live performance.

Taking place at the CCA: ‘Centre for Contemporary Arts venue’, Glasgow’s hub for the arts, Gillian presented ‘Will Internets Eat Brain?’ a live performance of fragments, texts, images and ideas trending in some of her recent work, followed by a discussion.

Gillian works mainly with video, performance, object and text. Central to her work is a critical engagement with new technologies, the mediated and the installed and simple interconnections of agency. Her works tend to get made in response to contexts of location and place, encounter and dialogue(s), ad-hocism, foraging and chance. Works comment on some of the social and political implications of new technology and practices, often challenging traditional ideas of the art object and means of production or productivity. ‘Material things or stuff’ in relation to the video camera, processes of appropriation and post-production are constants through most of the work – perhaps a savage smell or hairy logic.

Gillian’s work has been shown nationally and internationally including Transmodern Live Art Action Festival, Baltimore; Videotage, Hong Kong; Alytus Biennial, Lithuania; Tao Scene, Norway; Lounge Gallery, London.

Second year BA(Hons) Fine Art exhibitions at The Poly, Falmouth

Second year BA(Hons) Fine Art students at Falmouth welcome fellow students, staff and all of Falmouth’s art lovers to The Poly, Falmouth this week and next for a two-part show.

The Poly, Church Street, Falmouth 

Show 1 of 2 – 7 – 10 March – https://www.facebook.com/events/30510636322587

Tuesday 7 March – Private View 4.30-7pm | Wednesday and Thursday 10am – 7pm | Friday 10am – 1pm

Show 2 of 2 – 14 – 17 March – https://www.facebook.com/events/1730759080569116/

Tuesday 14 March – Private View 4.30-7pm | Wednesday and Thursday 10am – 7pm | Friday 10am – 1pm

https://www.facebook.com/FFA2YS2017

 

The Big Draw at Falmouth – ‘Boatanicals’

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As part of The Big Draw, Falmouth Foundation students and staff have launched a series of workshops on the theme ‘Boatanicals’, producing some spectacular results so far.

The launch workshop took place at Falmouth’s Princess Pavilion, part of their ‘Make and Take’ series. Shapes were constructed drawing together flowers and nautical themes, from a range of colourful recycled goods.

Jane Chetwynd, Course Coordinator for the Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, said ‘We are so pleased with the results from the first workshop and delighted by the enthusiasm we have seen from people wishing to participate. It’s going to be quite a ‘Boatanical’ installation!’.

The project has involved Penryn College, Constantine Primary School, Marlborough School, Falmouth Primary School and Princess Pavilion. 104 Foundation students have been involved in the making so far, with around 15 of them helping with the workshops. A number of Falmouth’s postgraduate students are also involved.

The Foundation studios at Wellington Terrace, Falmouth, are open to anyone wishing to drop in and join in the making (free of charge) on Monday 6 March, 2-5pm, Tuesday 7 March 10am-1pm, Wednesday 8 March 2-5pm and Thursday 9 March 10am-1pm. A further ‘Make and Take’ session for the project will run at Princess Pavilion on Monday 6 March, 10am-12pm.

The resulting ‘Boatanicals’ will be ‘planted out’ at the Princess Pavilion on 16 March in time for the annual Falmouth Spring Flower Show, to be held at the venue 18-19 March.

A Facebook page has been set up for ‘Boatanicals’ which will include updates and more information about the project: https://www.facebook.com/The-Big-Draw-Falmouth-1871001206500975/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

A welcome return to Falmouth for author and illustrator Posy Simmonds

Posy Simmonds, pictured at the launch of the Big Draw Weekend on October 22, 2010 in London (AFP Photo PETER MACDIARMID)

Posy Simmonds joins us at Falmouth School of Art on 1 March in the next of our Guest Speaker events. It’s a welcome return for Simmonds, an Honorary Fellow of Falmouth University, and the author and illustrator of books for adults and children, including Literary Life, Tamara Drewe, Lulu and the Flying Babies and Fred, the film of which was nominated for an Oscar.

Tamara Drewe, (c) Posy Simmonds

Simmonds made her name with a series of weekly cartoon strips for the Guardian from 1977; her acclaimed graphic novels Gemma Bovery, and Tamara Drewe were both serialised in the paper before their publication as books, and both have since been adapted into successful feature films.

 

Simmonds’ style for adults gently satirises the English middle classes. Her books often feature a ‘doomed heroine’, much in the style of the 18th- and 19th-century gothic romantic novel, to which they often allude, but with an ironic, modernist slant.

Simmonds’ carreer as a children’s author began in 1987 with Fred, the tale of the death of a domestic tomcat who, to his owners, appeared to have done little more than eat and sleep all day, but who had in fact by night been pop superstar ‘Famous Fred’, adored by thousands of fans

Further reading / listening…

Listen to Posy Simmonds interviewed by Gil Roth in 2015

Posy Simmonds on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, from 2008

Read Tripwire interview with Posy Simmonds from 2008

Read an extensive Posy Simmonds profile from 2012

Posy Simmonds will be talking at Falmouth University on 1 March 2017, Lecture Theatre 1, Falmouth Campus, 5pm-6pm 

Click here to register (free, but required) through our Eventbrite page.

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.

Painter Chantal Joffe to talk at Falmouth

Chantal Joffe, Self-Portrait with Esme, 2009; Oil on linen; 213.5×152.5cm; Courtesy the Artist & Victoria Miro, London
© Chantal Joffe

Falmouth School of Art will welcome artist Chantal Joffe on 15 February, for an ‘In Conversation With’, with the School’s Director, Dr. Ginny Button.

Chantal Joffe’s figurative paintings – both large and small scale – usually depict women or girls, from catwalk models, porn actresses and literary heroines to mothers, children and loved ones. A 2016 Telegraph interview quoted her as saying, ‘I don’t find men very interesting to look at’. Her paintings question expectations of what a feminist art might be, often pointing to how appearances are constructed – whether in a fashion magazine or the family album – and to the choreography of display. Sometimes shown in groups but recently in iconic portraits, her images of women draw loosely on a range of sources such as photographs, magazines and even reflections in the mirror, using distortion to make her subjects seem more real.

Mindful of the seductive power of paint to engage and hold our attention, her fluid, seemingly casual brushstrokes work in tandem with the image to achieve a psychological and emotional force, prompting reflection on ever-changing human relations and the endless complexity of looking.

Joffe has been represented by Victoria Miro since soon after her inclusion in the 1996 New Contemporaries exhibition at London’s Tate Gallery. She was born in Vermont in 1969, and lives and works in London. She studied Painting at Glasgow School of Art (1988–91) and gained an MA from the Royal College of Art in 1994. Joffe has exhibited widely nationally and internationally from London, Margate, Middlesborough and Glasgow to Venice, Oslo, Paris and New York with recent shows at the National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavík in 2016, and at the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Jewish Museum, New York and the Jerwood Gallery, Hastings in 2015. She was awarded the Royal Academy’s prestigious Woollaston Prize in 2006, elected to the Royal Academy in 2013.

Click here to register for this event, which takes place 5pm Wednesday 15 February 2017.

Read more:

Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, and Anne Sexton Inspire Chantal Joffe’s New Confessional Paintings – Artsy interview, January 2016.

‘I don’t find men very interesting to look at’ – Telegraph interview, January 2016

Chantal Joffe: Me and My Mentors – RA feature, Spring 2015

I Paint to Think – Independent interview, 2014

Crafting the Cathedral – BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts Exhibition

 

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‘Crafting the Cathedral’ brings together for exhibition contemporary craft artefacts, created and designed as a personal response to Truro Cathedral by invited third year students from Falmouth’s BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts course.

The responses to Truro Cathedral – its stunning architecture, history and purpose as a place of worship – has led to an engaging mix of small and large-scale art works.

BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts has long worked closely with a range of external partners, exploring new ways of engaging audiences with objects and places.

‘It’s been a really important, demanding, yet rewarding challenge to create interpretive objects that live up to the building, the people and items that live there’, says Jason Cleverly, Senior Lecturer on the course. ‘Many of the Cathedral’s artefacts carry great metaphorical power and some fascinating and unusual stories – we hope you will enjoy the students’ responses to the building’.

Truro Cathedral is keen to provide opportunities for students to creatively explore the building, its artefacts and how it is connected to the wider community.

Kirsten Gordon, Education & Schools Officer, commented, ‘We have found the students’ approach to their brief to be interesting and incredibly varied, demonstrating technical skill and creativity. It is a valuable experience for us to see with fresh eyes the many different facets of cathedral life which speak on so many more levels than we perhaps see at first glance’.

Lizzie Arthur, Truro Cathedral’s Education and Interpretation Officer and graduate of the Contemporary Crafts course added, ‘We hope that our visitors enjoy the students’ personal responses to Truro Cathedral. Such exhibitions challenge the audience to look more closely at the familiar, inspiring both the cathedral community and our visitors’.

Crafting The Cathedral is on at Truro Cathedral, 2-16 February (Monday-Saturday 10-15, Sunday 12-4) Entry is free.

Falmouth School of Art Guest Speakers announced for spring 2017

The Falmouth School of Art Guest Speaker Programme resumes in February with a series of events featuring acclaimed artists and illustrators…

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Artist Joey Holder starts the season with a talk on 8 February. Working with scientific and technical experts, Holder makes immersive, multi-media installations that explore the limits of the human and how we experience non-human, natural and technological forms. Mixing elements of biology, nanotechnology and natural history against computer programme interfaces, screen savers and measuring devices, she suggests the impermanence and inter-changeability of these apparently contrasting and oppositional worlds: ‘everything is a mutant and a hybrid’. For a recent exhibition – against the backdrop of the emergent field of computational biology and the Google Genomics project – Holder invented ‘Ophiux’, a speculative pharmaceutical company, imagining its use of genetic sequencing equipment and biological machines to collect data from humans and to sample data from other organisms. She explains: ‘It seems as if everything has become a branch of computer science, even our own bodies probed, imaged, modelled and mapped: re-drawn as digital information’.

On 15 February artist Chantal Joffe will be in conversation with Falmouth School of Art’s Director Dr. Ginny Button. Joffe’s figurative paintings usually depict women or girls, from catwalk models, porn actresses and literary heroines to mothers, children and loved ones. Her paintings question expectations of what a feminist art might be, often pointing to how appearances are constructed – whether in a fashion magazine or the family album – and to the choreography of display. Sometimes shown in groups but recently in iconic portraits, her images of women draw loosely on a range of sources such as photographs, magazines and even reflections in the mirror, using distortion to make her subjects seem more real. Her paintings achieve a psychological and emotional force, prompting reflection on ever-changing human relations and the endless complexity of looking.

1 March sees a return to Falmouth of Illustrator, author and Falmouth Honorary Fellow Posy Simmonds. Simmonds’ work includes many books for adults and children, including Literary Life, Lulu and the Flying Babies and Fred, the film of which was nominated for an Oscar. Working across a range of formats and contexts, Simmonds is probably best-known for her series of weekly cartoon strips commissioned by the Guardian since 1977. Gemma Bovery, her reworking of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary into a satirical tale of English expatriates in France appeared first in the Guardian before publication as a graphic novel in 1999. Acclaimed by the critics for its wit and wickedly sharp observation, it was made into a feature film in 2014. Her prize-winning graphic novel Tamara Drewe also became a very successful film, directed by Stephen Frears.

Falmouth School of Art’s new Visiting Professor of Illustration delivers his inaugural lecture on 22 March. Graham Rawle is an internationally admired 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.’ He is perhaps best known to some for his long running ‘Lost Consonants’ strip, which first appeared in the Guardian in 1990.

We finish the 2016-17 Guest Speaker Programme with a TateTalk at Falmouth by Fine Art alumna (2001) Jessica Warboys. Warboys works across painting, performance, film and sculpture. Her talk is in association with Tate St. Ives, which in March will present a major solo show of Warboys’ work. The show will feature films, sculptures, large scale paintings, and Sea Paintings commissioned for the show and created along the Cornish coast. 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.  Her work is informed by personal or collective memories – hystorical, mythical or fictional. Warboys currently lives and works in Suffolk and Berlin and has enjoyed wide international exhibition success, including solo exhibitions. Her work was recently included in British Art Show 8.

Registration is required for these events, and is open now: http://falmouthschoolofart.eventbrite.co.uk

See all Falmouth University events on our website: www.falmouth.ac.uk/events

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.

Snapshot of Midas Exhibition Private View

 

The Midas Exhibition Private View was held last Friday, 11 November 2016.  The exhibition features work by 10 artists, selected from their BA(Hons) Fine Art degree shows at Falmouth School of Art.  More information on the exhibition can be found here.  The exhibition continues at The Exchange, Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance until 7 January 2017.

ELLA-STRATED: Tania Kovats at Falmouth

(C) Ella Kasperowicz

Tania Kovats ran through a timeline of her work and travels to an inspired audience on Wednesday 2nd November 2016, answering some tough questions at the end about her ideas process. Illustration by third year student, Ella Kasperowicz.

Midas Exhibition 2016 opens 11 November

Recent work by Linda Straehl (video still)

We’re getting ready for the 2016 Midas Exhibition at Newlyn Art Gallery, featuring work by ten artists, selected from their BA(Hons) Fine Art degree shows at Falmouth Campus this summer.

The exhibition runs from 12 November to 7 January, and includes work by Ella Caie (film), Finbar Conran (kinetic and sound installation), Tanya Cruz (sculptural video installation), Robert Davis (large kinetic sculpture and other works), Joe Fenwick-Wilson (painting and sculpture), Nicholas Griffin (painting), Zoë Pearce (painting), Bharat Rajagopal (painting), Isabel Ramos (video installation), and Calum Rees-Gildea (painting).

In the lower gallery, last year’s Midas winner, Linda Straehl, who graduated in 2015, will present a new video work.

A preview evening on 11 November (7-9pm) will include food from Cornish Fusion Fish and Food, as well as a pay bar. We are pleased to be enabling a group of current BA(Hons) Fine Art students will be attend the preview and an Artists’ Talk at 11am on 12 November, also open to the public (free with the cost of admission).

For more than ten years, Midas Construction, through the Midas Award, with Falmouth University, Newlyn Art Gallery and Anima-Mundi (formerly Millennium, St Ives), has provided recent graduates with funding for materials, mentoring and an exhibition in their first year after university.

A number of those exhibiting this year were featured by ArtCornwall talking about their work earlier this year: read more here.

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.

Artist Tania Kovats to talk at Falmouth

“I think all artists are witnesses. And sometimes you have to be a responsible witness”.

Tania Kovats joins us in Falmouth on Wednesday 2 November. Her work explores our experience and understanding of landscape. Since receiving the Barclays Young Artist Award at London’s Serpentine Gallery in 1991, Kovats has become known for her sculptures, large-scale installations, temporal works and drawings.

Evaporation, Tania Kovats, solo exhibition, installation view, Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester (2015)

Rain II, 2015, ink on blotting paper, framed, 59.7 x 54.3 cm, 23.5 x 21.4 in

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.

Perhaps 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), installed in the landscape of Jupiter Artland outside Edinburgh, Kovats collected water from one hundred rivers around the British Isles, housing the collection in a specially constructed boathouse. A major solo exhibition at The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, Oceans (2014), explored her preoccupation with the sea.

Kovats’ practice has seen her undertake residencies in the Galapagos Islands and the Astronomy Department at the University of Cambridge, travel to the Arctic as part of the Nowhereisland project and to points on the globe where seas meet, from New Zealand to northern Denmark, for her work Where Seas Meet. Tree (2009) resulted from six months exploring South America with her husband and son.

All the Sea (detail) 2014, Tania Kovats, The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh

This year, her exhibition Evaporation (2016) at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester again focused on water. The exhibition was commissioned by Cape Farewell, the organisation which provides a cultural response to the issue of climate change. Evaporation also included All The Sea, previously shown at The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; 365 bottles of water from the world’s seas, collected by Kovats in large part through an invitation to the public to help her to bring all the seas together in one place.

Tania Kovats will give a talk on her work and practice at Falmouth School of Art, 2 November 2016 at 5pm, Lecture Theatre 1, Falmouth Campus. Booking required, click here to register. 

 

 

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After completing her MA at the Royal College of Art in 1990, Tania Kovats (b.1966) won the Barclays Young Artist Award at the Serpentine Gallery in 1991. She has been the recipient of many awards such as the Henry Moore Drawing Fellowship (2004-5), Visiting Fellow at the School of Archaeology, Oxford University (2006) and the Cape Farewell Lovelock Art Commission (2015). She has been nominated for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery: 6th Edition (2015-17) and completed a residency in the Astronomy Department at the University of Cambridge. Kovats has shown extensively in the UK and abroad, with solo shows including those at Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield; Peer Arts, London, Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall and the Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections including the Arts Council, The British Council, Government Art Collection and the V&A. She is represented by the Pippy Houldsworth Gallery.

AnOther interview with Tania Kovats, December 2015

 

Artist Ruth Ewan to talk at Falmouth School of Art

In association with CAST and The Cornwall Workshop, Falmouth School of Art welcomes artist Ruth Ewan as part of our Guest Speaker Programme on Wednesday 19 October, 6pm.

Installation shot from ‘Back to the Fields’ Ruth Ewan – 2015 – Camden Arts Centre – photo by Haydar Dewachi

Ruth Ewan’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, Ewan’s 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.

Her audio project ‘The Darks’, a collaboration with Astrid Johnston for Tate Britain, invites visitors to navigate the area around Tate Britain where the infamous Millbank Prison once stood. She is exhibiting in the 32^nd Bienal de Sao Paulo Incerteza Viva and will be leading The Cornwall Workshop organised by CAST (based in Helston, Cornwall) this month.

Ruth Ewan, image courtesy a-n.co.uk

Matthew Slotover, co-founder and publisher of Frieze, and trustee of the Arts Foundation, presenting Ewan with the Art Foundation Art in Urban Space Award this year, said of her, “Through performances, sculptures and interactive works, Ruth Ewan mines social history in a playful and often humorous style. Her work is socially engaged without being didactic, often reminding us of truths we didn’t know we knew. She is one of the country’s most promising artists and a deserved winner of this award.”

A Jukebox of People Trying to Change the World. Ongoing archive started in 2003

 

Ewan has also been shortlisted for the 6th edition of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women. Exhibitions of Ruth’s work have been presented at Camden Arts Centre, London (2015); Collective Gallery,Edinburgh (with Astrid Johnston, 2013); Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, the Glasgow International and the Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe (2012);Dundee Contemporary Arts and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla (2011); the ICA, London (2008); the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland (2007) and Studio Voltaire, London (2006). She has realised projects in London for Parliament (2015), Vital Arts (2015), Create (2012), Art on the Underground (2011); Frieze Projects (2009) and Artangel (2007). Her work has also been included in survey exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw and Tate Liverpool (2013) and the New Museum, New York (2009).

 

 

ELLA-STRATED: James Binning at Falmouth

(C) Ella Kasperowicz

James Binning delivered a talk, representing architectural collective ‘ASSEMBLE’, on Wednesday 12th October 2016. Winners of the Turner Prize, their use of networking, making the most of limitations and improving communities was very inspiring. Illustration by Ella Kasperowicz (http://www.instagram.com/ellaismental)

 

Celebrating the legacy of Anna Maria Fox

BA(Hons) Drawing recently marked its move to the Tanachie Garden Studios with an event in collaboration with Scary Little Girls Productions, which brought to life Falmouth’s most famous philanthropist, Anna Maria Fox.

Scary Little Girls have been marking Anna Maria’s 200^th anniversary year with community events, and worked with the Drawing team to bring a modern-day Anna Maria to Falmouth Campus to open the new studios. Anna Maria’s ideas saw the formation of The Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society in 1833, home to Falmouth’s first art classes, now The Poly.

The celebration featured children from Mawnan Smith School, who sang, played instruments, performed a dance and told the assembled crowd about Anna Maria’s life. The children then joined BA(Hons) Drawing students and invited guests, including Charles Fox of Glendurgan Garden, for lunch and a portrait drawing class featuring the modern-day Anna Maria Fox – Scary Little Girls’ Patricia Grace-Norton – as the model.

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A Portrait of Anna Maria Fox – Celebration at Falmouth Campus

 

 

Staff, students and passers-by are invited to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Anna Maria Fox, Falmouth’s most famous philanthropist and life-long champion of the arts, culture and science in the town.

The arrival of a modern-day Anna Maria will be celebrated by music and dance from local school children from Mawnan Smith, and also marks the grand opening of Tannachie Garden Studios, the new location of BA(Hons) Drawing.

Students from Falmouth School of Art will then join invited guests and children in a drawing class.

 

ELLA-STRATED: Alan Kane at Falmouth

(C) Ella Kasperowicz

The autumn programme of Guest Speakers at Falmouth School of Art started with Alan Kane visiting on Wednesday 28th September 2016. As well as discussing his work, he discussed his ideas about everyone having a creative outlet – from gurning, to arranging stacks of speakers, to collecting objects. 

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’.

 

 

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.”

 

New commission by Gillian Wylde at Arnolfini, Bristol

The ‘Moving Targets’ summer season at Arnolfini, Bristol (29 July – 11 September 2016), celebrates the 40^th anniversary of Punk.  ‘Resist Psychic Death’ opens in Gallery 1 at the Arnolfini on Friday 12 August, an expanded exhibition inviting audiences to question and discuss the history and future of punk.

The Day The World Turned Day-Glo, Gillian Wylde, 2016

 

The exhibition includes a new commission by Falmouth School of Art Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, Gillian Wylde. The commission, ‘The Day The World Turned Day-Glo’ includes effervescently discordant video works, collaged with corrupted image and text; it takes over Arnolfini’s foyer and overflows into the Café-Bar and Bookshop.

‘The Day The World Turned Day-Glo’  is open 11am-6pm daily for the duration of the Moving Targets season, entry free, donations welcome.

The Day The World Turned Day-Glo, Gillian Wylde 2016

Gillian Wylde makes performative work for video and installation. Central to her work is a critical engagement with technologies, language and the mediated. Processes of appropriation, petty arrangement and post-production are constants through most of the work like maybe a savage smell or hairy logic. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally including; Transmodern Live Art Action Festival, Baltimore; Videotage, Hong Kong; Alytus Biennial, Lithuania; Tao Scene, Norway, Experiments in Cinema, Albuquerque and CCA Gallery, Glasgow. Recent work includes: ‘Enflamma Diagra’ a collaboration with Neil Chapman ICA, London, ‘Snakes&Funerals’ a collaboration with James S Williams and Emily Jeremiah for ‘Queer The Space’ CCC, London and ‘Inna-deno pudenda membra’ an essay published in ‘The Interior’ by Eros Press.

The Day The World Turned Day-Glo, Gillian Wylde 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.

First years present – “BAD Drawing”

 

BAD DRAWING

The first exhibition of works by Falmouth University’s current first year BA(Hons) Drawing students.

This show reveals the process and product of first year studies of BA(Hons) Drawing at Falmouth University. With the view that drawing remains an important part of contemporary art practice and wider culture as a whole, these students have adopted a broad and in-depth perspective to demonstrate unique insight into drawing practice today.

Curated entirely by the students, there will be over 30 works, displaying a wide variety of technical and cultural influences.

Falmouth Fine Art London 2016

We’re making preparations for our fourth London showcase of selected BA(Hons) Fine Art student work, which we are delighted to announce will take place at Underdog Art Gallery from 1-3 July 2016.

Exhibiting students will be selected from the BA(Hons) Fine Art degree shows, which students are currently preparing, by critic and curator Sacha Craddock. The show will be curated by artist and Falmouth Associate Lecturer Jesse Leroy Smith. We’ll share the list of selected exhibitors soon after 31 May.

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. We’re again looking forward to former students connecting with current students and comparing notes on life after Falmouth Fine Art!

 

 

ELLA-STRATED: Ben Rivers at Falmouth

CAST and LUX presented a series of films selected by Ben Rivers titled ‘Edgelands’ at Falmouth School of Art. The film sequence was inspiring and entertaining, marking a great way to end the lecture series for this year.

ELLA-STRATED: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at Falmouth

In a more informal lecture set up, Falmouth School of Art students were lucky enough to listen to successful alumna, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye in conversation with Dr Ginny Button on Wednesday 9th March 2016. Visual response by BA(Hons) Illustration student, Ella Kasperowicz.