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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

EYE Prize awarded to Ben Rivers

Falmouth School of Art alumnus, artist and filmmaker Ben Rivers has been announced as the winner of the 2016 EYE Prize. Set up in collaboration between EYE, the Dutch film museum, and the Paddy and Joan Leigh Fermor Arts Fund, the EYE Prize exists to highlight the relationship between contemporary art and film, awarding £25,000 annually to fund the making of new work by a living artist.

Ben Rivers, Swamp, 1971. Estate of Robert Smithson, Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York/Shanghai and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York. Image: Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson.

The EYE Prize aims each year to support and promote the artist or filmmaker whose work unites art and film, and demonstrates quality of thought, imagination and artistic excellence.

Last month, in an event presented by CAST and LUX as part of the public programme for The Cornwall Workshop 2016, Rivers introduced and spoke about his curated film programme, Edgelands, to a crowded lecture theatre at Falmouth School of Art, from where he graduated in 1993.

Blouin Artinfo have published a new interview with Rivers in which he responds to having been awarded the prize: read it here.

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.

Artist and Filmmaker Ben Rivers – Guest Speaker

Lindsay Seers talk at Falmouth – Register now

Falmouth School of Art is delighted to welcome artist Lindsay Seers to Falmouth for the next of our guest lectures. Register now via our event bookings page.

Artist Graham Gussin to talk in Falmouth

We’re pleased to welcome artist Graham Gussin to Falmouth School of Art this Wednesday, 17 February, for a lecture starting at 5pm. Free, but registration required through our Eventbrite site.

Venice – Taking a Trip

Video by Annie Wire, student of  BA(Hons) Drawing, capturing aspects of the course’s study visit to Venice, November 2015:

“We go on a trip to Venice and visit the La Biennale di Venezia – Giardini and I also start noticing the interesting qualities of the people and animals of Venice.”

Annie Wire

Guido Lanteri-Laura wins the Midas Award 2014

Guido Lanteri Laura has been announced winner of the prestigious Midas Award at a private view held at Newlyn Art Gallery on Friday 17 October. The award was presented alongside the exhibition launch, which showcases work by all of the finalists, recent BA(Hons) Fine Art graduates Guido Lanteri Laura, Laura Adams, Calum Armstrong, Diana Bechmann and Jon Doran. Also opening was Existed, the solo exhibition by last year’s winner, Marc Messenger.

Much of Guido’s work consists of primitively edited films in which physical acts and performances can be represented in a way that create moments of doubt within the mind of the audience. These moments of doubt have the ability to not only send the protagonist into a different world, but simultaneously send the audience there with him.

Guido comments, “I was shortlisted for the Midas Art Award from the degree show, and it’s fantastic to win. Now I’ve won this award, I will look to continue my work and aim to apply for a place at the Royal College of Art in the new year”. He receives a prize worth £1,500, a year’s mentoring from an art tutor based at Falmouth, and the opportunity to stage his own solo exhibition at the Millennium Gallery, St. Ives in the autumn of 2015.

The exhibition is on at Newlyn Art Gallery in Penzance until 15 November. The gallery is open to the public from Tuesday to Saturday, 10am – 5pm, and entry is free, donations welcome. Alongside the finalists’ exhibition, paintings by Caroline Pedler will also be on display in The Picture Room from 18 October to 15 November. All works are for sale.

Falmouth graduates reviewed at Bloomberg New Contemporaries

Writing for the Edinburgh based magazine, The Skinny, Sacha Waldron discusses this year’s Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition at the World Museum, Liverpool, and highlights work by Falmouth Fine Art graduates Edward Hill and Frances Williams.

Waldron writes, “a stand-out painting comes from Falmouth’s Ed Hill. His trio shows a man standing on a mountain rock, in a bee suit at night and lying in bubbling rapids. The viewer is transported to a 1970s hike in Yosemite to the soundtrack of Simon and Garfunkel. It’s the most carefree summer in this moustachioed young man’s life, and I want to be in those paintings with him, wrapped in an unknown landscape of muddy greens, glowing whites and dusky pink skies”.

Ed Hill, Bee Night, 2013,

Waldron continues by picking out a work by Frances Williams…”Further into the exhibition, however, the video offering becomes really interesting. Ting & Tang: anachronisms by Falmouth’s Frances Williams is the most intriguing. Two men sit side-by-side as if on stage preparing for a performance, before rising into a ritualistic dance with each other. Twisty lines of disturbance sporadically distort the image. With a rather disturbing found-footage quality, the work is refreshingly hard to pin down”.

(Whole review)

Ed Hill graduated from BA(Hons) Fine Art at Falmouth in 2014, and also studied his Foundation at Falmouth. His work can be seen online at: www.edwardjhill.com 

Frances Williams graduated from BA(Hons) Fine Art in 2010. Her work can be seen online at: www.frances-williams.co.uk

Also included in the show is a video piece by 2013 Falmouth BA(Hons) Fine Art graduate Stacey Guthrie, Disarmed and Ever So Slightly Dangerous, 2013. Her work can be seen online at www.staceyguthrie.co.uk 

The Midas Award 2014

Midas Award Shortlist – Calum Armstrong, Laura Adams, Diana Bechmann, Guido Lanteri Laura and Jon Doran

Five artists were selected from this year’s degree shows at Falmouth University for this group exhibition, which runs at Newlyn Gallery from 18 October to 15 November. The shortlisted artists, Laura Adams, Calum Armstrong, Diana Bechmann, Jon Doran and Guido Lanteri Laura will present their work in the upper gallery.

Last year’s winner, Marc Messenger, will present Existed, a solo show of miniature sculptures, inspired by Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging. Each piece is created from a mix of materials including wood and steel, combined with natural elements such as flowers, moss, and seaweed. The installation, comprising one hundred sculptures, will be in the lower gallery.

Work from this year’s shortlisted artists includes Mindscape, an atmospheric animation by Laura Adams set in a dark and mysterious building where strange occurrences take place. Calum Armstrong’s architectural sculptures, made with clay, sand and straw, will buttress the gallery walls and push up against the ceiling. Diana Bechmann’s intricately carved plaster sculptures feature life size figures, shrouded and bound in fabric. Jon Doran’s series of paintings feature young people finding their way through woodlands, paused at the fork in a path or tentatively stepping into a stream. Guido Lanteri Laura’s film Modo Del Abeglia, features his alter ego, Jean-Pierre Lanteri, performing gravity-defying actions in the forested mountains of his ancestors.

The 2014 winner, announced on Friday 17th October at the private view, will receive a year’s supply of art materials, professional mentoring and a solo show at Millennium Gallery in the autumn of 2015, providing the opportunity to present work in a high-profile professional venue.

Private View & Award Ceremony Friday 17th October 7.30 – 9.30pm

Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2014

Four BA(Hons) Fine Art alumni – Edward Hill, Stacey Guthrie, Melissa Kime and Frances Williams – are exhibiting in this year’s Bloomberg New Contemporaries which is currently open as part of the Liverpool Biennial 2014. Ed, Stacey and Frances, along with 51 other artists, join the roster of Bloomberg New Contemporaries, which includes previous exhibitors Jake & Dinos Chapman, Falmouth alumna Tacita Dean, Mona Hatoum, Damien Hirst and Mike Nelson as well as more recent emerging artists including Ed Atkins, Becky Beasley, Haroon Mirza and Laure Prouvost.

This year’s selectors are Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Enrico David and Goshka Macuga and the resulting exhibition is an incisive snapshot of contemporary practice, spanning diverse media, processes, themes, influences and approaches—from moving image and performance to more traditional approaches to making work such as printmaking, painting and sculpture.

“At a time when creativity and innovation has never been so vital, this year’s selected artists demonstrate the relevance of contemporary art as analytical commentary in everyday life. Offering a unique nationwide insight into British art schools today, this year’s national touring exhibition offers a unique opportunity for selected works to be seen on an international platform at Liverpool Biennial and ICA, London.”
–Kirsty Ogg, Director, Bloomberg New Contemporaries

Ed Hill, Bee Night, 2013.

http://www.newcontemporaries.org.uk/artists/ed-hill

Stacey Guthrie has been chosen by Axisweb as one of five artists to watch in this years New Contemporaries. For more details see:http://www.axisweb.org/features/default/spotlight/five2watch-bloomberg-new-contemporaries/

/ http://www.staceyguthrie.co.uk

Stacey Guthrie, Disarmed and Ever So Slightly Dangerous, 2013. Still from video

http://www.newcontemporaries.org.uk/artists/stacey-guthrie

Frances Williams, Ting and Tang: anachronisms (1), 2012. Still from video

http://www.newcontemporaries.org.uk/artists/frances-williams; www.frances-williams.co.uk

A review of the exhibition, referencing Frances’ work can be found on e-flux. Frances also completed her MA in Fine Art at Falmouth in 2011 and is a current PhD candidate and Technician in time based media.

Melissa Kime, Technicolour Joseph and the Amazing City Bankers, 2013, cropped

Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2014, 20 September–26 October 2014, World Museum, William Brown Street, Liverpool L3 8EN. Hours: Monday–Sunday 10am–5pm, Free admission

www.newcontemporaries.org.uk

‘Drawing a Presence’

BA(Hons) Fine Art student Ryan Joucla is exhibiting some of his recent work in the exhibition ‘Drawing a Presence’ which opens at Newlyn Art Gallery this week. Ryan is a third year student whose practice includes drawing, film photography, and collage and is concerned with the notion of place and landscape. 

Ryan’s drawings exhibited at Newlyn are taken from a body of work called ‘In Passing Series’.  These drawings display an in-between world, the landscape that we view maybe no more than in-passing depicting the experience of moving between two places. They capture a transition; displaying the in-between place between memory and reality. He uses a personal narrative as an illustration to describe this physical and emotional shift, finding the use of charcoal and erasure to be rewarding process for recall. By considering these nondescript spaces and exploring the aesthetics he questions their banality and his relationship with them, hopefully finding some degree of belonging and identity within my new landscape. 

The exhibition Drawing a Presence at Newlyn Art Gallery (9/5/14 to 12/7/14) asks what is it like to be a young person living in Cornwall, whether born and raised here or just stopping off for a short time? Drawing a Presence is a snapshot of what it’s like to be a certain age, at particular time, in a specific place. It  is a rare opportunity for artists between the age of 15 and 25 to present their work in a public gallery. Curated by Falmouth based Elle Sambrook and Henry Osman, themselves within that age range, this exhibition invites visitors to Newlyn Art Gallery to view Cornwall as seen by a new generation of artists. The focus is often in contrast to the archetypal image of Cornwall, with alternative landscapes and details often overlooked. Drawing a Presence is the pilot of a four year project which invites young people to express what they feel about the county in which they live.

Falmouth graduate shortlisted for Bloomberg New Contemporaries

(c) Stacey Guthrie

Chosen from 1,400 submissions via an anonymous selection process, 2013 BA(Hons) Fine Art graduate Stacey Guthrie will be informed of the outcome of Bloomberg New Contemporaries by mid-May.

Founded in 1949 as the ‘Young Contemporaries’, the Arts Council sponsored exhibition helps to launch promising artists. The annual selection is made by artists and writers who are often previous winners themselves.

Stacey said, ‘I am delighted to have been shortlisted for Bloomberg New Contemporaries. Since graduating it’s been a whirlwind of activity and it feels great to be representing Cornwall and being part of showcasing the great wealth of creativity and talent we have down here.’

Stacey, who lives in West Cornwall, is also involved in a current exhibition with Millennium Gallery, St. Ives, and Spectrum, the autism charity. The exhibition, ‘I’ (Passing Through the Veil of Solitude) runs until 20 April at Telegraph House in Truro.