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.

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.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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:

 

 

 

#IWD2018 – Thank you to these inspirational artists

On International Women’s Day 2018, a big thank you to these artists who have inspired our students by visiting us in Falmouth to talk about their practice as part of the Falmouth School of Art Guest Speaker Programme.

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.

Artist Sean Lynch to talk at Falmouth School of Art – 10 May – Register now

We are pleased to announce this addition to our 2016-17 Guest Speaker programme.  In partnership with CAST as part of the Groundwork programme, Falmouth School of Art welcomes artist Sean Lynch on Wednesday 10 May, 5pm.

Irish artist Sean Lynch is interested in loose ends within stories: the footnotes that tend to get lost, and how to mediate their presence. The sculptures, installations, videos and publications generated in this process are speculative and open-ended. He forensically investigates anecdotes and half-truths, uncovering marginalised stories, forming them into alternative arrangements of history to open up new understandings. For example, he represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 2015 with Adventure: Capital, a multi-media installation that took viewers on a journey through myth and ideas of minimalism across Ireland and Britain, exploring value from an anthropological view point.

Born in 1978, Lynch lives in Dublin and studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. He has recently held solo exhibitions at The Rose Art Museum, Boston, Modern Art Oxford, Charles H. Scott Gallery, Vancouver and Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, amongst others. With Michele Horrigan, he works at Askeaton Contemporary Arts, organising artist residencies and exhibitions in southwest Ireland.

Over the last few years, Lynch has been a regular visitor to Cornwall, preparing a new artwork for Groundwork, an international art programme developed and delivered by CAST in Cornwall, that will culminate next year in a series of high-profile commissions and sited work. (http://c-a-s-t.org.uk/projects/groundwork).

This is a free event but registration is required via Eventbrite.

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.

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.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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.

 

BA(Hons) Drawing Forum 23 February 2017

Falmouth Senior Lecturer Peter Skerrett and artist and Visiting Speaker Claude Heath (far right) discuss a structural drawing built by students

BA(Hons) Drawing invited artist Claude Heath to join students and staff in the studios, where several collaborative drawings took place during the day. Drawings made included two large narrative pieces responding to poet works about the refugee crisis and World War One, a three-dimensional root-system structure made from rolled paper, and a ‘remote’ life drawing class where the model was placed in another room from the students, testing recall and memory.

During the morning, drawing stopped as students and staff listened to a conversation between Claude Heath and BA(Hons) Drawing Lecturer Dr Joe Graham, in which they talked about the validity of drawing as a means of legal communication, using a drawing of the Apple iPad as an example.

Claude also gave a lecture to students and staff from across Falmouth School of Art. Many thanks to Claude Heath from all of us at Falmouth for a very enjoyable and successful day.

Students plan collaborative drawing

BA(Hons) Drawing Lecturer Joe Graham in ‘Variations’ – a project about drawing movement

Students and artist Claude Heath during the Drawing Forum 2017

Drawing Forum Guest Speaker Claude Heath and Falmouth Lecturer Joe Graham in conversation at the Drawing Forum

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.

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

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…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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

Industry-focused trip for first year Illustrators in London

BA(Hons) Illustration students visiting Artworks

BA(Hons) Illustration are currently undertaking their first year London trip, including industry visits to the following: The Artworks Illustration Agency, Us Two Games Ltd, Pete Fowler, Egmont Press, Human After All, The Folio Society, Arena Illustration Agency, Dorling Kindersley, Macmillan Childrens Books, Harper Collins, and Walker Books.

The trip also includes the annual London Illustration Forum of guest speakers; this year Alice Dunseath, Neil McFarland and Pete Fowler.

Follow the trip through the Falmouth Illustration Blog.

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.

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.

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. 

 

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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)

 

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. 

Guest Speaker this Wednesday – artist Alan Kane

The Falmouth School of Art Guest Speakers programme starts for the autumn term with artist Alan Kane.

The series brings high profile artists and practitioners to Falmouth to talk about their practice.

5pm, Wednesday 28 September, Lecture Theatre 1, Falmouth Campus

Alan Kane’s 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.

Seats are limited, and a small number are available to the public, alumni, schools and colleges. Register now at http://falmouthschoolofart.eventbrite.com

To read more about forthcoming lectures, see our recent blog post.

 

 

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

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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’.

 

 

Former Visiting Professor Deborah Levy shortlisted for Man Booker Prize

Falmouth School of Art is delighted to congratulate Deborah Levy on being shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016, for her novel Hot Milk (Hamish Hamilton).

Levy served as Visiting Professor of Writing in Illustration to Falmouth School of Art between 2012 and 2015, delivering a series of well attended and thought-provoking lectures to students and the public.

Levy works across fiction, performance and visual culture. She trained at Dartington College of Arts, leaving in 1981 to write a number of plays, highly acclaimed for their “intellectual rigour, poetic fantasy and visual imagination”, including Pax, Clam, Heresies for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Macbeth – False Memories, all published in Levy: Plays 1 (Methuen).

Her novels include the 2012 Man Booker Prize shortlisted, Swimming Home, translated into 14 languages, Beautiful Mutants, Swallowing Geography, The Unloved (all reissued by Penguin), Billy and Girl (Bloomsbury). Her 2012 short story collection Black Vodka was short listed for The Frank O’Connor Award and the BBC International Short Story Award. Her long form essay, ‘Things I Don’t Want to Know’, a response to George Orwell’s 1946 essay ‘Why I Write’ and Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own is published in hard back by Notting Hill Editions, paperback by Penguin.

Bookmakers William Hill have declared Levy 2/1 favourite to win the prize.

2016 Guardian interview with Deborah Levy

The 2016 Man Booker shortlist:

The Sellout by Paul Beatty (Oneworld)

Hot Milk by Deborah Levy (Hamish Hamilton)

His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Contraband)

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh (Vintage)

All That Man Is by David Szalay (Vintage)

Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien (Granta)

More about the shortlist

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.

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.

Artist and Filmmaker Ben Rivers – Guest Speaker

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye talk

Falmouth School of Art is delighted to welcome painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye back to Falmouth for the next of our guest speaker events.

ELLA-STRATED: Lindsay Seers at Falmouth

(C) Ella Kasperowicz

Lindsay Seers delivered a unique and engaging lecture on Wednesday 2nd March 2016 inviting Falmouth School of Art students into her creative process. Her use of photography to document, act as evidence and represent reality as well as raw, truthful lecture delivery inspired the accompanying visual; my unedited spontaneous notes during the presentation. Sharing these brings similar feelings of unease that Seers described as an influence in her work.

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.

ELLA-STRATED: Graham Gussin at Falmouth

(C) Ella Kasperowicz

Unlike Graham Gussin’s, ‘Unseen Film’, the Falmouth School of Art lecture theatre was packed on Wednesday 17th February 2016 as the artist delivered an engaging lecture regarding light and dark, the influence of cinema and how a black triangle is rather terrifying!

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.

ELLA-STRATED: Nashashibi/Skaer at Falmouth

(C) Ella Kasperowicz

Rosalind Nashashibi and Lucy Skaer showcased their collaborative film work in an engaging lecture to Falmouth School of Art students on Wednesday 3rd February 2016. Appropriating existing art as a starting point, themes in their projects include power, the portrayal of women and distortion of reality. Visual response by Ella Kasperowicz, BA(Hons) Illustration.

 

Falmouth School of Art Lectures – Spring 2016 schedule announced

Following  a vibrant, varied, and well attended autumn season of lectures, from Sam Thorne, Simon Fujiwara, Elly Thomas, Hew Locke, Gavin Turk, Krijn de Koning and Conrad Shawcross, The Falmouth School of Art is pleased to present forthcoming events for spring and summer 2016…

Flash in the Metropolitan 2007, 16mm film still, © Nashashibi/Skaer

The series re-starts on 3 February 2016, with Lucy Skaer and Rosalind Nashashibi, who collaborate as Nashashibi/Skaer. The event is a Tate Talk, in association with Tate St. Ives, with whom Nashashibi/Skaer are currently curating an exhibition which will feature a series of collaboratively made short films.

On 10 February Michael Salu will talk about his practice as an award-winning creative director, writer, art editor/critic and occasional artist. Salu is formerly creative director and art editor of Granta Publications.

Graham Gussin continues the series on 17 February; an artist who uses a wide range of media, including texts, drawings, film, video, sound and installation, to explore the perception of time, space and scale as an organic link between the pieces, the viewer and the exhibition space.

Yiadom-Boakye, No Patience for Juju, 2015, Oil on Canvas, 200 x 130 x 3.7cm, 78.7 x 51.2 x 1.5 inches
Courtesy: Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

 

We welcome artist Lindsay Seers on 2 March, painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye on 9 March, and filmmaker Ben Rivers on 16 March in association with The Cornwall Workshop and the School of Film and Television at Falmouth. The 2016 series concludes with a lecture on 18 May by Jessica Warboys. Yiadom-Boakye, Rivers and Warboys are all Falmouth alumni, and we look forward to welcoming them back to talk about their work, practice development and successes.

Events are all free, but booking required. Booking for all events is now open, and some tickets for each event are made available to our alumni and members of the public.

To book: http://falmouthschoolofart.eventbrite.com

 

 

ELLA-STRATED: Conrad Shawcross at Falmouth

(C) Ella Kasperowicz

Conrad Shawcross inspired Falmouth students in his talk on Wednesday 2nd December 2015, about the relationship between science and art and how this needs to grow in order for the disciplines to reach their potentials. Themes of reasoning, creativity, balance and harmony led to the end note, ‘there are more neurons in the brain than stars in the universe’.

ELLA-STRATED: Krijn de Koning at Falmouth

(C) Ella Kasperowicz

Krijn de Koning’s playful approach to designing spaces and love of drawing came across brilliantly in his talk to Falmouth students on Wednesday 25th November 2015. Visual response by Ella Kasperowicz, BA(Hons) Illustration.

Conrad Shawcross – Guest Speaker

Falmouth School of Art is delighted to welcome Conrad Shawcross to give the final School of Art Lecture this term, on Wednesday 2 December, Lecture Theatre 1, Falmouth Campus.

The Dappled Light of the Sun, by Conrad Shawcross, 2015. Weathering steel, dimensions variable. Installation view at Chatsworth House. Photography © Sotheby’s

Born in London in 1977, Conrad Shawcross studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford, and the Slade School of Art, London.  Drawing on his fascination with technologies and natural forces, with geometry, philosophy, physics and metaphysics, his machine-like sculptures often combine the appearance scientific rationality with a mysterious and sometimes melancholic ambiguity. Attracted by failed quests for knowledge, he likes to appropriate redundant theories to create ambitious structural and mechanical montages, using a wide variety of materials and media.

A number of his works pay tribute to great pioneers and analysts, and consider specific historical moments. For example, Paradigm (Ode to the Difference Engine), 2006 references the life of Charles Babbage, Space Trumpet, 2007 is inspired by the history of early acoustic mapping, while Slow Arc Inside a Cube, 2008 was inspired by scientist Dorothy Hodgkin’s discovery of the structure of pig insulin. More recently, Shawcross has developed the scale of his practice, taking on architectural spaces with work that combines epic scope and poetic grace.

He has been the recipient of many residencies, awards and commissions, and has exhibited widely nationally and internationally. For example, he was Artist in Residence at the Science Museum, London (2009 – 2011), collaborated with the National Gallery and Royal Ballet for the Cultural Olympiad (2012) and exhibited at the ARTMIA Foundation, Beijing (2014). In 2015 in London alone he produced a new series of permanent sculpture for Dulwich Park and a site-specific installation for the Royal Academy’s Annenberg Courtyard.

ELLA-STRATED: Gavin Turk at Falmouth

(C) Ella Kasperowicz

Gavin Turk returned to Falmouth University on Wednesday 18th November 2015 to deliver an entertaining lecture on the themes of authorship and identity within his work and the art world. Visual response by Ella Kasperowicz, BA(Hons) Illustration.

Guest speaker – artist Krijn de Koning

Booking is now open for Falmouth School of Art’s next guest speaker event.

We are delighted to welcome artist  Krijn de Koning on Wednesday, 25 November at 5pm (Lecture Theatre 1, Falmouth Campus). Booking is free, but required. (Click here to book).

Krijn de Koning was born in Amsterdam in 1963. He majored in audiovisual design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, before attending Ateliers ’63 in Haarlem in 1988. He subsequently studied at the Institut des Hautes Etudes en Arts Plastique in Paris.

De Koning makes site specific sculptural and architectural constructions that interrupt the environment of a given location, often profoundly changing audience perceptions of place. Typically brightly coloured and built using simple materials, his playful, mostly temporary interventions connect inside and outside spaces, inviting alternative interpretations, uses and experiences of the spaces and places they inhabit. He works across a range of scales, drawing on modernist traditions such as geometric abstraction and Minimalism as well as architectural concerns.

Dwelling, (for Margate / for Folkestone), de Koning’s first commission in the UK, was realised in 2014 for the Folkestone Triennial. This colourful, architectural labyrinth constituted an artwork presented simultaneously in two outdoor locations (the walkway adjacent Margate’s Turner Contemporary and inside a Victorian grotto on Folkestone seafront), exploring de Koning’s fascination with the notion of repetition and seriality in conceptual art practice, and the specificity of place.

‘Land’ (2013) for Edinburgh Art Festival

‘Observatorium Keizersrande’ (2014)

ELLA-STRATED: Hew Locke at Falmouth

(C) Ella Kasperowicz

Hew Locke entertained and inspired his Falmouth School of Art audience through his witty remarks and diverse range of work on Wednesday 4th November 2015. Visual take by BA(Hons) Illustration student, Ella Kasperowicz.

ELLA-STRATED: Elly Thomas at Falmouth

(C) Ella Kasperowicz

Elly Thomas delivered an engaging lecture regarding the theme of childhood play to Falmouth School of Art students on Wednesday 21st October 2015. Visual take provided by Ella Kasperowicz, BA(Hons) Illustration.

Artist Simon Fujiwara leads seminar for Fine Art students

Following his lecture to a packed house the night before, Simon Fujiwara, Falmouth University’s Visiting Professor of Art, led a seminar of a group of second and third year BA(Hons) Fine Art students. Second year students Jo Clarkson and Rachael Coward share their responses to that session.

Simon Fujiwara by Anna Partington (Cartel Photos)

Jo Clarkson, Student, 2^nd year BA(Hons) Fine Art

In the past I have thoroughly enjoyed three of Simon Fujiwara’s talks at Falmouth  and also visited his solo exhibition at St Ives so it was a real pleasure to meet him in person.

It was a unique experience.  Kinda like a cross between an art tutorial, careers guidance and group counselling session – guided by a captivating, yet pointed and penetrating, storyteller, highly skilled in investigating and revealing!  All in 2 hours! It was quite intense.

I left feeling I am my work, I must choose my truth/fiction carefully, find my purpose, investigate further, filter, edit, refine, play and enjoy!

From his comments in his previous talks I also reckon Simon’s Mum would be a very interesting and fun person to meet!

 

 

Rachael Coward, Student, 2^nd year BA(Hons) Fine Art

The discussion began with the physical means of artistic process, and what defines an idea as worthy of further artistic endeavour…

Does the world need this work? And do the processes involved in making the work affect the balance of the world?

We ourselves as artists are starting points. We are flawed in that we cannot examine every aspect of our lives; it would become a full time occupation in itself which could easily become obsolete as technological advances outdate our work. We are, in effect, vessels; information passes through us, and it is up to us to filter and process it; ultimately finding a way to operate in the information-rich world we now inhabit. From this we can conclude that the notion of ‘the self’ becomes an empty idea, as we are in fact agents for work, engaging and encouraging ideas that come from outside sources.

However the interplay of ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ affects how our work is received; and it begins with the claim of being an ‘artist’. Without this self-proclamation, the outside world would not react to us, and it is only because of that statement that the outside world acknowledges what we make as ‘art’.

But does this label of ‘artist’ need to be visible? Do we identify as artists through our appearance? In some circumstances the ‘look’ of a person can occupy a space as much as a piece of work; but is this the point, or should we as artists remain invisible? This idea of uniforms or costuming revolves around the idea of ‘belonging’. We as humans understand the safety behind a unified group of individuals, yet we are ‘lost’ in our own sense of visual identity. Outer appearances don’t directly link to beliefs or attitudes anymore; therefore anyone can look like an ‘artist’. But when we consider something ‘lost’, we must also consider them when they are ‘found’ – from this deliberation of two passive states, the conclusion was drawn that even if we are lost, it isn’t a bad thing. Quite often when we are lost is when the most exciting or unexpected things happen.

An artist is a factory. Part of the whole process of making art is coming to conclusions within ourselves, and using means of communication to present these conclusions to an audience.

We can play with the world and also take part in it.

ELLA-STRATED: Simon Fujiwara at Falmouth

(C) Ella Kasperowicz

Second year BA(Hons) Illustration student Ella Kasperowicz provides a visual take on the lecture given by Visiting Professor of Art, Simon Fujiwara, to a packed Falmouth audience on Tuesday 13 October 2015.

Tate Talk at Falmouth: Nicolas Deshayes

Deborah Levy – Professorial Lecture

Lecture by Tate Britain’s Dr. Chris Stephens

Booking is now open for the next Falmouth School of Art lecture, by Tate Britain’s Head of Displays and Lead Curator of Modern British Art, Dr. Chris Stephens.

Book tickets: The Falmouth School of Art Eventbrite.

Guest Speaker – Graphic Novelist Posy Simmonds

Posy Simmonds is the author and illustrator of 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. Simmonds’ style gently satirises the English middle classes and in particular those of a literary bent. Her published 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 has contributed a series of weekly cartoon strips to the Guardian since 1977, and has won international awards for her work. Her graphic novel, Gemma Bovery, was acclaimed by the critics for its wit and wickedly sharp observation A.N.Wilson called it ‘a work of genius’ and more than one reviewer suggested that it should be entered for the Booker Prize; it was made into a feature film, directed by Anne Fontaine in 2014 – to be released in the UK in 2015. Another graphic novel Tamara Drewe became a very successful feature film directed by Stephen Frears.

“Posy Simmonds is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of a handful of absolutely brilliant cartoonists currently working in the English language… Few cartoonists have demonstrated the range that Simmonds has displayed over the years. Jules Feiffer would be an obvious comparison, but even Feiffer lacked the sheer density of Simmonds’ most accomplished pieces.” Bart Beaty, The Comics Journal #227 

Falmouth Campus Lecture Theatre, Woodlane

Tickets free but booking essential: posysimmondsfalmouth.eventbrite.co.uk 

Visiting Professor of Art, Simon Fujiwara, returns.

The Falmouth School of Art is delighted to welcome back Visiting Professor of Art Simon Fujiwara, for a Professorial lecture.

Fujiwara’s previous lectures at Falmouth have proved very popular with students and staff from across the School, as well as members of the public, and he joins us this year from opening his curated section of the History Is Now exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London.

Whilst in Falmouth, Fujiwara will also work with BA(Hons) Fine Art students.

FSA Lectures Spring/Summer line-up announced

A great line-up to look forward to from January through to May 2015…Booking available online exactly two weeks before each event, from the FSA Eventbrite page – bookmark it now!

 

 

The Predicament – A Lecture by Daro Montag

In this talk, Dr. Daro Montag will consider the current predicament facing humanity in the 21^st century, and question what the future might hold for art and culture.  Drawing on the tangled web of war, oil and money, the talk will look at how civilisations collapse and survive, and how a few contemporary artists are responding to this situation. There will be sweeping themes, bold gestures and perhaps even some free money.

Daro’s work has received many awards and has been exhibited internationally, including a show in Australia. In 2009 he joined the Cape Farewell expedition to the Peruvian Andes and Amazon as part of a team engaged in the cultural response to climate change. Daro’s art practice has for many years been involved with environmental and ecological issues – he is particularly interested in the inherent creativity of the organic world. Recent projects include This Earth, which looked closely at the importance of soil from a number of different perspectives; and RANE-CHAR, an action in which biochar was produced and distributed.

Wednesday 19 November 2014, 5pm, Lecture Theatre, Falmouth Campus

Free but strictly by ticket from Falmouth School of Art’s Eventbrite

British painter Paul Winstanley to lecture at Falmouth

We’re delighted to welcome British Painter Paul Winstanley to Falmouth to give the next Falmouth School of Art Lecture.

Winstanley uses the traditional genres of Landscape / Interior / Still Life / Figure / to create works that present the relationship of the viewer to the painting as central to the content of the work. At once methodical and melancholic his painterly depictions of landscapes, walkways, veiled windows, TV Lounges, art school studios and individuals distracted in contemplation are rendered in an exacting and subtle palette.

Winstanley, P. Art School 28, Oil on Panel, 90x60cm, 2014, Private Collection

Drawing on historical northern European artists such as Caspar David Friedrich and Vermeer, as well as contemporary practitioners such as Richard Hamilton, Winstanley creates a sense of imposed order, an atmosphere of time inexorably passing.

Born in Manchester in 1954, Winstanley has exhibited widely and over the past two decades has had regular solo exhibitions in London, Paris, Munich and New York. His first retrospective was held at the Auckland Art Space in New Zealand in 2008, and in 1998 he had a solo show at the Tate Gallery, Millbank His work is represented in numerous public and private collections, including the collections of Tate, the British Council, the European Parliament, the New York City Public Library and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Free but strictly by ticket from The Falmouth School of Art Eventbrite.

The Falmouth School of Art Lectures give our students a unique opportunity to hear from established and high profile artists and practitioners. We make some seats available at each lecture to friends of the School and members of the public.

Multi Award winning reportage artist Sue Coe to lecture at Falmouth

Sue Coe. 1992. Photograph by Steve Heller. Courtesy Galerie St. Etienne, New York. (Not to be reproduced without permission).

Multi award winning reportage artist Sue Coe started drawing at the age of 5.  Coe has described how during art school demonstrations in the sixties some of the visitors to their strike were artists who had political content in their work: ‘they made posters and agit prop work, and I saw that it was possible to integrate art and content, this was a revelation.’

Coe once recalled how, not long after the Second World War, she would question adults why so many had to die, and of not receiving logical answers. Coe first developed her passion to stop cruelty to animals through the experience of growing up close to a slaughterhouse with a small factory farm at the back of her house. She has said, ‘It was living among innocents who were about to die, and the war memorials of the dead.’ In addition to animal abuse, Coe’s subject matter also includes homelessness, racism, hunger, AIDS, war, rape and apartheid.

Coe studied at the Royal College of Art from 1970-73, and has lived in America since graduating. She is known for her confrontational art which exposes social problems ignored or concealed by governments, corporations, society and the media and through this work has been compared to great artists of the past, such as Honore Daumier, Kathe Kollwitz and Francisco Goya.

Coe’s drawings have appeared in numerous newspapers and in publications such as the New Yorker, Village Voice, the Nation, Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Esquire and Mother Jones. Coe’s books include How to Commit Suicide in South Africa, Paintings and Drawings by Sue Coe, X (The Life and Times of Malcolm X), Dead Meat, Pit’s Letter, Bully: Master of the Global Merry-Go-Round, Sheep of Fools: A Blab! Storybook – Voted “Book of the Year” by PETA, and Cruel and Topsy. Coe’s work is in the Museum of Modern Art and she has had numerous major solo exhibitions, produced documentary film and various computer works including an AIDS Prevention Mural for RedHot Organization.