Associate Lecturer Virginia Verran: Showing in London

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

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

 

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

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

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

Falmouth School of Art Purchase Prize – Robin French

Artist Robin French, with a detail from his painting.

The Falmouth School of Art Purchase Prize is an occasional award made during our degree shows, whereby the School purchases an artwork from a graduating student in recognition of their achievement and the strength of their work, and in support of their continued practice. This year we are delighted to have awarded a Purchase Prize to Robin French, who has just graduated from BA(Hons) Fine Art, for his painting, Kitchen, early spring. We asked Robin if he’d like to tell us a little about the painting, and about his future plans…

Robin French – Kitchen, Early Spring, 112 x 152cm, oil on canvas

“I’m very proud to have been awarded the Falmouth School of Art Purchase Prize. It is so encouraging to sell work from the show –  it has really spurred me on.

My painting, Kitchen, early spring, is important to me. I shouldn’t like to tie it down to a particular narrative but perhaps I can explain my own personal ideas behind it. The figure is my mother, crouched down to hug her dog. In the room there is a stove. The bowls and mugs are pottery she has made herself. The plants are from the garden she has carefully grown. it’s not so much a portrait of my mother. I wanted more to tap into the soul of the house she has made.

I like to use negative space, leaving large areas of the canvas unpainted. I don’t want the painting to feel suffocated in it’s meaning or appearance. If I’m successful, hopefully the viewer can share certain feelings or understandings that I’ve been working through. This could be very subtle and hard to put into words. I think successful figurative paintings have this unique ability. It’s my challenge to achieve this.

For the future, I’m trying to maximise the time I can spend painting. I’m planning a motorcycle trip where I hop between different artist residencies. At the same time, I’m hoping to find somewhere on the continent where I can rent a studio on a more long term basis.”

https://www.instagram.com/robinfrenchartist/

Drawing and Fine Art alumni present new work

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

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

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

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

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

Falmouth Illustrators Create Mural for Penryn Primary Academy

Second year BA(Hons) Illustration students Elleanna Bird, Sophie Freestone and Amelia Brooks recently completed  work on a mural to transform some of the interior space at Penryn Primary Academy.

The project, carried out at the school over three weeks, was a voluntary commission, enthusiastically taken up by the three friends. Elleanna commented, “We were all very keen to get started and we had lots of ideas to share. Our ideas encouraged the Head Teacher, who seemed very pleased and excited about what we had planned”. Elleanna says she feels grateful to have been involved, describing an atmosphere of encouragement and motivation; she feels that their enthusiasm in creating the work was kept high by the positive reactions of members of the school community who popped in to see how the project was coming along.

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Sophie reflects on the process of creating the pieces: “The three of us were working together on one painting, which meant all of our bizarre and strange ideas were multiplied by three! The murals happened in quite an organic way; although we had developed plans to work from, a lot of the visual elements came to life in the moment when we were drawing and painting straight onto the boards”.

Elleanna, Sophie and Amelia with Penryn Primary Academy Head Teacher James Hitchens, at the unveiling of the mural panels.

The result is a feast for the eyes – a vibrant panorama depicting creatures of land and sea, as well as Cornish motifs and legends. Sophie says, “I really enjoyed this project because of the unlimited amounts of colour and creativity we were permitted to use. In the paintings, if you look hard enough, you can spot a sea monster, a sloth playing the drums, a pair of feet belonging to a giant and a couple of dinosaurs wearing high heels!”.

The murals received a fantastic response from pupils when unveiled by the artists at a school assembly. Of the experience, Sophie said, “We had a fantastic few weeks painting the murals, and I would recommend anyone who gets the opportunity to get involved in a project such as this – local or afar – to say yes!”.

BA(Hons) Illustration Course Coordinators Natalie Hayes and Keryn Bibby have since met with Head Teacher James Hitchens and Assistant Head Chris Lee, to discuss possible future projects. They were shown around the school and discussed opportunities to involve Illustration students; from the possibility of murals for the walls of the swimming pool, production of inspirational imagery to enliven library spaces, or Illustration students working with Penryn Primary pupils on a series of creative workshops. Natalie commented, “Developing the bonds between Falmouth’s Illustration course and Penryn Primary Academy will provide our students with further excellent professional practice opportunities, and we hope will enhance the school experience for the primary pupils”.

Exhibition of paintings by Glad Fryer at the Jellyfish Arts Hub in Devon.

“What shall we do tomorrow” an exhibition of paintings by Glad Fryer, Senior Lecturer on the BA(Hons) Fine Art course, opens at the Jellyfish Arts Hub, Buckfastleigh, Devon on Friday 4th May.

Glad says “The work in this exhibition, ‘What shall we do tomorrow’, explores how we live with images both worn out and potent. I am at once driven by an amnesic compulsion (a drive towards loss and annihilation of memory) to archive and aestheticise images, while equally coveting their ability to prick, puncture and cut through the dispassionate collecting, which can yield moments of insight that extend knowledge. While painting, I have authorship of this personal, political, ethical, aesthetic and embodied experience. It occurs between archiving and forgetting, between material and signification, between interiority and exteriority. These re-acquaintances with images are critical to the formulation of ‘self’.”

The exhibition runs until 30th May.

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

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

 

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

 

 

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

Previous Intensives participants’ testimonials:

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

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

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

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

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

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Catching up with Katie Sims, Falmouth Fine Art alumna

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

Katie Sims

Describe your life since graduating back in 2010…

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

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

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

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

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

What are you working on now?

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

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

Osmosis, oil on panel, 24x30cm (2017)

 

What is a typical day for you?

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

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

What’s next for you?

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

Why did you choose to study at Falmouth?

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

 

What is your favourite memory from studying at Falmouth?

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

How did Falmouth influence your career?

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

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

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

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

 

National Open Art success for Falmouth Fine Artist

We’re delighted to congratulate second year BA(Hons) Fine Art student Edward Spencer, whose painting has made it to the final of the 21st National Open Art competition, from around 4000 entries.

Edward grew up in East Kent, and before joining Falmouth School of Art, completed a Foundation year at the Royal Drawing School in London, where he won the End of Year Exhibition Award. He told us, ‘I entered my painting, Untitled, to various art prizes before the summer; I’d never done it before and thought I’d give it a go. I’m very glad it’s being recognised, and it’s exciting to see a painting I produced in my small mezzanine first year studio engaging and interacting within a much wider context than my course here in Falmouth’.

Of Untitled, Edward says, ‘I work very intuitively, very rarely planning my paintings, but allow them to form themselves through the making. However, with this particular work, I started with a gridded structure, separating land/sea and sky, with the horizon at the centre. Moving to Falmouth from my year in London, I was struck by the presence of such a defined and wide horizon, the open spaces, and the way in which the community engages with its natural surroundings. And yet there is this disjunct I experience and I believe many of my generation experience, and that’s the way technology has such a dominant presence in my life, and so there’s an unsettling, post-natural feeling I want to capture in my work – I want to experience the world but yet it feels less and less authentic. Absorbing myself within virtual spaces and realities seems to be preventing me from truly being able to experience the real reality, the physical, the human. That I believe is at the core of this work’.

‘Untitled’, by Edward Spencer, Oil on canvas, 41x51x2cm

Edward’s painting, Untitled, will be exhibited 17-26 November at Bargehouse (Oxo Tower Wharf, Southbank), London, where he will join other selected artists at the private view. National Open Art is open to professional and amateur artists aged 15 and over, and – with each entry judged anonymously, and no ‘invited’ artists – is considered to be one of the most democratic in the UK and Ireland.

You can view more of Edward’s work at his website: https://edwardspencerblog.wordpress.com/ 

Catching up with last year’s summer Intensives participants

Falmouth School of Art is currently accepting applications for its summer Intensives – 5-day studio-based courses for artists and art educators. We’re always bowled over by feedback from participants at the end of their week with us, but we have just caught up with some of 2016’s participants to ask them to reflect on their experience nine months on…

Burgundys in project space – Gwenyth Fugard

Abstract Painting participant Gwenyth Fugard highlighted the benefit she had felt of being among a group of artists for the week, having worked alone for three years since graduating in Fine Art from Central St. Martins. She also experienced a development in her way of working, as a result of the environment and structure of the course: ‘Though my own practice does not respond to abstracting from life, I found the projects set were hugely beneficial. I was taken away from my usual methodologies and the studio spaces provided were fantastic [and] enabled new approaches and ideas to develop quite quickly’. After finishing the Intensive last summer, Gwyneth successfully applied for a place on an MA at City & Guilds London Arts School.

Oversized Raincoat, by Karina Barrett

Wales-based artist Karina Barrett, who took the Figure Painting course, similarly valued the experience of community that shaped the Intensive week: “I enjoyed working in a studio with other artists – something I have not done since graduating” Within that context, she recalls, ‘I found the tuition to be of the highest standard and incredibly informative. As a professional, working, painter, I gained a lot from the advice given to me by both Jesse [Leroy Smith] and Ashley [Hold]’. Figure Painting participants also commented that the opportunity to work from a model for whole week was something that they couldn’t easily replicate as part of their day to day routine.

Amanda Jackson chose the Abstract Painting Intensive in order to develop her mostly figurative practice in a more abstract direction, and the course made such an impression that she will be joining us again this year. She observes, ‘The course gave me many ideas and processes, through tuition, critique and lectures, to set this development in motion’. In addition to this, she too cites working alongside other artists as an important benefit to her: “…the great experience of spending a week with other artists, to explore my own ideas but have others’ input and critique and discuss work and network with artists, some of whom I am [still] in contact with via social media’.

Amanda has continued with her practice, and has found the influence of the Intensive staying with her in her work, “Almost a year on, I have continued the work started in Falmouth, enjoying pushing my work ever further into abstraction. I have found that since the course, my work is much looser; I spend more time developing the work through direct painting – that is, exploring ideas on the canvas and seeing where it might lead – rather than planning and replicating.

Her week at Falmouth has resonated in her subsequent studio practice, as well as in the work she has produced since last summer: ‘I am more focused on my work, spending longer in the studio, so the course has given me discipline as well as inspiration…The back drop of the garden and grounds at Falmouth, which was used as a starting point for abstract paintings on the course, has led to a body of work that will be shown this summer as part of Leigh Art Trail’s 20^th Anniversary show’.

For many, the Intensives have provided the opportunity to work differently than they would in their own home or studio environment, with learning and experiences that have lingered and resonated in their continued studio practice. For London-based Val Coumant, ‘[it] was exactly what it said on the label – intensive. I haven’t worked so hard since my Psychotherapy training in the 1980’s. Or with such absorption and excitement’. But for Val, ‘the greatest insight was how the pieces I liked best were fortuitous rather than planned. It was like the Zen story about learning to paint bamboo: you go and live in a bamboo grove, and watch the bamboo in spring, summer, autumn and winter; in the morning, at noon, in the evening and in the moonlight; in mist, rain snow and sunlight, year after year. And then you go away and forget about bamboo. That’s when the painting starts’.

2016 Intensives participants relax in the walled garden with a cream tea.

The lasting impact of the week of focused creative activity is something we hear repeatedly. Karina noted, ‘I find that the advice of my tutors still echoes in my head, while I work…along with the memories of a truly fantastic week’.

For more information or to make an application to Falmouth School of Art’s Intensives – this year offered in Abstract Painting, Figure Painting and Observational Drawing, see our website:

www.falmouth.ac.uk/fsaintensivesThe application deadline is 28 April.

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.

Reflections on first year BA(Hons) Fine Art exhibition

At the start of this term, the end of their first study block, BA(Hons) Fine Art students worked together towards an exhibition in their studio buildings. The exhibited work demonstrated experimentation and showed the development of work throughout the first ten weeks of the course. The range of practices and approaches reflected the diversity and individuality of first year students.

Exhibiting student Charlie Ash, said, ‘The exhibition provided an opportunity for students to display work in an open and informal setting; with multiple first year spaces across the campus being organised and curated among studio groups. The exhibition confirmed how much I value being on a Fine Art course which supports a wide variety of art practices – there is something exciting about seeing painting, drawing, sculpture, performative and time-based work (and everything else) occupying the same space. I think a self-organised open studio exhibition is a good format for first year students as there is no pressure to include fully finished work, but it is an insight into the practices which everyone is engaged in – beneficial both as a participating artist and a viewer’.

 

 

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Fine Art students from other years, and staff from the course and across the university joined exhibitors for a well-attended opening event. The project was the first of many opportunities for students to share and exhibit their work for peers and more public audiences as they progress through the course.

Student Olivia Brelsford-Massey shared her experience of being involved in this exhibition: ‘The first year exhibition – although most of us felt like we didn’t know what to do – turned out to be a success! I found it helpful, as it’s easy to crawl into hole as an art student (that hole being the studio space), and bringing our work into the larger context of an exhibition made it easier see what everyone had been making this past term, and opened up conversations about our work and ideas. The opening night was a lot of fun, some of the students had put together food and drink and posters and invited their pals/significant others to have a look around – all of this was organised in a short space of time so kudos to everyone. All in all, putting together the exhibition as well as the work itself felt like a vital part of being an art student and I’m looking forward to the next one!’

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Bleaching Madden – mural detail

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ed Burkes in his studio

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

Short courses this summer – Falmouth School of Art Intensives

Falmouth School of Art Figure Painting Intensive

Applications are now invited for the Falmouth School of Art Intensives, our popular summer courses for artists, practitioners and art educators.

Taking place 3-7 July at our Falmouth Campus, we’re again offering a choice of 5-day ‘Intensives’. All are studio-based and provide daily input from specialist tutors including some of Cornwall’s leading artists.

Abstract Painting will be led by artists Simon Averill and Mark Surridge, who created and have delivered this stimulating course together for the last two years. Guidance will be given as participants explore a wide range of strategies, ways of thinking and processes for making abstract work.

Figure Painting, devised and delivered by artists Ashley Hold and Jesse Leroy Smith, promotes skills development and experimentation through daily practical and contextual workshops. Participants work from the life model throughout the week.

New for 2017 is Observational Drawing, delivered by Falmouth School of Art’s Drawing team who have diverse skill sets and expertise. Starting from the rich qualities of Falmouth’s coastal environment, the course is structured around practising observation skills in the field, capturing images from surroundings and building on those findings in the studio.

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If you’re looking for some time and space to develop or reinvigorate your practise this summer, find out more on our website – www.falmouth.ac.uk/fsaintensives. We’ll leave you with the feedback of previous participants…

“The intensive week reinvigorated me and I came home refreshed and ready to start new work.  I have lots of interesting threads to pick up on and gained new insights and ideas.  The tutors were brilliant and helped and suggested in very subtle ways that were completely personal to each participant.  It was exactly what I was looking for and I can’t wait to get working in the studio.”

“It has given me the motivation to pursue my work with greater commitment and energy and also to look more at the work of other artists, both current and historical.”

“The space allocated to us was truly fantastic and this generosity of space enabled us to expand into experimentation, which would otherwise not have been possible.” 

“There was so much that was memorable.  The beautiful setting of the campus and excellent facilities, the superb studio space, great tutors giving excellent lectures, a wonderful group of artists to be among, the social events and superb guest speaker were all wonderful.  Mostly I loved the time and space it gave me to think and work without distraction, but help and support from my fellow artists if I wanted it.”

“I loved the experience.  I was touched by all your thoughtfulness and kindness – the extra events you laid on for us.  I found the tutors’ input sensitive and supportive at all times.”

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

 

 

 

 

 

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

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.

Spotlight on Falmouth Fine Art Graduate Michael Cox

 

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

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

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

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

Falmouth Fine Art London 2016

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

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

 

Falmouth Alumni exhibit in London

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

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

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

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

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

Falmouth School of Art Intensives 2016 – In Pictures

Last week we held the Falmouth School of Art Intensives in Abstract Painting and Figure Painting.

These focused five-day courses for artists and practitioners were delivered by specialist tutors Mark Surridge, Simon Averill, Ashley Hold and Jesse Leroy Smith.

During the week alongside expert one-to-one tuition, studio tutorials, group discussions and individually allocated studio spaces, participants also enjoyed key events including an inspiring guest lecture by artist Naomi Frears, a social dinner for a much needed mid-week break, Cornish cream teas in the sunshine, and to round of the week in style, participants showcased their work together in a group exhibition.

Immediate feedback from participants has been extremely positive; comments include, “I had such a fantastic week and I was so sad to leave. I met a brilliant group of people, I received the highest level of tuition (which I’m sure will resonate through my work in the future) and I was made to feel incredibly welcome by all the staff.”

The pictures here highlight the incredibly high quality of work produced by participants; we can’t wait to start planning for next year!

If you are interested in the Falmouth School of Art Intensives 2017, please email us at schoolofart@falmouth.ac.uk or keep an eye on www.falmouth.ac.uk/fsaintensives 

Simon Averill – 444 paintings at Anima-Mundi

 

Falmouth School of Art Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, Simon Averill, is exhibiting at Anima-Mundi in St. Ives from 10 June.

Simon has lectured at Falmouth since 1989, and has exhibited his work widely in selected exhibitions in the UK and internationally.

“My paintings are a response to time spent within nature; I’m drawn to the commonplace, the unnoticed. I try to capture the fleeting and the transitory; the effect of light – not only how it appears, but also how it behaves…I am also interested in the psychology of decision making within the creative process and my work investigates the relationship between spontaneity and control. My paintings allow these seemingly disparate ideas to co-exist side by side.”

Next month, Simon with be co-delivering Falmouth School of Art’s Abstract Painting Summer Intensives.

Also showing, on the top floors of the gallery, is artist Youki Hirakawa‘s ‘Secret Fire’.

simonaverill.co.uk

 

The Edge of Printing – Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts

© Virginia Verran ‘Pink/Red (Not Here) 2016 Etching 1/6’

Virginia Verran, an Associate Lecturer for the Falmouth School of Art, is currently showing a series of 4 new etchings in an exhibition at the Keepers House, Royal Academy of Arts in London.  The Edge of Printing opened on 27 April and continues until 23 October 2016.  It is co-ordinated by Tess Jaray RA and presents work from Tim Head, Richard Plank, Saori Parry, Anne Desmet RA, Tom Lomax, Peter Freeth RA, Cathy de Monchaux, Tess Jaray RA, Guilia Ricci, Trevor Sutton, Rebecca Salter RA and Virginia Verran.  Also showing are two Falmouth alumni, Onya McCausland and Andrea McLean.

Celebrating the developments within contemporary printmaking practice including etchings, monoprints, lithographs, woodblocks, silkscreens and three-dimensional digital prints, this collection explores the way in which traditional techniques have evolved and examines some of the new technologies which are offering artists ever-changing methods of producing work.

The RA describe Verran’s work:

“Verran’s intuitive line creates boundaries and demarcations, repetitive patterning, and graphic symbols. These etchings explore a multifarious space with multiple viewpoints.

Primarily a painter, Verran’s imagery evokes layered and atmospheric space in which there are suggestions of peripheral movement; both human and mechanical. Her work also utilises symbols that suggest a darker preoccupation with global anxieties and fears of war and dislocation.”

The Edge of Printing is the fourth in a series of exhibitions presenting limited editions and unique works for sale, online and onsite, by Royal Academicians and other significant contemporary artists.

Win for India Durban, Fine Art student

One of our BA(Hons) Fine Art students, India Durban, has won the very first Student Discovery Competition at the Cornwall Art Fair.  Her work The 3rd Driving Test was awarded first place by the selection committee.

Alumni selected for John Moores Painting Prize

(C) Laurence Owen, Ritual to the Westfield, 2015, Oil and collage on canvas with glazed ceramic pins (236 x 360cm)

We’re delighted to announce that an alumnus of BA(Hons) Fine Art, Laurence Owen is one of 54 artists selected from 2,500 entries for this year’s prestigious John Moores Painting Prize.

Born in Gloucester, Owen graduated from BA(Hons) Fine Art at Falmouth in 2005 and later studied at the Royal Academy Schools in London, where he now lives and works. His works has featured in group, and some solo exhibitions, in London, Manchester, Surrey, York, Colchester, and Mexico.

Owen’s selected painting Ritual to the Westfield will be exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery (9 July – 27 November) with other selected artists as part of the Liverpool Biennial 2016.

Submission for the prize is open to all painters in the UK. Works for the exhibition are selected anonymously. This year’s jurors are Gillian Carnegie, Richard Davey, Ansel Krut, Phoebe Unwin and Ding Yi.

The overall winner will receive £25,000, with four further prizes of £2,500 also awarded. The names of the five shortlisted prize winners will be announced in June 2016, with the overall winner revealed on 7 July 2016.

www.laurenceowenart.com

Fine Art student Michael Cox selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2016

Michael Cox, a third year BA(Hons) Fine Art student has been announced as one of the 46 artists chosen for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2016, an annual open submission exhibition.

Michael has submitted an oil on canvas painting titled De Beauvoir which can be viewed by following this link to the New Contemporaries website: Michael Cox

The panel of guest selectors this year comprised Anya Gallaccio, Alan Kane and Haroon Mirza.  Kirsty Ogg, Director, New Contemporaries says “The panel this year were impressed by the breadth of work and critical sense demonstrated, with the resulting exhibition set to profile a cross-section of the most dynamic work to come out of British art schools.”

The national touring exhibition will launch from 09 July to 16 October 2016 at Bluecoat, Liverpool.

Falmouth School of Art Intensives – short summer courses for artists

 

Cornwall Today magazine has featured two of the artists who participated in the Falmouth School of Art Intensives last summer, Judith Brenner and Carys Wilson.

Application is now open (until 29 April) for the 2016 Intensives, five-day courses for artists, practitioners and art educators, delivered at our beautiful Falmouth Campus.

Choose from Abstract Painting, Figure Painting or Drawing. For application form and full details: www.falmouth.ac.uk/fsaintensives

 

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.

Intensive short courses this summer at Falmouth School of Art

The Falmouth School of Art Intensives are back!… 

This summer, Falmouth School of Art is delighted to offer a choice of three intensive five-day courses for practitioners and art educators, delivered by some of Cornwall’s leading artists. All run at Falmouth Campus from 4-8 July and the deadline for application is 29 April 2016.

This year, choose from: Abstract Painting (tutors Simon Averill and Mark Surridge), Figure Painting (tutors Ashley Hold and Jesse Leroy Smith), and Drawing (delivered by the team behind our popular BA(Hons) Drawing course.

As well as generous studio time, the Intensives include daily one-to-one input from expert tutors, tutorials, group discussions and practical sessions and social time.

For more details and to apply: www.falmouth.ac.uk/fsaintensives   

What last year’s Intensives participants say:

“This was a well organised and thoroughly enjoyable week. I very much enjoyed and benefited from talking to the tutors. I came away from this feeling like I had undertaken an MA in a week”.

“The course gave me the time and space to really think through making. This resulted in my work shifting and improving quite radically in five days…and allowed me to develop strategies to tie together various strands into my work more successfully”.

“It has helped me put my work into a contemporary context, helped me focus my ideas and practice and given me a boost of energy and inspiration”.

 

Observations – drawings by Falmouth School of Art Staff

Observations – an exhibition of drawings by staff of Falmouth School of Art

Reflecting the ways in which observational drawing, often combined with memory, imagination and invention, informs a range of practice.

Selected from an open submission by staff of Falmouth School of Art’s courses, staff exhibiting are: Gemma Anderson, Claire Armitage, Simon Averill, Neil Chapman, Jane Chetwynd, Mark Foreman, Glad Fryer, Becky Haughton, Ashley Hold, Phil Naylor, Isolde Pullum, Jesse Leroy Smith, Mark Surridge, Roger Towndrow, Virginia Verran, Lucy Willow and Gillian Wylde.

  

02-12 February, Monday to Friday 10am – 4pm, the Project Space, Falmouth Campus – open to the public

The Falmouth School of Art Intensives – summer courses 2016

The Falmouth School of Art is pleased to announce a cluster of focused five-day Intensives delivered by its specialist tutors. Intensive courses in Abstract Painting, Figure Painting and Drawing offer practicing visual artists and art educators an opportunity to make a step change in their work this summer.

Supported by daily one-to-one input from the School’s expert tutors – including some of Cornwall’s leading artists – participants can take part in studio tutorials, group discussions and practical sessions. Working alongside other practitioners in well-appointed studios and workshops in a unique subtropical garden setting, all conveniently close to Falmouth’s vibrant town centre and glorious beaches – we feel there can’t be a better place for concentrated creative activity.

Dr. Ginny Button, Director of the Falmouth School of Art, comments: ‘The School of Art is hugely popular with our students – understandably so, thanks to its unique combination of beautiful location, great facilities, inspiring legacy, pedagogic excellence and friendly, supportive atmosphere. I’m delighted to be able to open up our facilities to practitioners who want to further develop their work and their professional networks too’.

Former Intensives students’ testimonials:

“This was a well organised and thoroughly enjoyable week. I very much enjoyed and benefitted from talking to the tutors. I came away from this feeling like I had undertaken an MA in a week”.

“The course gave me the time and space to really think through making. This resulted in my work shifting and improving quite radically in five days…and allowed me to develop strategies to tie together various strands into my work more successfully”.

“It has helped me put my work into a contemporary context, helped me focus my ideas and practice and given me a boost of energy and inspiration”.

For more details about the courses and tutors, and to apply: www.falmouth.ac.uk/fsaintensives

Other queries: schoolofArt@falmouth.ac.uk or phone us on +44 (0)1326 370432

 

 

Five minutes with… Ashley Hold, MA, RWA

Ashley Hold is an artist based in Falmouth, a Royal West of England Academician, and an alumnus and Associate Lecturer of Falmouth School of Art at Falmouth University.

What are your current obsessions?

I’m currently finishing a large and fairly complicated painting based on the nocturnal landscape, a subject that has been an obsession since I was at school. My other long-term obsession is piano music; I am currently working on Chopin’s Ballades, nos 1 & 3.  I have always loved photography and have recently started making videos documenting my hiking, rafting and climbing adventures; I get really obsessed with the editing process.

What is your first art memory?

My family had no interest in the arts but I grew up on Woodlane, next-door to Falmouth School of Art, and as a youngster I used to play in, and around the Woodlane campus, wandering through the studios, where I’d see some of the weird and wonderful things students were making.

(c) Ashley Hold, Trelawney Avenue, Spring, 2004, 95 x 122cm, oil on board

What is your relationship with Cornwall and how does it impact on your practice?

I’m a native of Falmouth. I grew up in a house on Trelawney Avenue and as a child would climb the garden wall to peer into the garden of Belmont House, which is where I now do most of my teaching. My experience of the landscape and light is right at the heart of my practice, though, mainly because it is an environment I am deeply connected to, through family and personal history.

Tell me about the last exhibition that stayed with you:

Karen, (c) William Ashley Hold; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

I had the good fortune to visit the painter Antonio Lopez last year and was as impressed by his modesty and candour as I was by the mastery, integrity and commitment of his work. Hence, I was keen to visit an exhibition at the Palacio Real in Madrid, which traced the history of portraits of the Spanish royal family, with wonderful paintings by Velazquez and Goya, ending with a huge group-portrait of the current, beleaguered royal family, painted by Lopez over a period of twenty years.

On first glance the huge, light-filled canvas seemed to fulfill my apprehension of a panegyric to a royal family whose reputation has recently suffered as the result of a series of public scandals. But I quickly realized Lopez’s acute observation extends well beyond the painterly concerns of space, light and surface; as well as the familial bonds, the tensions and psychological stresses are clearly visible; the spaces between the figures, like seismic fractures, offer a perceptive commentary on familial dysfunction. For me the undefined spatial context of the family group, painted in broad washes of light tones, suggest uncertainty about the role and status of royalty.

 Ashley has exhibited in the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery, The Hunting Arts Prizes at the RCA, The Discerning Eye and The Royal Society of Portrait Painters at the Mall Galleries. he has been awarded prizes from the Mall Gallery and The Hunting Art Prize.

Ashley will be one of the tutors leading the Figure Painting strand of the Falmouth School of Art Intensives, 6-10 July 2015 – www.falmouth.ac.uk/fsaintensives 

Reflections on the Spike Island Residency

2014 BA(Hons) Fine Art graduate Ed Hill was awarded the Spike Island Residency, following his studies. Here he shares with current students of the course his reflections on the experience…

Working at Spike Island for three months allowed me to continue the momentum of working post graduation. In my case, this meant painting.

Ed Hill’s Spike Island studio space

The Residency studio was big and situated among other artists’ studios. After moving timber, paint, canvas and stretchers into my space, I shared the studio with three other recent graduates. With 24/7 access, you are free to come and go anytime, day or night. I enjoyed the access to a wood workshop – where I made stretchers, (there is also a metal workshop and plenty of room for larger scale projects).

The atmosphere was very professional, and it was a realistic and beneficial experience of a totally independent way of working outside of art school. I made paintings for a show, and without the studio, facilities and space it would have been much more challenging to do so.

‘At the beach (after Mr and Mrs Andrews)’ 100x100cm, oil on canvas

If you are hoping to carry on working on art projects after graduating, and if you are serious about being artist, the residency is something to aim for – it will provide space, facilities and an opportunity to continue momentum in an art environment at a time when it is increasingly hard to do so. I recommend applying for the residency.

Edward Hill, Standing on a Rock

Ed Hill was one of four Falmouth alumni selected for the 2014 Bloomberg New Contemporaries which, having toured to Liverpool and London, will be on display at Newlyn and the Exchange Galleries from 21 March – 30 May 2015. You can see Ed’s work as part of that exhibition. Ed was also the recipient of The Falmouth School of Art Purchase Prize 2014 for his Bloomberg-selected piece Standing on a Rock.

Pause Collective – Falmouth Fine Art graduates at Manchester’s Kraak Gallery

Pause Collective is a group of three 2014 graduates of Falmouth’s BA(Hon) Fine Art. They have recently held a group show featuring work by ten 2014 Falmouth Fine Art graduates at Kraak Gallery in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, and we’re pleased to share with you their write-up of the exhibition…

The opening night was a busy and vibrant event, with several other artistic events happening that weekend in the city. Falmouth alumni gathered to support the event, as well as Manchester residents and art students from local colleges. The Kraak Gallery is in the heart of the busy city and the artists were carefully selected to interrupt the speed and activity outside and to create a still and quiet moment. The exhibition felt like something of an unexpected discovery; the gallery is somewhat tucked away, and once people arrived, several commented that they did not want to leave. It was a space of sanctuary amongst all the clamour of the city, inviting the audience into its contemplative silence.

On entering the space, you were immediately met with Ashley Sheekey’s strikingly minimal piece Entrance, Exit, a corridor-like sculpture made up of white ceiling tiles. This piece acted as an entrance to the rest of the exhibition, first leading on to the melancholic landscapes of Ryan Joucla and Helen Carter. The landscapes of both Carter and Joucla are ambiguous and cannot be immediately placed, but rather require the audience’s time and attention to journey through them. Lizzy Barnes exhibited delicate prints embossed with architectural shapes that, at first glance, could have appeared to be blank sheets of paper. Round the other side of the space, were Emily Naish’s animations of a bee struggling against the raging sea, caught in a lighthouse beam.

Rose-Marie Caldecott showed her piece Drafting Illusion; flyaway prints on Japanese paper hold a landscape that disappears amongst abstract marks, all trapped beneath a resin block. This sat between Matthew Cotton’s Automated Drawing series, drawings made up of hundreds of delicate circles to create hazy abstract formations. The final wall showed Emily Cranny, Alexander Heath and Lucia Jones. Cranny showed drawings that make use of brighter collage among the mesh of graphite marks; Jones exhibited iPad constructs, where she has worked into photographs digitally with painterly sensibilities. Heath’s paintings, East of Eden, were inspired by John Steinbeck’s novel, and depict large scale semi-abstract figures in bold colours and shapes, but the pieces still retain a quiet attention to detail, with a focus on the surface of the canvas.

The works all held greater depth than could be perceived at first glance. To really experience the work required a full mental immersion; a quiet escape from the busy world outside. These quiet works, that might sometimes be overlooked, were given an opportunity here to speak and be heard. Entering the space was an escape but at the end of the day, we all had to exit back to the loud and bustling reality of Manchester, but hopefully carrying a piece of that quiet with us.

pausecollective.tumblr.com

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.

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

Brian Cheeswright and Ed Hill: Two Painters

Brian Cheeswright and Ed Hill: Two Painters

2 October – 9 November 2014
The Gallery at Idea Store Whitechapel invites you to a joint exhibition by two painters Brian Cheeswright and recent Falmouth Fine Art graduate Ed Hill.

Ed Hill aims to make atmospheric paintings, imbued with an elusive mystery and warmth. The subject matter used to inform his paintings can vary; sketches from life, personal photographs and memories and painting history can all inform an idea. Cultural phenomena such as film, music, literature and comic books also provide inspiration. A recurring theme in his work is the allusion to far-away places, perhaps a memory from childhood, a personal depiction of a place or ‘thing’ once visited or witnessed, an experience or sensation. It could be a semi-fictional invention or a borrowed story from a relative. He is drawn to images which contain strangeness, humour and a tragi-comic element.

Ed’s recent exhibitions include ‘Paint Like You Mean It’, Interview Room 11, Edinburgh and ‘Test Space Open’, Spike Island, Bristol. Upcoming Exhibitions Include ‘Bloomberg New Contemporaries’, World Museum Liverpool/ICA London (2014), and ‘Mr and Mrs Andrews’, Transition Gallery (2014). Ed was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2014.

London born painter Brian Cheeswright is taking stock of his output and pondering the curious geography of lines and marks and wrong turns he has mapped out for himself – adventures carried out in the living room of his Edinburgh flat. Cheeswright’s modest-sized figurative paintings are concerned with vulnerability, anxiety, and the idea of each man or woman as stuck on an island, tentatively sending out a message in a bottle or clambering into ramshackle rafts to try and reach each other. His cast of characters often originate in books or dreams, though increasingly he is turning towards his own childhood and adolescent biography for inspiration. Cheeswright’s style has lurched, back-stepped and stumbled between the expressive, the gestural and the romantic, the cynical and the absurd.

Brian Cheeswright (b.1978) lives and works in Edinburgh. Studied at Brighton School of Art, graduating in 2004. Recent exhibitions include, ‘Draw In’, St Margaret’s House, Edinburgh (2014), ‘Artworks Open’, Barbican Arts group Trust, London (2014), ‘Paint Like You Mean It’, Interview Room 11, Edinburgh (2014) and ‘Marmite Painting Prize IV’, various venues (2013). Cheeswright was the winner of ‘Marmite Painting Prize IV’ in 2013.

 

Fine Art alumni success in Glyndebourne’s 2014 Art Competition

The Glyndebourne opera house has announced the winners of its 2014 Tour Art Competition, and securing third place is Alex Jabore, BA(Hons) Fine Art graduate.  Alex, who is passionate about opera, specialises in traditional oil painting and is currently London-based.  Alex’s work entitled ‘The Finale’ focuses on Violetta’s death and its tragic finality.

It was reported that the standard of submissions for the competition was incredibly high.  Artists from across the UK submitted outstanding pieces inspired by Verdi’s La traviata, one of three Glyndebourne operas that will tour the country from October to December.

Glyndebourne will launch its 2014 Tour on 04 October and the winning artists will see their work exhibited in the Stalls Gallery at Glyndebourne from 4-26 October 2014.

Unsettled

Unsettled, an exhibition of paintings, drawings, words and actions by 11 artists and writers. All are artists and writers are all lecturers in BA(Hons) Fine Art at Falmouth University – Simon Averill, Neil Chapman, Glad Fryer, Mercedes Kemp, Neil McLeod, Kate Southworth, Mark Surridge, Roger Towndrow, Lucy Willow, Lisa Wright, and Gillian Wylde.

September 5 – September 18, Enys House & Gardens, St Gluvias, TR10 9LB Penryn, Cornwall

https://www.facebook.com/UnsettledArtEnys

Saatchi New Sensations long-list

Rose-Marie-Caldecott, A Debate.

BA(Hons) Fine Art alumni Rose-Marie Caldecott and Emily Cranny have made the Saatchi New Sensations longlist. Widely regarded as the UK’s most important annual prize for emerging artists, it prioritises talent and imagination, providing an international platform.

This, the eighth year of the prize, saw submissions from hundreds of art students preparing to graduate from both undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the UK and Republic of Ireland. Nominated by Saatchi Art curators, the longlist reflects the highest calibre of work.

Rose-Marie commented on her selection, “It was a great honour to find out that I had been nominated. To have the recognition from the Saatchi Gallery, which many call the hub of the modern art world, has given me a confidence and drive which is very valuable at this stage of my career.”

Emily Cranny, Arid and Salty

Equally delighted, Emily added, “The news was quite a surprise! I’m tremendously pleased and grateful to have been nominated. It’s a great boost as I continue with my practice.”

Rose-Marie is currently enjoying her first solo exhibition at Oxford’s Art Jericho. Titled, The Radiance of Being, the show runs until September. Emily is also continuing her work and has plans to return to university for postgraduate study.

The Saatchi New Sensations shortlist will be selected by a panel of judges and announced in September. All shortlisted works will be profiled in the New Sensations’ exhibition this October at a 22,000 square-foot venue represented by Location House, London.

Falmouth Fine Artist selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries

Huge congratulations to Edward Hill, final year BA(Hons) Fine Art student, who has been selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2014.  This is a fantastic achievement for Edward, and will no doubt put him in an excellent position to continue his practice after graduation from Falmouth.

Edward Hill, Standing On A Rock

Edward, who also completed his Foundation in Art and Design at Falmouth, says, “I aim to make atmospheric paintings, imbued with an elusive mystery and warmth. Sketches from life, personal photographs, found photographs, references to painting history and memory can all inform an idea. An ongoing theme references faraway places, be it in memories of childhood pursuits or from travels. I am drawn to subjects which contain strangeness or a humour/tragic-comic element.”

Three of Edward’s paintings have been chosen for New Contemporaries. These, together with his new work, will be on display at the BA(Hons) Fine Art Degree Show in Falmouth in June. Edward’s work will also appear in an exhibition with Brian Cheeswright (winner of the Marmite Prize for Painting 2013) at Idea Store in London running from 9 October to 9 November, 2014.

Edward has also been selected to exhibit in a group show, Paint Like You Mean It, at Interview Room 11 (IR11) in Edinburgh during May 2014, and has been long-listed for a publication by the same gallery for his work Jumping Cholla (oil on linen, 2013).

Three other BA(Hons) Fine Art alumni from previous years – Stacey Guthrie, Melissa Kime and Frances Williams – have also been selected – congratulations to them all!

From Fine Art at Falmouth to Animation at the RCA

Oscar Lewis

 

Oscar Lewis, a  Falmouth Fine Art alumnus, has been accepted onto an Animation course at the Royal College of Art in London this autumn.  Whilst studying in his second year at Falmouth, Oscar took a bold move and transitioned from painting into animation, needless to say it was a huge step for Oscar, but one which has certainly paid off.  Oscar thanked his Falmouth tutors for their encouragement and direction through his time at Falmouth, and we are delighted for Oscar and wish him all the best with his blossoming career.

Exhibition by Falmouth Fine Art Senior Lecturer Simon Averill

Senior Lecturer on BA(Hons) Fine Art, Simon Averill, has a new exhibition – Splitter – opening at Millennium Gallery in St. Ives on 7 February.

‘I’m trying to imagine light as something tangible; as if you could pick it up and hold it in the palm of your hand; this is the territory where what has been seen, memory and the imagined co-exist’ (Simon Averill, 2014).

Splitter, (c) Simon Averill

The Millennium Gallery’s website hosts an online exhibition catalogue, which includes an introductory essay by fellow Falmouth Fine Art Senior Lecturer, Gillian Wylde.

The exhibition runs until 11 March.

nb: The Millennium Gallery is now Anima-Mundi

Fine Art Graduate invited to show in London Exhibition

Congratulations to Sam Houston, BA(Hons) Fine Art graduate, who has been invited to show a piece of work titled Persist in the ‘Federation of British Artists Futures‘ exhibition, taking place at the Mall Galleries, London.  The exhibition features ‘outstanding art graduates from 2013’. “I’m delighted to be selected for this exhibition, and I’m really looking forward to it,” said Sam.  He added that the exposure gained from the ‘Now Falmouth’ exhibition, which also took place in London, organised by his fellow Fine Art students, secured his invitation into the FBA Futures exhibition.

‘Persist’ by Sam Houston

Since graduating from Falmouth, Sam has been continuing his practice, exhibiting in galleries nationwide.  In February, Sam will be exhibiting among fellow Fine Art graduates in an exhibition titled ‘New Beginnings’ at Porthminster Gallery in St Ives.  Sam said “I’m really excited to return to Cornwall and see everyone again,” adding, “Falmouth gave me the knowledge and confidence to keep working and experimenting, and time is showing that hard work does pay off eventually.  Falmouth’s reputation has helped me along the way, and I have to thank all the tutors for all their support”.

The FBA Futures exhibition takes place between 21 January – 25 January 2014.   Work online from 17 January at: http://mallgalleries-shows.com/

The ‘New Beginnings’ exhibition takes place between 08 February – 01 March 2014.

Fine Art Lecturer Virginia Verran, Axisweb Artist of the Month

BA(Hons)  Fine Art Lecturer Virginia Verran has been selected as Axisweb Artist of the Month for November 2013. Virginia is a painter based in London. She teaches at Falmouth University, Chelsea College of Art and Design and the Slade School of Art. In 2010 she won the Jerwood Drawing Prize and has work held in a number of public collections including Arts Council England, Barclays Capital (Dubai) and Israel Phoenix Assurance (Israel). Virginia will be showing work with Axisweb at the London Art Fair in January 2014. To read an interview with Virginia please click here.