White out!

Snow has brought much to a standstill here in Falmouth…Our campuses are currently closed, no teaching is taking place today. Snow on this scale is very unusual for Cornwall, so a bit of an event. With routes leading to our campuses treacherous with ice and compacted snow and buses stopping service due to road conditions, our staff and student safety means business as usual isn’t possible today. However…snow shots from yesterday!…

Photo by Sami Saunders (pictured, from BA Drawing, l-r, Abigail Saunders, William Trewartha-Jones, Charlotte Jones, Meg Fatharly, Bryony Kemp and Constança Sardinha)

BA Drawing students, constructing

Eek!

Falmouth Campus drive – possibly the clearest path in Falmouth!

Visitor to the Printmaking Studios

Magical Belmont Gardens

Cornish palms strangely suit a snow covering.

 

 

Upcoming Exhibition: Becky Haughton, Senior Technician

Becky Haughton, Senior Technician for the Falmouth School of Art will soon be exhibiting a selection of screen prints and photo etchings in the Picture Room at Newlyn Art Gallery.  Becky’s screen prints explore the landscape through the layering and morphing of drawings.  The exhibition will run from 01 – 30 July 2016.

There is an opening night on Thursday 30 June from 6.30pm which also marks the start of the summer exhibition across both Newlyn and the Exchange Galleries by artist Imran Quereshi, who will also be giving an introduction to his work at the opening at 7pm.

The Picture Room at Newlyn Art Gallery shows changing exhibitions of work for sale by some of the region’s most recognised artists.  The Picture Room offers the opportunity to purchase paintings, prints and drawings with the profits from sales made directly supporting the Gallery’s education and exhibition activities.

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.

Printmaking Students and Staff Exhibit in China

Falmouth School of Art printmaking students and staff took part in an art project with Norwich University. The resulting work is being published and exhibited at the Impact 9 International conference at The China Academy of Arts in Hangzhou this week from the 22nd until the 26th of September. 

The project is a collaborative portfolio of limited edition works produced in response to a broad theme in a 35cm x 25cm format which is produced to tie in with the IMPACT conferences (International Multi-disciplinary Printmaking, Artists, Concepts and Techniques).

‘The aim remains to promote the democracy of printed multiples and to provide scope for cultural exchange. It has also provided impetus for students to engage with print methods and materials, both digital and manual…Art schools that have sensibly held on to their print workshops are now in a position to embrace the hybrid nature of print and to make works that embrace the relaxed mode of existence and production within the post internet landscape… This year staff and students from Falmouth University have joined us at Norwich University of The Arts in a collaborative venture. With Norwich in the extreme east of the UK and Falmouth near the westerly extremity of the country. East / West unfolds as a metaphor encompassing relative distance and geographic location. Taking into account the exposition of the finished project at Impact 9 International Printmaking Conference at the China Academy of Arts, Hangzhou in September 201, the metaphor takes on a global significance’. 

Carl Rowe , Course Leader BA Fine Art, Norwich University of the Arts 2015. 

Here’s a link to the work on show: INTERNATIONAL PRINT PORTFOLIO

Organic Chaos

Megan Fatharly has just completed her Foundation Diploma in Art & Design at Falmouth School of Art and is about to commence on our BA(Hons) Drawing course.  From 10 September to 10 October her work from her foundation course will be exhibited on the London Arts Board. Megan says, it is “a rather unconventional way to have my work displayed but I am thrilled to have been asked.”

Megan’s inspiration come from the outside environment, the patterns and repetitive marks found on trees, stones and the shapes within the landscape. She recreates these patterns through texture, colour and mark-making often using printmaking techniques, “I have a love for the process of printmaking as I have a very chaotic, fast paced way of working.  I find the method of working meditative and repetitive which slows me down and helps me refine my ideas.”

You can see more of her work here.

And you can read her blog of interviews with artists and reviews of exhibitions at http://megansartspace.blogspot.co.uk

You can view the exhibition here: http://londonartsboard.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/organic-chaos.html

Or in person on the corner of Vestry Road and Peckham Road.

Senior Print Technician exhibits in New York

Bianca Cork, Printmaking Technician in The Falmouth School of Art, was recently supported by the School to attend the 2014 Print Week in New York, where her work had been selected for the exhibition Somewhere and Nowhere at the International Print Center…

The IFPDA Print Fair

I was recently given the opportunity of attending and exhibiting at the 2014 Print Week in New York. During Print Week, galleries around the city host lectures, exhibitions and openings focused on printmaking and its vitality as an artistic practice.

One of the highlights of the week was the International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) Print Fair, which featured around 90 exhibitors presenting fine art prints. The show was hosted at The Park Avenue Armory – part palace, part industrial shed – a breathtaking venue in which to view comprehensive and dynamic print works both past and present.

(c) Bianca Cork, Graving Docks, 2014. 68 x 95cm. Original print in a series of 4. Monotype, relief print, screen print.

The Autumn Exhibition at The International Print Center New York (IPCNY) opened during the week of my visit. The exhibition consisted of fifty projects by different artists, selected from over 4,000 prints.

The aim of the show was to promote the greater appreciation and comprehension of fine art print. The work I exhibited within the IPCNY was entitled Graving Docks. It is a study of Falmouth dockyards, combining a range of printmaking processes including mono-type, relief printing from heavily etched steel plates and screen-printing from hand drawn positives.

Whilst in new York, I viewed the collections of many galleries and attended relevant private views; and as well as IFPDA and IPCNY, visited The Met, Guggenheim, MOMA, Pace Prints, The Old Print Shop, New York Public Library, Wave Hill and Paula Cooper Gallery. I engaged with artists, collectors and curators and saw other printmaking studios, which were insightful and gave me a good feel for what is relevant and popular within contemporary printmaking.

I saw the printmaking process used in conjunction with new technologies, processes both traditional and non-traditional merging. This is an exciting way of working and I aim to encourage others to approach their printmaking experimentally. Printmaking doesn’t have to be limited to a 2D surface; my trip showed me prints exhibited within any number of surfaces, including paintings and sculptures.

Now that I have returned to Falmouth, I am looking forward to collating and imparting all that I have seen and learnt.

• www.biancacork.com
• For more of Bianca’s photographs of printmaking and New York: Instagram
• Printmaking at Falmouth: Facebook

Before joining The Falmouth School of Art staff as Printmaking Technician, Bianca studied at Glasgow School of Art and The University of Brighton, and completed her MA in Fine Art Contemporary Practice at Falmouth in 2012.

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

Becky Haughton at Port of Tyne Gallery, Tyne & Wear

Falmouth University’s Senior Techician in printmaking, Becky Haughton, is exhibiting in the Port of Tyne Gallery at The Customs House in South Shields, Tyne & Wear.  The exhibition started on 27 June 2014 and is running until 10 August 2014.  The exhibition is taking place as part of the International Print Biennale.