I have managed to see painting and sculpture only. The tenor of the exhibited work was to make visual thoughts accessible in some familiar material that should move the viewer to relinquish the fear of the new. Sufficiently different from the rest but not outrageously so. Sufficiently different from each other the paintings and sculptures are embedded in each artist’s aesthetic norm and choice whether to create dangerously or not. The exhibits were visual conversation between the graduates and the current art world, inclusive of the university staff. It reminded me of Michael Oakeshott’s thoughts about the universities engagement and goal: the goal of this engagement is not found in checklist of things every educated person should know but in fostering of intellectual and emotional maturity. Education should be a many-sided conversation that requires a quiet self-confidence and genuine self-understanding on the part of both teacher and student. (see Timothy Fuller, ed, The voice of liberal education, Michael Oakeshott on education, Yale University press, 1990)
The following sample is in conversation with the history of art, one’s powers of observation, invention and decision making, and with the material and place at hand. These graduates are not on ego trips for the shock of the new. Reviving both mute poetry and enchanting fantasy they bond ideas and skills with absurd calm memorial to visual thinking.
James Speers chose two continuous roles of paper for two different set of discontinuous marks: every one stands on its own, be it a vividly coloured shape or black parallels. Reminiscent of the musicality of a Klee and a Kandinsky the compositions are fine tuned configurations of figures on empty white space. The connectivity between the two is subtle but insistent. To place so fragile drawings on a monumental scale in front of the view over the roofs of a city is a sign of confidence. And yes they both allow the reality to flow in between them and create their own presence. Equivalent presence.
Baroque and Ensor used those hot clouds of hues which appear on most of large paintings by Aimee Melaugh. Her exquisite ability to layer hues over each other, makes convincing the atmosphere’s power to dissolve the description into an apparition.
e.g. Coalshed, 2018, oil on canvas, 200x 200 cm
Her website does not allow to copy and paste her images, click on https://aimeemelaughart.wixsite.com/artist
Amy Whittle cherishes landscape in direct challenge to tradition of P Henry starting from pencil sketch to hold the composition and the subvert it by dreamy hues drank of own tonality -so that straight lines appear to direct the sight.
Sunken Road, 2018, oil on canvas, 130×170 cm
For better detail please click on https://amywhittleartist.wixsite.com/mysite
Atilla Szabo
Serenade by the Random, 2018, mixed media
Ingenuity, love for art and technology, feeds Szabo’s insatiable love of sound art – that comes across both ans drive to invention and respect for all the parts of of the process. Immaculate devotion, attention, sheer hard labour celebrate togetherness. The produced sound carries its own natural beauty, like water trickling in a small brook would do.
water circulates, fils the cups, turns them upside down, water reaches the sound plates …
Work in progress is a development of the second exhibit at the degree show, that recorded to persons’ heart beat in conversation: https://youtu.be/PZ_P95WSfJA
Below unfinished Conversation of hearts.
He wrote the following:
This piece I am currently working on is the most challenging one I have done so far. Although the work is still in progress, it will read two people’s heart rate and copy the rhythm to allow their hearts to “communicate”.
see more on http://szattla.wixsite.com/attilaszabo
With regret, I have no image, nor link, at present, for an intriguing intelligent elegant subtractions in pen or pencil by Richard J Canning – reminiscent of some characteristics in the drawings by Brian Fay.
Addendum after the above was published.Last evening I got a gift of those “missing” images. A follow up post is in a separate post.
Slavka Sverakova 