In Postgraduate Showcase 39 students following the MLitt in Fine Art practice programme are showing work in a wide range of media – from paintings to photography, sculptural works and screen printed “maps”.
Alexander Anderson, Whiskers and Feathers
My deepening encounter of this place is informed by the memory of my mother’s words about the desert, and a desire to honour her through my work in her land
Alexander Anderson
At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and with the resulting lockdowns, American artist Alexander Andersontook refuge in the childhood home of his late mother in Phoenix, Arizona. There he engaged with the remarkable landscape of the Sonora Desert andfrequented an art sanctuary The Land With No Name located in the high desert grasslands of occupied Tohono O’odham ancestral lands.
“In listening to the wind, people throughout the ages have reached to hear the voice and breath of God to point or guide them in certain directions. People speak of going where the wind takes us, to succumb to the will and power of the forces of the greater universe, and to honour and respect its origin. In its physicality, wind originates from earth herself, a voice of Mother Nature, a wellspring from the Motherland. I like to think of this as an ephemeral presentation of a guiding force, not dissimilar to the voice of a nurturing parent. As I sit in the realities of both global and personal loss, I believe there is access to an ancient knowledge in the gesture of visually capturing something that is both powerful and fleeting, an attempt to transcribe the invisible and intelligible conversations between the heavens and the earth.”
Claire Kidd – Times of Entanglement
I have spent much of this year lost and I quite like where I have found myself.
Claire Kidd
Claire Kidd’s practice seeks to explore the surreality and magic found in travel and in the disorientation that the pandemic has brought to all of our lives. Visiting Pakistan and farming saline crops in the remote Glenshiel area during the pandemic were the source of her own discombobulation and it is from these experiences that her body of work was created and informed.
“I have spent this year tip-toeing between reality and absurdity, between familiarity and the foreign, between myself and others. I have never fully committed myself to any side, instead finding compassion in the space between polarities. Through the painting of vivid, complex and uncanny compositions, I engage others in moments of reverie and compassion. I welcome them into unreal places and help them “vault the mere blue air” that Toni Morrison suggests to be between ourselves and others.”
“I have been creating these pieces mainly through screen-printing on multiple surfaces such as paper, canvas, perspex, wood and sandpaper. I also discovered a new interest in stone lithography but due to COVID-19 and not being able to have access to the studio and workshops, my methods have had to change. For the final part of my degree I have been mono-printing (using a silkscreen), drawing and stitching.”
Louise Stewart, The Town,
Louise Stewart’s work focuses on map making focusing on three areas that she have lived in: Whitchurch, Liverpool and Glasgow. The maps are based on either memories of areas (past), on walking and drawing simultaneously in an area and then using those drawings to create prints (present) or on predictions of what could change (future). “The ‘past’ maps are a mixture of memories and stories I’ve been told and have elements of childhood drawings overlapping them. The ‘present’ maps contain more words, thoughts of journeys and conversations on them. The images are also influenced by lockdown and how this changes the outlook on an area. Finally, the ‘future’ maps are questioning what will change in these strange times? and the hopes I have for the future.”
Niamh McGuiness Vessel No 3 Dripping Triptych
Niamh McGuinness’swork is primarily concerned with place and time. It is also a response to having to abruptly return to her rural childhood home in the west of Ireland from Glasgow city as a result of the pandemic.
“This work is an attempt to visually explore heritage as empathy. It is based on the many Holy Wells and Grottos that are common in rural Ireland. These sculptural vessels, from construction to ruination, are an attempt to narrate the transferal of the energies that linger in these ancient places of worship. Borrowing from the architecture of these sites, these vessels are constructed in a pure form and then intentionally stained and sullied. Natural inks and elixir like liquids flow from one vessel to the other, leaving diaphanous and permanent stains on the structure.”
Shilei Fan, Remote and Connected
Chinese artist Shilei Fan has a wide range of the exploration of art, his artworks include installation art, video, oil painting, photography and more. His distinctive personal style emanates nostalgic emotions and oppressions, while expressing the cultural dilemma and cultural autonomy under globalization.
Thomas Graystone, Floorplan
My recent work has been rooted in coming to terms with lockdown,
and thinking a lot about my own domestic environment,
and how to present work at a time of separation.
Thomas Graystone
Thomas Graystone has built a 3D rendered digital tenement, that incorporates video game based elements to allow movement through the space. It is a reproduction of his flat, filled with uncanny experimentations, manipulated 3D objects, video projections, and gateways to the physical. Within the space there are hyperlinked objects that take viewers to a contact form, which offers the opportunity to be sent, in the post, a variety of physical objects the artist has made.
“I have wanted to consider how to break down the boundary of the screen in a time where we are, more or less, restricted by it. I want to create a very direct dialogue with the viewer, a chance to experience an assumed tactility of the objects within the digital space, and more of a link with the anonymous maker behind the screen.”
