Media Event: Art on New and Mass Media
Text by Laramie Shubber
Photography by Jack Nelson

Last Tuesday saw the opening of an art exhibition about new and mass media by Fine Art students at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. With stigma already attached to the media, creating an original and captivating exhibition was going to be a challenge but curator Jack Nelson, along with six fellow artists, pulled it off.

Yulong Wang used video to present poetic messages. He employed digital manipulation to make his actors into extensions of himself and gain ‘control’ of their interaction.

James Ravinet presented five photographic prints, which, according to Ravinet, present “aesthetically stimulated questions towards digital and physical construction, [examining] what’s real and what’s not.”

Yasmin Maksousa took a comical approach; she presented media images with beards. Of her work, Maksousa states: “I’m drawing a comparison as to what it means to be a journalist and how this affects our sexual behaviour.”

Lindsay McMillan and Bradley Steptoe joined forces and presented a hilarious film installation showing a dispute over money between Bradley and eBay user ‘pjbj43.’ The secretly captured footage was presented in a re-creation of the living room setting at the time.

A degradation process was shown in Arthur Girault’s etchings. Each plate was dipped in an acid bath, which modified the plate and the image, highlighting how consumerism is affecting our health.

Jack Nelson displayed work which looked at the disregard for nature’s power. His installation entitled Vacation acted as a reminder that whilst we revel in technology, nature is the world’s ruling force.

Speaking about the exhibition more broadly, Nelson says: “This show comes at a time when the ‘developed’ world is increasingly dependent on modern technology and continuously seduced by the visions of advertising, videogames and TV shows.”

It was a great night that had added entertainment from up-and-coming musical talent Heptathlon, as well as the fresh takes on the many forms of media.

The Media Event runs until the 26th March at the Central Saint Martins Gallery in Southampton Row. To contact Jack Nelson visit his website. See video below for Heptathlon’s performance.

Stand Out Prints: The Camberwell MA Printmaking Interim Show
Text and photography by Xanthia Hallissey

Last week House Gallery in Camberwell became home to work by MA Printmaking students from Camberwell College of Arts. It was not a permanent residency but it was a suitably intimate space for an interim show. The show may have been small, but that’s not to say the students were lacking in ambition.

The use of different, unexpected materials could lead the viewer to ask the question: what is printmaking? In Alfonsina Capurro’s work Collective Behaviour, the materials used are listed as if ingredients in a recipe she has devised: perspex, earth, grass seeds, pipette, water. Soil is sprinkled in the gutters of a perspex map where grass is encouraged to grow with hourly watering. Indeed it does, on the evening of the private view the grass seems shy, barely poking it’s head, but when I revisit on the day of closing the blades are an inch tall. Alfonsina’s experiment seems to typify a new approach to printmaking as a way of making marks, a physical imprint in the broadest sense.

Another highlight is Paul Wye’s New Provenance: hand printed, hand sewn, hand made medallions hanging from hand crafted hooks. Paul demonstrates how involved an artist can be in every aspect of the crafting of a piece of work; printmaking doesn’t necessarily have to sit on the surface.

In contrast, Julia R. Gallego’s piece Divine Fabrica could not have more traditional subjects: Adam and Eve. Utilising the traditional printing methods of screen printing and etching, Julia’s piece could run the risk of looking old fashioned, but this is an Adam and Eve you won’t have seen before: she has turned their bodies inside out.

One piece that seems rooted in the present is Nicola O’Byrne’s I Hope You Get Rich and Famous etching, which highlights an interesting dresser in a crowd of people. Nicola’s piece is perhaps the only one in the room that makes a social commentary on what it is to be different, perhaps what it is to be an art student, or what it is to be printmaking in the age of digital technology. Students of MA Printmaking stand out, they are making a stand and proving the value of print in contemporary society. I hope they get rich and famous.

For more information see the Camberwell online events page.

Mahjong Cards: Playing East and West
Text by Andrea Fam
Graphic design by Joshua Lee

Joshua Lee, currently on the BA Graphic and Media Design course at LCC and specialising in Information Design, has married ‘East and West’ with his graphically enhanced versions of the popular gambling games, Mahjong and Poker; he decided to use the Mahjong tiles of the East and playing cards of the West as the elements of focus.

He was tasked with redesigning 7 traditional poker cards.  “Since mahjong is an activity that’s etched into the spirit of the Chinese New Year festive season, I decided it would be fun to have Mahjong tiles to represent the card,” Lee explains, “It also functions as a reminder of the tradition and keeps the spirit in place.”

The kingpin of the task in question is Yong Ping Loo, an LCC Design for Advertising, Graphic and Media Design alumni. He created this design opportunity, simply because, as he puts it, “Poker cards offer the most potential within an already existing and well known frame, to produce something really new and interesting […] more often than not, you know your friend is a designer but you wouldn’t usually get the chance to see his/her work. Plus the diversity of styles and countries involved (the collaboration is between 8 UAL designers hailing from Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong) in this project had a promising outcome and it was worth it.”

These images represent a selection of Lee’s experiments with both the Mahjong tiles as the suits on the traditional playing card, and the reverse: the suits used as the characters and symbols on the Mahjong tile.

Lee’s choice of inspiration – the Mahjong tile as a parallel to the playing card– effectively highlights the symbiosis of the exchanges between the East and West today; the concept behind these visuals stand as a cross cultural marriage of both traditions as well as the acknowledgement of a globalised visual language.

See more of Joshua Lee’s portfolio and body of work on his website.

The aforementioned poker cards have been produced and can be purchased online.

Justine Melford-Colegate: Foreign Palettes
Text by Kate Nelischer
Photography by Justin Melford-Colegate

“Iceland is quite an unpredictable country in terms of light and weather,” says Justine Melford-Colegate, currently studying for a BA in Graphic Design at Camberwell. “That is the main reason why I decided to create active colour palettes in my photography.”

Deep, dark reds of moss burn through the sharp sides of the rocks. Bright green evergreen tops peek out from beyond the creamy grasses. Chalky ochre weeds weave their way through the misty horizon and dark blue stones create ripples in the still black water. It’s almost impossible to believe that these are natural colours.

But Melford-Colegate assures us that they are real. These natural phenomena do exist, and she’s brought them to life here in London through her Foreign Palettes series.

Melford-Colegate’s recent photographic excursion to the arctic country led to the foundation of her third year project.  Much of her work focuses on the subjectivity of the perception of colour, a theme that she used to direct these photographs. Igneous rock croppings, rough landscapes and winding waterways were captured during the dark winter weather of her journey. She chose to use 35mm film to ensure that the images were the truest reflections of the colours experienced first-hand, and went on to reinforce this colour spectrum by creating ‘journey lines’ in After Effects and follow the palettes through the canvases.

Iceland’s stunning vistas have been portrayed in this series through film, sound and physical collections in addition to these photographs. The interpretations highlight the vast ranges of colours spanning across images and objects; each rich tone creates a striking juxtaposition against the grey skies and barren topography.

The virtual documentation of Melford-Colegate’s 8-day trip shows the Scandinavian nation in new, unexpected, and alluring lights – much more persuasive than any travel advert.

Seeing Voices: Inside the BT Archives
Text and photography by Joe Young

The Seeing Voices exhibition represents the final part of a 6 month partnership between MA Design Writing Criticism students at LCC and BT Heritage. The students were able to gain access to the BT archives which house images and artefacts documenting the history of telecommunication; they were able to explore the social, political, economic and cultural context of these items and then analyse and interpret these in terms of the cultural and design history. The final exhibition allows the audience to gain the same insight as the students did, and to engage on some small scale with BT’s rich history.

The student’s collection of essays further broadens the interpretation of the archives and offers their own unique insight and findings regarding the artefacts they explored. The heritage voices part of the exhibit allows you to listen to oral histories held within the archives revealing personal perspectives on the worlds oldest communications company and the impact of communication on all our lives.

In another area of the exhibition with the heading ‘I assume there will be no broken hearts,’ a series of photos and a hand written note represents the voices of eleven General Post Office (GPO) workers who wrote correspondences to each other over a course of more than a year. The essay by Emily Higgins, which explores this further, is a story of highs and lows and the workers’ determination.

Elsewhere, a painted map on the wall and tin can telephone connecting the UK and Canada represents a look at the past, present and future of long distance communication; the accompanying essay by Kate Nelischer again explores this further.

All in all it is the essays of the students which make the exhibition. The passion and connection they have with the chosen artefacts is evident within the writing, each one making for incredibly interesting reading. The exhibition is full of work, which not only informs, but also promotes audience interaction and casts a fascinating light on what is usually an invisible form of research.

The Seeing Voices exhibition runs from 02 – 11 March 2011 at Well Gallery, LCC.

Find out more about the MA Design Writing Criticism course on the LCC website.
More on BT’s Heritage Voices project can be found on their website.

INVASION!: Interactive Installation at V&A
Text and photography by Grace M-n

A mix of Camberwell BA art students from sculptors to painters, collaborated with the V&A Archive live to create a live installation that involved the public, resulting in leaving small pieces of themselves in form of their fingerprints.

Playing on the obsessive nature of records and history archives, passers by would mark their own space by creating a copy of their fingerprint in ink on the small wooden space. In return they received a small piece of the installation with the date and ‘invasion’ printed on it as their record of the event. Surrounded by tight-lipped pieces, the expression of public art comes into play, as it becomes a piece of moulded art overnight, functioning to allow the viewer to observe the structure in an intimate and interactive way.

“We wanted to find a platform to show our work there, even though we’re first years that really didn’t intimidate us,”  Jack Wilkinson, one of the collaborating students informed us. “It was important to construct a piece that was easy to work with, accessible not intimidating,” said another student, Francis Olvez- Wilshaw.

Even though some original ideas such as ambitious balloons and mixed recordings were not chosen for the exhibition, the piece itself was upfront and polite. Proven that they are not camera shy, this ambitious group from Camberwell has previously showcased their work at LCC and High Holborn.

Take a look at their blog to see individual work and the next step in this ongoing concept.

Bianca Tenga: Meeting of Colours
Text by Laramie Shubber
Paintings by Bianca Tenga

Bianca Tenga,  a first year Central Saint Martins Fine Art student, presents physical borders in her painting, Meeting of Colours.

The link to borders is clear immediately through the painting’s visual qualities and presentation; it uses colour spectrum to its full potential. Tenga looks outside of the primary colours windows and incorporates perhaps less conventional colours such as lilac and orange. Her consideration of each individual colour’s bias towards cool or warm is apparent as Tenga explains that the process of choosing them was not a simple one: “The colours were not just applied by impulse; I had to mix, try and change in order to make it work.”

The piece is painted on three canvases and one mdf board, and  can easily be looked upon as four separate pieces. However, they neighbour each other so well and the scale of the four pieces together (2.5 m x 1.8 m) gives the work a physically powerful presence.

“In this project, I explored the idea of colour and how it behaves in front of the eye in relation to different factors,” says Tenga. “My focus was on how the colours meet with each other in the composition and where their borders are highlighted by the neighbouring colours. The borders of each shape were crucial to the certain colour, the outer lines of a shape had to be accurate and straight in order to have the effect I was looking for. “

Colour is used incredibly boldly but also carefully in this piece where a consideration for every application of colour was necssary. It is refreshing to see an artist use such a variety of colours so confidently.

Fractured Narratives: Light at the End of the Tunnel
Text and photography by Kate Nelischer

CSM Students open a refreshing exhibition beneath the train tracks

Hidden away under a dark and damp overpass, twinkle lights lead the way into The Redgate Gallery – a gleaming, white beacon in the heart of Brixton.

The one-room gallery is home to Fractured Narrative – Re-inscribing Space, a new exhibition from third year CSM Fine Art students.

Spearheaded by Suzanne de Emmony and Andy Lacey, the ten artists were brought together through similar explorations within their works. “We were interested in how these differing approaches would operate and what dialogues would be struck up between the work outside of the studio,” says de Emmony.

The congruencies in this multidisciplinary show are not readily apparent. Translucent, delicate paper wall hangings by Eleanor Carter and tiny battery-powered LED constructions by Sarah Fassnidge, all set to the proud soundtrack of the nationalistic chorus radiating from Lacy’s installation, are too obscure to build an immediate narrative. However, the choice of this intimate gallery space has served the exhibition well; with the ability to see all of the works together from one corner of the room, a story slowly begins to unfold itself.

Large, geometric paintings by Zoe Panya and Christie Dasher speak back and forth across the space and overtop the sexually charged dissection sculpture by Issac Murai-Rolfe. The photographic series by de Emmony and Camilla Greenwell, although strikingly different in composition and subject, both maintain a certain quietness that whispers throughout the show. Slightly more obscure are Stuart Scott’s exaggerated tongue installation tucked away in the corner and Lina Rukeviciute’s three short films, but they both serve as surprising interludes of energy that contribute to the well-paced curation of the show.

Fractured Narrative – Re-inscribing Space remains true to the unpredictability of such an inviting gallery in a somewhat dim corner; at times it seems random, but once the initial introductions are over the plot is revealed to be engaging and memorable.

Richard Slatter: Deception-Depiction
Text by Grace M-n
Sculptures by Richard Slatter

Richard Slatter, an artist in residence at Chelsea’s FutureSpace showcases his latest project, titled Deception-Depiction. Of this project, Slatter says: “I found myself in conversation with challenging figures that acknowledge and dismiss my gaze.” Richard Slatter’s use of metals in sense are industrial, built for a purpose but his way of experimenting with this material; molding, stripping, casting, creating familiar features and expressions that are slightly disturbing.

In his recent work, Slatter showcases stress and extreme pleasure within his sculptures. The progression of these sculptures can be seen through the use of other materials he has experimented with such as rope, buttons and wax.

“I’ve realized that I’ve been trying to do impossible things in my work – creating the desert in a room the size of a cupboard, capturing a fleeting expression in bronze; and most recently inflicting mortal wounds on a race of people that never existed,” explains Slatter. “There’s a tension of opposites about metals and casting in particular that keeps pulling me in. They have this shouting solid presence yet can express very transient aspects of human interaction.”

Richard Slatter’s work can be viewed at Hepworth Court, Grosvenor Waterside, Gatliff Road (off Ebury Bridge Road, London, SW1W 8QP), February 16th – April 3rd 2011. Open seven days a week, 11.00am – 6pm

See more of Richard Slatter’s work on his website.

Keren Dee: Erased Postcards
Text by Laramie Shubber
Postcard collages by Keren Dee

Wimbledon College of Art Fine Art alumnus Keren Dee works with postcards in her art to create unique pieces using mass-reproduced images of pre-existing works.

Keren Dee chooses to work with what people consider a negative aspect of the arts: art, and particularly photography within art, is often criticised for its mass reproduction.

“The Erased Postcard series attempts to turn this idea on its head by re-presenting each postcard as a unique object, whilst highlighting the futile endeavour of  searching for something new,” says Dee. “They are randomly deconstructed by cutting and mutilating, then playfully reassembled in a cynical attempt to find new possibilities on the banal everyday art postcard.”

Dee’s work has multiple borders, between reality and fantasy, between the obvious and the concealed. The title, Erased Postcard, suggests a political undertone: an idea of choosing to erase what has already been ‘laid down in stone’ is controversial in mainstream media. That is Dee’s intention however: the Erased Postcard series aims to erase the past as elements of the postcard are eliminated ‘until the invisible reveals itself.’

The ‘invisible’ is often in the form of ambiguous and comical figures at odds with the title of the original image. For example,  A Postcard of Henri Matisse’s ‘Trivaux Pond’ is transformed into a portrait of a green man wearing a goatee and a floppy hat; Ryan Mosley’s The Curious Tale of the Butterfly Hat is mutated into a manic-looking girl running from disembodied hands pulling her hair; Winifred Nicholson’s Flower Table becomes a servile nude man with large buttocks and wearing black thigh-boots, offering a cup of tea to an invisible master.

This lighthearted approach to art gives the series a certain accessibility that many similar works lack; something that I find truly uplifting.

See more of Karen Dee’s work on her website.