Bringing you up to speed

Hello all!

 Gosh I've had a busy couple of weeks. Since partaking in the last painting seminar of the year I have been packing up my work and materials and moved them over to the Slade's other building in Woburn Square! The whole school takes part in this annual move so as the main building can be cleaned, scrubbed and repainted for the BA and MA/MFA degree shows!

 This week I have been helping a graduating student Emily Cooper with cleaning, filling and repainting the studio space she is hanging her work in for the BA Fine Art degree show. It's rather rewarding actually, knowing you've helped a fellow student with what could be the start of an exciting career as a full-time artist, and in just 2 years time I will be in the same position she is now.

Terrifying really...

  The degree show set up is only for this week, then I can go over to the building a Woburn Square to make some more work next week before my upcoming end-of-year assessment.

So expect another post in about a week with hopefully new work to see!

Here are the details for this year's Slade Degree Shows, I hope you can come and have a look at the work, it's all rather exciting!

Slade School of Fine Art Degree Shows
BA Fine Art Degree Show

Open to the Public: Saturday 28 - Sunday 29 May 10am-5pm

                                   Monday 30 May - Thursday 2 June 10am-8pm

MFA/MA Fine Art Degree Show

Open to the Public: Thursday 16 - Friday 17 June 10am-8pm

                                   Saturday 18 - Sunday 19 June 10am-5pm

                                   Monday 20 - Wednesday 22 June 10am-8pm

The Last Seminar

A little over due but last Wednesday, to mark our return to the Slade after a rather long Easter break, the painting department held an all day seminar.  Since I've managed to escape showing in a painting seminar all year, I felt obliged to put myself forward to show in the final one of this academic year.


So I got to work and decided to paint from two displays I photographed while I was away in Boston. I wanted to paint on a large scale again as I got an interesting response from my last large painting in the first year's crit. I also had in mind all the ideas I had been reading about while I painted, mainly these were thoughts on the uncanny and how I could paint these displays in a way that makes the viewer feel something isn't quite right about them, or that they can feel as though they are looking at something familiar. I made the effort to keep the colours clean and not paint on wet oils, letting the paint dry before I worked on top of it.


Here are the results...

I was quite nervous about people's responses to my work, but was pleasantly surprised when one tutor commented on how she found them familiar even though she wasn't able to clearly identify some of the objects.  A comment was made on the 'generation' of the objects and I was questioned on whether I was commenting on something about the objectsof desire from the past as they greatly differ to my generation's loved possessions.


It was also suggested I look at some of Martin Parr's work from his 'Signs of the Times' series of photographs, along with Craigie Aitchison's and Winifred Nicholson's paintings.


So looking at their work will be the next logical step for me, not long until the term ends so hopefully I'll get the chance to make some more work before the school shuts for the summer!