INTRODUCTION Leeds College of Art is proud of being one of the few remaining independent specialist art & design institutions in the UK. The college has a culture of engaging with ‘live’ external events
promoting a professional and outward looking ethos amongst its students. Students on the course explore drawing, painting,
sculpture, lens-based media, installation, performance, social and public art through a series of critically positioned modules.
This exhibition houses the final projects of this years 44 graduates studying BA (Hons) Fine Art at Leeds College of Art. From the outset the degree programme recognises that the individual
character of each student matters and it makes the personal
development from passion to profession possible for them. On
viewing the overall group show we engage with a consolidated body
of tacit knowledge (which we regard as ‘know-how’) over their time on the course.
For an art student tacit knowledge also means unspoken trust, a
passing of knowledge between staff and students not described with words but implicit in the group studio situation. The exhibition
forefronts this unspoken knowledge and its evocation in the act of
making. By definition, making means material, and thus these artists have approached their work through a dialogue with their materials that is informed by this ‘thinking through making’.
We would like to introduce you to these new artists graduating in 2011 and warmly invite you to explore their work.
EXHIBITORS Stephanie Barratt
01/02
Melanie King
01/02
Geri Callan
04/05
Amy McKeating
04/05
Ruth Blower
Laura Carter Jimmy Cave
Ian Chapman
William Crabtree Alex Cunningham Lisa Darbyshire Katie Dent
Ahmed El Haddad Duncan Fraser Lucy Fudge
Marie Furter Beth Gadd
Josh Gibbs
Pollyanna Hodson Chikae Howland Sam Humble
Becky Johnson Liam Kelly
Jane Kenington
03/04 06/07 08/09 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 20/21 22/23 24/25 26/27 28/29 30/31 32/33 34/35 36/37 38/39 40/41 42/43
Robyn Lawrence Miranda Mohit Louie Mulhern Samuel Morgan Holly Mulveen
Alex Nightingale Alex Norcop
Michael Ormerod Simon Phillips Jonny Rawlin Leilani Read
Laura Rushton John Shaw
Jessie Simmonds Isabel Skinner Stuart Symonds Nicholas Tighe Emily Towler Naomi Wallis Bobby West
03/04 06/07 08/09 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 20/21 22/23 24/25 26/27 28/29 30/31 32/33 34/35 36/37 38/39 40/41 42/43
Website
stefbarratt@hotmail.co.uk
www.stephaniebarratt.co.uk
STEPHANIE BARRATT
5 5
Stains and imperfections are the
embellishment of history on an object or surface; they tell a story of
human presence through absence, where marks are a trace of interaction.
Website
mcrknottingley@hotmail.co.uk
www.joyarts.weebly.com
RUTH BLOWER
My practice deals with the subject of my identity. I focus on processes to
create my work starting with drawing, then mark making and painting. My work is mainly 2D based as I feel
this depicts the quality of the lines that I like to achieve.
7 7
Email jack_of_all@hotmail.co.uk
GERI CALLAN
I reflect on true identity, visually
represented and influenced through my
personal interests. My exploration is the struggle and complexities between art and craft, both utilitarian and beautiful.
9 9
Email bitethebadger@hotmail.co.uk
LAURA CARTER
I use organic shapes and tactile materials to create sculpture. I
allow the materials to do what occurs naturally in order to capture a
moment. I want to build something
tall, which draws the eye upwards. My obsession with animals is apparent in the use of fur within my sculptures.
11 11
Website
jcavefineart@gmail.com
www.coughcoughcough.tumblr.com
JIMMY CAVE
I use the open flame of a blowtorch or heat from a soldering iron to leave tonal marks on a material such as wood or canvas. This allows me to
form images with fire as a metaphor of creation through destruction, there
can be no creation without first there being destruction.
13 13
15 15
Email ichapman89@aol.com
IAN CHAPMAN
17 17
I am currently interested in making sculpture. I’m attracted by bright, bold colours and the repetition of refined manufactured objects. I manipulate these to create forms, taking a
material out of its context to create something new. I want to make us think about that object in a different way.
Email red_ibanez1@hotmail.com
WILLIAM CRABTREE
19 19
The photographic medium is defined by its
particular limitations. As we undergo the
transition from analogue to digital, these
limitations are threatened by a new wealth of
possibility. Using the questions raised by the digital medium as a point of departure, I have been working to investigate the nature of what constitutes photographic integrity.
Website
acunninghamfineart@gmail.com
www.howmanysugars.tumblr.com
ALEX CUNNINGHAM
Currently, I’m interested in materiality and discovering the potential of the materials I
use in my work. Rather than using traditional
sculptural materials, I prefer to use uncommon ones, such as packaging tape. I believe the use of unique materials creates distinctive conceptuality in my work.
21 21
Email lisadarbyshire2203@hotmail.co.uk
LISA DARBYSHIRE Using the body as both subject and
material, my work explores issues of conformity and non-conformity. There is a large autobiographical element that is fundamental to my practice and shapes its direction.
23 23
Website
kjdent@hotmail.co.uk
katiedent.wordpress.com
KATIE DENT
Working predominantly with natural materials I focus on creating
sculptural forms that have a sense of presence within a space.
25 25
Email aeelhaddad1@yahoo.co.uk
AHMED EL HADDAD
27 27
In my work things don’t have to
relate however they can still exist side by side in some free concept. It can be, for example, figurative,
creative and free from commitment. I make work that resonates on a deeply emotive level acting as a vehicle to reconnect with a ‘place’ or memory deep in my subconscious.
29 29
Email duncan.fraser.art@gmail.com
DUNCAN FRASER
31 31
I find interest within peoples
relationships to, yet alienation from the inert; the objects that belong to us, yet outlast us. I intend to
capture the fleeting memories of their interactions with these objects,
layering footage onto the object to create a record of interaction.
Website
lucyfudge@hotmail.co.uk
lucyfudge.blogspot.com
LUCY FUDGE
We have tirelessly used the body within the history of art in the pursuit of a greater or truer understanding of
the relationship between our realities and ourselves. Within my practice I
explore the multitude of associations, connotations and meanings the body can independently evoke in us all.
33 33
Email izzif@btinternet.com
MARIE FURTER
My work is symbolic and gestural of
heart and mind. Mental phenomena are in some respects non-physical. Realisation of sentient is the impetus to my
practice, underpinned by the notion of ‘Cartesian dualism’. Stitch forms the
skeleton to pieces, thus mimicking the ethereal nature of feeling.
35 35
Website
bethsgadd@yahoo.co.uk
www.bethgadd.weebly.com
BETH GADD
My work deals with The Self, and the effect that living in our current society has on us as individuals and social groups. I am
particularly interested in the physical aspect of this, and my work is a response to issues such as the size zero culture and what is typically considered to be ‘ugly’.
37 37
Email jgibbs596@gmail.com
JOSH GIBBS
The use of soap, water, ink and dye is recorded on video where the recording is the transient medium itself. The
key conceptual aspect of the work is the transcendent nature of space and
the array of relative existential and cerebral parallel planes.
39 39
41 41
Website
pollyanna.hodson@live.co.uk
pollyannahodson.blogspot.com
POLLYANNA HODSON
43 43
Email nathalie88@gmail.com
CHIKAE HOWLAND
My practise is about culture, the
things I love and that make me happy. In this project I have gone back to
my roots of drawing and painting. My
method is simplicity and realism done in a delicate manner.
45 45
Email sam_humble@msn.com
SAM HUMBLE
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s
concept of ‘becoming-animal’ rejects metaphor or symbolism; it perceives identity as being a multiplicitous process rather than a static
phenomenon. I deconstruct and reform the human and the animal figure
mutually in the act of drawing.
47 47
Email rebecca_johnson1988@hotmail.com
BECKY JOHNSON
I work with a wide range of materials often
changing between organic and man-made. The aim of my work is to arouse curiosity and invite touch through its tactile qualities. I am
influenced by symbolism, nature and the sublime, using anything that sparks my imagination and incorporating it into my art.
49 49
Email lpj@mail.com
LIAM KELLY
51 51
Website
jane_e_k@hotmail.co.uk
www.inmyotherlife.blogspot.com
JANE KENINGTON
My work is about space. The spaces around us, the spaces we occupy, the spaces we might not
notice and the space in our heads. Through the use of thread and wire I make forms to fill
these spaces injecting complexity into often overlooked spaces.
53 53
55 55
Email melaniek@melaniek.co.uk
MELANIE KING
My preoccupation with the infinite began as a
child. I suffered anxiety attacks when exposed to scientific and mathematical paradoxes at a young age. Repetitive tasks and playful experiments appeal to both my anxious nature and my inner
child, which in turn helps me to process complex thought through simple processes.
57 57
Email daisyadaire@hotmail.com
ROBYN LAWRENCE
I am a mixed media artist who works with the
notion that the universal can be personal and
the personal be universal, my work is driven by the fine line between chaos and organization.
59 59
Website
amymckeating@googlemail.com
www.doublethink-amk.blogspot.com
AMY MCKEATING
61 61
I am interested in the concept of the uncanny and how it is experienced as feelings of unease within our
surroundings revealing the strange in what appears mundane. My work is concerned with invasions and
interaction with space, highlighting its deeply affecting power and relationship to the body.
Website
miranda_skulls@hotmail.co.uk
www.missmirandajane.blogspot.com
MIRANDA MOHIT I use a feminine approach as a formula for creating something fragile, sensory, fleshy
and tangible, expressing a complex intimate narrative and uncertainty. Materials and
concepts juxtapose a psychological vision.
Identity, childhood, journey and memory are themes often explored through my practice.
63 63
Website
samueljohnmorgan@gmail.com
www.samueljohnmorgan.tumblr.com
SAMUEL MORGAN My work deals with the alienation that the contemporary art world creates towards the
general public and what separates ‘high’ art from society and the community. By using a naïve painting style and clashing colours, I try to convey these ideas through the aesthetics of the painting.
65 65
67 67
Email louie_mulhern@hotmail.com
LOUIE MULHERN
I explore ideas of street art as a legitimate art form that can work in different
surroundings. I have experimented with
different materials making posters and now
plastics. I try to convey similar feelings in a gallery as I do in my work on the streets.
69 69
Website
hmulveen@hotmail.com
hollymulveen.wordpress.com
HOLLY MULVEEN
“An isolated datum of preception is inconceivable, at least if we do the mental experiment of attempting to
perceive such a thing. But in the world there are either isolated objects or a physical void.�
Maurice Merlau-Ponty, 1962. Phenomenology of perception.
71 71
Email nightingale88@live.co.uk
ALEX NIGHTINGALE
The concept behind my work is memory and the re-creation of objects. I produce 3D forms working with various materials and
using repetitive techniques. I aim to create
sculptural representations of form and space.
73 73
Website
alexnorcop@googlemail.com
alexnorcop.blogspot.com
ALEX NORCOP
75 75
My artistic practice is heavily driven by political and social
issues. It challenges the current
capitalist system while offering an alternative to it. Utilising art
as a revolutionary tool I hope to
encourage new ideas; always done with honestly and compassion.
Website
michaelormerod@live.com
www.michaelormerod.blogspot.com
MICHAEL ORMEROD
“There is only the fight to recover what
has been lost And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions that seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor
loss. For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.� T.S. Eliot
77 77
Website
simonphillips632@btinternet.com
www.si4art.blogspot.com
SIMON PHILLIPS
79 79
I manipulate paint as a method of creating
layered painterly sculptures. Using Abstract Expressionism, but employing more control.
I use found objects and intuitive colour to develop the surfaces in the work.
81 81
Email jonny_rawlin@live.co.uk
JONNY RAWLIN My work is an attempt to reclaim aura from reproduced artworks, employing a ritualized drawing method I am attempting to coax the reproductions back into their original three-dimensions. By doing this process I liberate aura, creating new originals.
83 83
Email leilani.a@hotmail.com
LEILANI READ
85 85
I aim to create interpretive pieces, which seem insignificant and overwhelming to an
audience, allowing the irregularities within psychological behaviour to be visually
represented. My work involves my personal
struggles and knowledge with regards to the social and aesthetic areas of life.
Website
laura.rushton@live.co.uk
www.laurarushton.com
LAURA RUSHTON
My practice strips down industrial landscapes
into minimal components. Immediate and physical processes are my tools for investigating
materiality, evolution, function and structure in relation to the urban environment.
87 87
Email john.shaw@turning-point.co.uk
JOHN SHAW
I am interested in destructive practices, in an aesthetic defined by the material trans-mutated
through violence and chance. I use the throwing, smashing and shooting of things to explore
extended painting through video and installation.
89 89
Email jessiesimmonds@hotmail.com
JESSIE SIMMONDS
91 91
My work is primarily concerned with the history and stories that can be
conjured through portraiture. My recent work has considered the process of
aging and decay in order to find a way to signify the passing of time using photography, traditional paint and drawing techniques.
93 93
Email isabelskinner@hotmail.co.uk
ISABEL SKINNER
95 95
To lose a home is to lose a museum of a person’s memory and identity. By altering the object I endeavour to uncover the haunted house within both my own psyche and that of my audiences.
Email stuart.symonds@tip-top.co.uk
STUART SYMONDS
97 97
My practice follows the romanticism of
evolutionary psychology and the argument within where the artistic mechanism is an adaptation, not by-product, of natural selection. Our innate response to ‘Landscapes,’ whose
intricate harmony speak to us of an order that lies deep in ourselves, is marked indelibly with the sign of human dominance.
Email tagtiger28@googlemail.com
NICHOLAS TIGHE
99 99
I question and address the struggles and restrictions an artist goes through when
exposed to limitation and obstruction. These concerns are investigated in a performative way, using the body to express feelings of anxiety, success, growth and development.
Website
emily.towler@btinternet.com
www.emilytowler.atspace.com
EMILY TOWLER
Absurdity is a silence, hiding in the subtle corners of our mind, quietly waiting to be seen and to turn our world inside out.
101 101
Email xxnoimoxx@hotmail.co.uk
NAOMI WALLIS
My paintings are about a process, the act of doing, but underneath that there is the imprint of emotion.
Blue to me can represent a range of emotions. The process remains the same but the stains represent my varying emotions.
103 103
Email bobby_west@hotmail.co.uk
BOBBY WEST
My work deals with the representation of death
and its relationship with beauty. Through ideas formulated around ambiguity and the abject, it is an exploration into how beauty and horror so often, despite such apparent controversy, coincide with one another.
105 105
107 107
Tacit Knowledge Leeds College of Art Saturday 18th June 10am - 4pm
Monday 20th - Thursday 23rd June 9am - 8pm
Thursday 23rd June (Private View) 9am - 5pm
Admission Free Blenheim Walk
Leeds, LS2 9AQ
www.leeds-art.ac.uk Touring to Free Range Graduate Art Show Thursday 14th July (Private View) 6pm - 8pm
Friday 15th - Monday 18th July 10am - 7pm
Admission Free The Old Truman Brewery 91 Brick Lane
London, E1 6QL
www.free-range.org.uk E: richard.baker@leeds-art.ac.uk T: +44 (0) 113 202 8285