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WHERE ARE WE NOW? A virtual reality final exhibition

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THURS

15

October 2020

SAT

31

archive available until mid-2021

MA Fine Art 2020 Where are we now, for this new generation of postgraduate artists, leaving art school within the university into a physically distanced and ‘locked-down’ world, unsure of what will happen next?

No longer in the familiar studio spaces or with access to extensive workshops or materials, the situation initially seemed bleak, but the approaches demonstrated by this years’ MA graduates, from the outset of the sudden deprivations of the Covid-19 period have been many and varied. Moving from the first shocks of, “now what?” to “ok, let’s see what we have,” to “actually this other idea might work, (even better?)” and of course to then ask, “where are we now?” in this new world of restrictions but also of unexpected, newly honed skills and possibilities.

Whilst the spring and the summer unfolded around us, so too did the adaption, inventiveness and resilience of this MA cohort, continuing to work on their practice and research regardless, from cramped bedrooms, corners of kitchens, back at home or in exile and a long way from the familiarity of friends and family. By inventing, re-inventing, imagining and re-purposing, the resulting work has been humbling in its show of acceptance, diligence, tenacity and engagement.

Embracing the Zoom-ed seminars and tutorials, coping with an uncertainty of purpose, amidst the intimacies of messy rooms, piled up books, home-schooling, new hair solutions and inventive back drops, the students showing this year have achieved great success in the face of unprecedented adversity.

A very different spectacle to that of a final, physical MA degree show is in evidence this year however, as an altogether more thoughtful body of work perhaps, and situated in the ‘ghost’ of our Hendon studio, G301, as a newly invented space that can now be thoroughly explored in a timeless way, and in a new Virtual Reality.

“Where are we now?” indeed. They are the authorities now.

Dr Tansy Spinks, Programme Leader in MA Fine Art, Middlesex University, October 2020

With grateful thanks to all the technical, teaching and support staff who have made this one year MA happen - Professor Ergin Cavusoglu, Dr Loraine Leeson, Emeritus Professor Jon Bird, Dr Emma Dick, Dr Alexandra Kokoli, Dr Paul Harper.

Thanks to Alex at ArtspaceVR21 for building our ‘new’ VR studio exhibition space

MA Fine Art, Middlesex University: more information and study link here: https://www.mdx.ac.uk/courses/ postgraduate/fine-art?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_content=fine_art_prospecting&utm_ campaign=pg_2020_applynow

MA Printmaking 2020 Printmaking is an art practice tied to the technologies of today in two different ways: firstly, it is the home of, now redundant graphic processes that have lost value in the commercial world, (since the handling of the machines or devices requires a high level of skill or knowledge to be operated).

Secondly, it is a new technological process that has yet to find a clear purpose or application, hence a show of contemporary printmaking is often a collection and combination of exciting new approaches alongside more traditional means.

This year the printermakers have been forced to return to more basic and traditional means to produce printmaking work. Divorced from the print workshop by Covid 19, the students have had to be both inventive and adaptable. It would have been easy to work purely digitally and present works completely produced by large format printers and computer files, but the students have returned to the processes of relief printing and hand burnishing to produce printed work by finding access to independent presses and various domestic spaces to produce print works from unconventional materials and approaches.

So, this show is a combination of studio production before Covid 19 and the inventive spirit of print produced in domestic spaces and ‘found’ spaces using basic means to produce work; a tradition of practice still exercised in Africa, South America, Asia, China and Japan as a powerful form of print practice that it not determined by complex organisations or expensive set ups.

I want to thank the staff in all the workshops for their whole-hearted support, and in particular, of course, the Printmaking Technicians, for their support in helping the MA Printmaking students to complete their artworks for this show, particularly whilst we worked under lockdown and still produced print work.

Stephen Mumberson, Associate Professor, MA Printmaking.

Gallery Floorplan

2020 Graduates Amanda Seabourn Bidushi Thapa Cassius Hunt Deljeet Kaur Singh

Printmaking Fine Art Printmaking Fine Art

Ellery Lin

Printmaking

Elizabeth Evans

Printmaking

Elsie Bryant &

Fine Art

Isobel Reddington

Fine Art

Hedvika Marne

Fine Art

Hilary Barnes

Printmaking

Julia Woodhouse

Fine Art

Rainless Chang

Fine Art

Rita Krupavičiūtė

Fine Art

Saif Chowdury Vika Cheng

Printmaking Fine Art

Amanda Seaborn MA Printmaking My current work reflects on processes of connection and disconnection, growth and change. Sculptural properties of deeply etched zinc plates serve as metaphor for the fundamental impact of early life experience on human being. Patterns imprinted on the developing brain in childhood affect quality of perception, and consequent capacity to adapt, act and interact. When human nervous systems bear harsh imprints of childhood trauma, shadows of a painful matrix persist, but so does an astonishing ability to adapt throughout life to the colours of subsequent encounters and relationships.

Variable editions, printed using the colour viscosity method from matrices formed in corrosive baths of acid, develop, as do our lives, in quite diverse ways, the work emerging and evolving organically through relationship and dialogue between artist and intrinsic qualities of materials: of metal, ink and paper.

Current adverse political and societal challenges also necessitate and afford an opportunity for the formation of creative adaptations to where we are now; new ways of making, thinking and maintaining connectedness.

email: amanda@amandaseaborn.com website: www.amandaseaborn.com instagram: @amandaseaborn

Bidushi Thapa MA Fine Art Alienated world 2.0: (A physical 3D installation of 1000 small chairs forms a part of this work) Alienated world 2.0, is a stop motion piece which pays homage to those souls who have lost their battle with the Coronavirus (Covid19). Small chairs are presented in the form of an implied narrative within the space.

Chairs are symbolically used to represent the memory of the deceased. A thousand little chairs slither on the ground, in great numbers, invading the domestic space, moving and exploring the different corners of the house at speed. They are trying to break through and to become a part of something bigger, perhaps.

Alienated World 2.0: https://vimeo.com/463165541

The seven lives of Caesar: The Seven Lives of Caesar stop-frame animation is about the journey of a human after death. The theory of seven lives suggests that living beings will be reincarnated over and over again, after which the soul will attain liberation (moksha). The stop-motion shows my interpretation of how life might be formulated after the demise of a person and is seen within a miniature stage set.

Human beings are created to celebrate, to respect, to serve, and to preserve their own existence. All other objects on the planet are made for humans to allow them to fulfil the purpose for which they are made. This short animation is about the reincarnation of an elderly man and his journey through his seven lives.

Bidushi Thapa is an artist from Nepal with a particular interest in the traditions of miniature paintings.

Instagram: @icantdrawyou_

The Seven Lives of Caesar: https://vimeo.com/463205840

Cassius Hunt MA Printmaking I live eat sleep and work in a community which is dominated by a huge steel works which influences all aspects of people’s lives. The constant churn of industrial processes; fires and furnaces, and recurring explosions are a daily feature for residents of the Town. We see huge ships arriving into our docklands daily - delivering coal, chrome and any other necessary equipment from China and across the world, and of course the exportation of the manufactured steel itself.

The steel production process is a double-edged sword. It brings huge economic benefits for the area - mass employment and the knock-on benefits of this for supporting businesses and services. It also has huge negative consequences in terms of people’s health, life expectancy and the consequences (health and safety) of the production process itself. There are many human fatalities within the works every year. The environmental impact - especially loss of trees and other natural habitats, cannot be underestimated.

I have reflected on these conflicting themes in many prints and other artwork I’ve developed in the studio. For example, the piece I painted with the AT-ATs Cranes. Pipe work and drawing the Blast furnaces and Also drawing natural gas pipes that connect to the furnaces.

Growing up in a fairly un-diverse, working class, industrial town can be tough for anyone and especially young people from BAME or mixed backgrounds. Things are improving however, progress is being made. Recent times have seen a huge increase in media and public attention of the issue of inequality and the experiences of people from marginalised groups. The Black Lives Mater campaign - in all its differing forms - has helped put the issue at the forefront of public attention and has given opportunities and platforms for young artists to make their opinions and reflections on events known to a much wider audience.

Not in the studio but studio-based work While the Black lives matter protest were happening, I made and produced banners on cardboard and flags for the protest. It was unfortunate that the virus restrictions led to the University studio shutting because I would have done some screen printing on this movements and developed the ideas further.

Deljeet Kaur Singh MA Fine Art This project features print designs made from drawings and paintings that were made during the process of my research.

As a British Indian artist, I have taken it upon myself to explore my roots by delving into pattern and its origins. I started this complex study by exploring pattern from such diverse cultures as Moroccan, Egyptian, Greek, French, Dutch, Islamic, Chinese, North American Indian, Aboriginal and also graffiti, discovering a great patchwork of material in many different styles which I draw on for my own practice.

In 2013, after graduating with a BA in Fashion and Business studies, I set up my own business in textile design. Since then, I have found a way to design patterns on my mobile phone that I then take further through Photoshop.

Instagram: Delish Art and Design

Ellery Lin MA Printmaking Armour has been used throughout recorded history as a protective covering that is used to prevent damage from being inflicted to an object, individual or vehicle by direct contact weapons or projectiles, usually during combat, or from damage caused by a potentially dangerous environment or activity. These linocut prints were inspired by the engravings on the armour surface and emblems of warfare in the past, which shows different sides of armour decoration.

Website: www.behance.net/ellerylin E-mail: ellery lin@outlook.com

Elizabeth (Liz) Evans MA Printmaking Being disabled I have a passion for trying to help other disabled people interact with art. My pieces stem from my love of jewellery as well as printing. This work consists of a collection of jewellery pieces made from Perspex, and aluminium. Aluminium when treated allows ink to penetrate the surface providing a range of colours and photo printings. Adding Braille, the language synonymous with the blind and sight impaired, and using etching and printing techniques these pieces become disability friendly and tactile. The photographs of these pieces are purposefully black and white.

In contrast the prints are a range of colours and textures based around ‘doodles’ made from lino, silk screen prints and stencils using a range of inks including spray paint. The aluminium prints taken from scenic photographs of London which give an overall effect of what aluminium printing can achieve and highlights the importance of photography in my printing. Whilst the two bodies of work are contrasted against each other they are connected by the materials, texture and abstract style.

Email: rolandogodoy@aol.com

Elsie Bryant and Isobel Reddington MA Fine Art Before the pandemic, Isobel Reddington and Elsie Bryant were running projects facilitating workshops with groups, which meant a change of direction during lockdown. Deciding to collaborate, they moved online to create a nourishing space driven by principles they believe to be integral to Social Practice art projects: social justice and care. Designed with aesthetics and accessibility in mind, the Care Weaving website aims to amplify the energy of grassroots organising during the pandemic, acknowledging the long history of community care facilitated in and by marginalised groups. Visitors are invited to navigate through different ‘rooms’ where they will find resources that reflect the values outlined in the Care Weaving Manifesto - a well-stocked bookshelf and zine shelf provide relevant reading material, whilst the event space is a platform for video, performance and workshops. Using the metaphor of weaving, the site joins the dots between projects and people, with the hopes of creating solidarity in dark times; facilitating access to care for those who need it, and supporting those who are able to contribute care within their communities.

Elsie: @eachpeachpearrose elsierbryant@gmail.com Isobel: @hiddeneggzine isobelreddington@gmail.com

Hedvika Marne MA Fine Art Hedvika Marne was born in Czechoslovakia, the country which no longer exists. She dreams again and again about overfilled rooms, never stopping lifts, dark corridors, all places which also do not exist anymore, at least not as she remembers them. Nor do the people who used to inhabit these spaces in the past exist any longer. She is not young anymore; it is not very trendy these days...

She revisits the places imprinted in her porous non-photographic memory to witness how they change and how she keeps changing the ways she understands them.

There is obvious ambition in her photographs, to observe and capture how dreams or nightmares twist her deteriorating memories. She loves the film Inception in which such things happen to other people as well.

Hedvika has been based in Leytonstone since 2013. In a way, she follows the steps of the local prominent figure Alfred Hitchcock, particularly in terms of his fascination with birds. Typically, in late spring and early summer, she suffers a reoccurring urge to catch moments to show some of the many local birds, the most fascinating and ungrateful of models.

Contact: hed@seznam.cz

Hilary Barnes MA Printmaking I recently completed a Masters in Printmaking at Middlesex University, as a mature student. I work mainly with etching, preferring monochromatic prints and stark images, influenced by the great masters of the art both historical and current.

My interest in architecture, background in photography, involvement in housing campaigns and community activism from the 1970’s to the present time are reflected in my early etchings, and more recently developed into the three prints in this exhibition.

‘Time the Devourer of All Things’ is a view of East London, from the publicly accessible roof terrace at 120 Fenchurch Street. In the foreground is the building site, backed by a mix of modern high-rise offices and buildings sitting within earlier edifices spared from destruction for the time being. ‘Reconstruction’ is an example of the preservation of an old building, this one in Cavendish Square, and ‘In the Shadow of Giants’ is a view from the Regents Canal of the towers which will become the headquarters of Google in Kings Cross.

Research into my family revealed an ancestor, a lithographer who exhibited at what was then the Royal Polytechnic Institute in upper Regents Street. ‘Ancestry G J Cox’ was developed from one of his lithographs.

‘Siblings’ is my own family, a dysfunctional and pugnacious group of faceless children, and ‘Alan and Geoffrey’ a reimagining of two uncles, both killed in their teens in WW1.

The ‘Handley Page Hurricane Bomber’ was produced for the 2020 commemorative exhibition of the Blitz at the RAF Museum, Hendon, my final print before the pandemic drove us behind doors.

I find etching totally absorbing at the same time as constantly challenging. There are so many ways of producing a printable image from a metal plate. Learning the rules, then perverting them, appeals to my baser instincts. The risks, the possibility of disaster, the serendipitous outcomes embody many of the elements which excite me. My work is illustrative, rather than conceptual and tends towards melancholy and retrospection, reflecting my own journey through the third age.

Hilary Barnes September 2020 Hilbarnes48@gmail.com

Julia Woodhouse MA Fine Art Julia Woodhouse Studied Fine Art in Staffordshire. In this recent body of work, the ethereal quality of the Victorian Cyanotype print has been used to evoke themes of gender, history, and a sense of place. Exploring ideas of femininity, a series of prints were produced from photographs taken at the recent Christian Dior, Designer of Dreams exhibition, held at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The exaggerated silhouettes, of nipped-in waists and curved hips, offer an image of femininity as masquerade.

These figures have remained a motif during the sudden change of environment during lockdown. They have become entwined in local flora and history, informed by daily walks in South Oxfordshire.

@juliawoodhouseart juliawoodhouse@live.co.uk

Rainless Chang MA Fine Art If the world we know is not real but just a dream, what things do we really know?

Everything we think we are familiar with; everything we think it makes sense, does it still make sense after we wake up? In a dream, I don’t know anything I see.

Yung Ching Chang (Rainless) dedicates herself to exploring and blurring the boundaries between polarisations of perception to question the reality we know. She specialises in photography and photoshop to create images wandering on the edge of realism and surrealism.

There are six series (not including this introduction series) in the VR show: ‘Trash and Treasure’, ‘Crudeness and Luxury’, ‘Start and End’, ‘Forgetting and Remembering’, ‘Sleeping and Awakening’, ‘Dualism and Holism’. In each section, there are two parts which are still life and portrait to demonstrate the topic. The artist aims to create a space to reflect the world’s cognition of reality structures and value systems.

Website: https://jean810206.wixsite.com/boundary

Rita Krupavičiūtė MA Fine Art The aim of this artistic research is to experiment with how to transform reality, in terms of feeling, and see it as a new one, in art. I cultivate concepts and generate ideas using the projection of fantasy and memory, to combine the inner and outer, in addition to artistic skills, knowledge, personal and impersonal experiences. The world we live in is a dual one, full of ambiguity and obscurity. Observing it with a surrealist and anecdotal perspective, helps me to exaggerate the unimportant situations of daily life and to emphasise them as if they were important ones, reminding us how vulnerable and ridiculous humans can be. The drawn, painted and animated ‘snapshots‘ of daily life have become the basis of my research since I moved to London to study Fine Arts in 2019.

I follow my heart in painting and live. If the heart is pleased - I am on the right path.

Everyone is looking for their means of self-expression. Paintings and drawings are a large part of my life; I do not wait for inspiration. A muse of creativity is always with me while motives and ideas, to be laid down on a canvas, surround me all the time. Humanity from different perspectives is the main concern of my artistic practice.

I graduated from Art School in my late teens and continued to study painting and drawing as a self-learner, and at some private studios in Vilnius. I had a twenty years gap in my practice from 1994 and took up a paintbrush again in 2013, once my son Jerome Krupp had grown up. Since then I have participated in exhibitions in Lithuania, UK, Poland, Belgium, Norway; the works went to Cyprus, Sweden, Norway, Ireland. In 2015 I became a member of the Art Creators Association and was granted Art Creators status by The Ministry of Culture, Vilnius.

Follow links for video work A Nightmare : https://vimeo.com/464142167 The Newspaper Globe Process: https://vimeo.com/465068367

www.ritakarts.com https://www.instagram.com/ritak.arts/ r.krupaviciute@gmail.com

Saif Chowdury MA Printmaking My designs stem from ideas brewing in my head, which I then like to translate onto paper. I combine character development with typography an some form of pattern into my artwork, using silkscreen printing, monoprint and lino.

Instagram: saifillustration Email: saifchowdhury01@hotmail.co.uk

Vika Cheng MA Fine Art Vika’s creation is to make a virtual record of her wishful dish that has impacted her life greatly. Her works are based on memories and these stories are told through her virtual cooking video. Not only does food provide us with essential daily nutrients, it perhaps is also one of the best way to comfort our souls. While memory might fade overtime, it is food that happens to constantly evokes these memories which she cares very much about.

Vika Cheng studied MA Fine art at Middlesex University, she has an BA in Journalism and Mass Communication from the Hong Kong Shue Yan University. She is a feng shui Painter, freelance creative inspirer and creative video producer. She has been to a guest teacher for one-day workshop in Hong Kong Design Association. Her feng shui painting were purchased for clients from UBS, Beacon Collage, lawyer’s office etc…

Creative stop-motion video were commissioned by Hong Kong Tourism Board, 友利冰室, MG motor.

Instagram: @vikacheng.art Facebook: Vika Cheng Email: vikachiuyan@gmail.com

My Wishfull Food: https://vimeo.com/463689913