38 In Trinity Magazine Art
Artist in residence
A life Q&A with alumnus, Laurence Watchorn.
Have you always been interested in Art? I was a sportsman growing up and didn’t give too much thought to my underlying passions for Art and Music until near the end of my GCSEs. With the support of Trinity’s Art department, I then went on to study a foundation year at Croydon College before being awarded a place at the Slade. I have always questioned myself and my creative endeavours. They are, however, what I’ve spent a large majority of my time thinking about for a long time now. My practice is characterised by my way of thinking, particularly as I have always been interested in the realm of abstraction.
How did you find your time at the Slade School of Fine Art? I decided to study the four-year BA course, which included Art History modules and a written dissertation as well as the studio-based assessment and degree show. I have made seemingly abstract pictures for four years and written a dissertation entitled, ‘The Cavern in the Mind: An essay investigating a return of ancient shamanic spirit to the modernist west’.
I found immersing myself into the school initially quite challenging. Studying Art at the Slade, in my experience, takes a little ‘unlearning’ of the standard way of approaching academic studies. Being put in a white room, on your own and without much direction and urged to make things seems at first quite alien. Most lectures and tutorials are optional, and you have to do more or less everything off your own back.
This mode of learning actually suited me though and is really what allowed me to learn an incredible amount about myself. It is something which isn’t learnt on many other BA courses. It was effectively four years of problem solving whilst constantly being critiqued and questioned. As daunting as that seems, at first, you soon realise the value of it. In my second year I opted to study an extra Philosophy module titled, ‘Metaphysics and epistemology’ which, in hindsight, really set things up for the rest of my degree and shifted my practice into new territory. Things definitely started to take shape for me toward the end of the third and in my final year as I began to realise what it is that really interests me as an artist.