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Aesthetica

Art Prize2013

100 Contemporary Artists

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Aesthetica

Publishing

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Aesthetica

Publishing

Aesthetica

Art Prize2013

100 Contemporary Artists

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The Aesthetica Art Prize 2013100 Contemporary Artists.

Published by Aesthetica Magazine Ltd, 2013.

This collection is a compilation of the winners and finalists from theAesthetica Art Prize in 2012,

organised by Aesthetica Magazine.

© Aesthetica Magazine Ltd. All work is copyrighted to the artist.All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any

electronic or mechanical means without permission from the publisher.

ISSN 1758-9932.

Aesthetica MagazinePO Box 371

YorkYO23 1WL, UK

info@aestheticamagazine.comwww.aestheticamagazine.com

All work and texts published have been submitted by the artist. The works featured in this collection have been chosen by judges appointed by Aesthetica

Magazine. The Publisher therefore cannot accept responsibility or liability for any infringement of copyright or otherwise arising out of the publication thereof.

© Aesthetica Magazine Ltd, 2013.

Cover image:Damien O’Mara, (detail of) Airport, 2012.

fromTrespasser series.

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Welcome to the Aesthetica Art Prize Anthology 2013. As the editor of an international art publication, I’ve always had a commitment to reporting on the latest from the art sector, but I also believe in championing new and emerging artists. These artists’ works and ideas are precisely what keep the sector fresh and exciting. The art world is notoriously difficult to break into, and I see the Aesthetica Art Prize as a way for artists to reach a wider audience. Of course, it takes time for any artist to develop his or her practice, but it’s crucial that new artists are given a chance to shine. In such a competitive market, group shows and art prizes are an excellent way for artists to make their foray into the international art world.

We have been supporting new artists for a decade, and have produced a yearly anthology of recommended works for the past six years, however I felt is was time to take it one step further and create a prize, offering artists the chance to win studio space, editorial coverage in Aesthetica Magazine, an exhibition and money towards developing their practice. As such, in 2012, the Aesthetica Art Prize was launched to bring new artists’ works to a wider audience.

Surveying modern concerns and focusing on present day society, the pieces selected (both shortlisted and longlisted) highlight artistic talent from locations including the USA, South Korea, Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and across the UK. From thousands of artists who entered, eight were selected for the resulting exhibition and the work of a further 92 is included alongside them in this collection. Works span the following categories: Photographic and Digital Art; Three Dimensional Design and Sculpture; Painting and Drawing, and Video, Installation and Performance.

This anthology provides a unique opportunity to appreciate the international breadth, and experience the range and quality of artwork that is being produced today. These works not only

reflect the world in which we live, but also highlight contemporary preoccupations, ranging from the environment and capitalism to marginalised communities and traditional views on women. Invigorating, dynamic and inspirational, the pieces engage on many levels, inviting a dialogue between artist and viewer. Across the following pages, you’ll find 100 artworks along with four essays addressing current concerns in the contemporary art world, such as materiality in sculpture, the definition of a public gallery’s collection, how new painters are pushing boundaries, and the understanding of artists’ film and moving image. Through these essays and works, we present an overview of today’s most exciting artists and engage with the most relevant issues of our times.

The judges for this year’s prize included myself; Laura Turner, Curator at York Art Gallery; Frances Guy, Head of Collection and Exhibitions at The Hepworth Wakefield; Kate MccGwire, internationally renowned British sculptor, and Neeta Madahar, celebrated British photographer represented by the Purdy Hicks Gallery, London. I would like to thank all of the artists involved and extend our gratitude to our partners and sponsors, including York Museums Trust, York St John University, The Hepworth Wakefield, Awol Studios, Lawrence Art Supplies, Prestel and 1331.

For me, this anthology promotes a new discussion and communicates a wider message about the complexities of the world today. Although the artists are from far and wide, the narratives that unfold from page to page only serve to remind us about our inherent interconnectedness, and that we are truly part of a global community.

Cherie FedericoEditor, Aesthetica Magazine

Foreword

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The Definitions of Contemporary Collections

Any art gallery or museum has a duty to define its collecting policy in accordance with our industry standards. There are templates to follow and guidelines laying out the different criteria to bear in mind when composing this key document. Parameters are established in relation to the existing collection and the particularities of the location of the organisation, its heritage and its audience as well as the priorities of other collecting bodies in the locality. Collecting becomes a process that is defined by rigour, pragmatism and consensus, and every effort is made to mitigate our personal experience of collecting as an act that is based on passion, impulse and a deeply felt need. However, a public collection can never be completely devoid of the influence of personal taste or the external circumstances, be they financial or physical, which lie behind its development.

When Wakefield Art Gallery opened in 1934, it quickly established a contemporary collecting policy. Councillor Alan Carr, the then Chair of the Art Gallery and Museum Committee, stated “Our idea is that we shall keep in touch with modern art in its relations to modern life” and so began a programme of acquisition of works by some of the most avant-garde artists in Britain. Led by Ernest Musgrave, the gallery’s forward-thinking Director, and with the support of the Wakefield Permanent Art Fund, the Contemporary Art Society and other funding bodies, some of the earliest purchases included paintings by Ivon Hitchens, Victor Pasmore, John Piper and William Roberts.

Many of these works were acquired through an ambitious exhibitions programme that brought the best of contemporary British and European art to Yorkshire but also included the West Riding

Artists Exhibitions. These showcased artists working in the region, one with a particularly rich pool of talent to draw on, including locally-born sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. With charismatic and knowledgeable directors such as Musgrave and Helen Kapp, who took the helm in 1951, the collection and the reputation of the gallery grew to belie its provincial status.

In the 1960s, the gallery’s exhibition and collecting policy was scaled down although significant items began to be acquired again from the late 1970s, more often than not by gift or loan. The focus turned to collecting works on paper and prints, as well as contemporary craft as a way of making best use of available funds in a volatile art market. Financial support from external organisations such as the Victoria and Albert Museum Purchase Grant Fund, the Art Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund became even more vital in enabling the gallery’s acquisition programme to continue.

It is against this backdrop that The Hepworth Wakefield strives to recover the ambition and vision of the early decades of Wakefield Art Gallery. Through our commitment to exhibiting and promoting Britain’s most exciting artists, and indeed artists of international standing, we aim to grow the collection once again and to re-establish its reputation as one of the most progressive galleries in the regions. While the Wakefield Permanent Art Fund has been disbanded, there is a drive to create a network of patrons with a view to supporting acquisitions in the future. However, in lieu of this development and any allocated funds, the gallery is still dependent on external bodies to enable purchases of contemporary art.

Since the launch of The Hepworth Wakefield in 2011, two works by contemporary artists have been acquired for Wakefield’s collection.

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Wandering Palm by Eva Rothschild, the first artist to exhibit in the gallery, was bought in 2011 with the assistance of the Contemporary Art Society and the Art Fund. The gallery’s membership of the CAS National Network entitled us to access funds to buy a work of art for the collection, and with the additional support of the Art Fund, key stakeholders in the organisation’s development, we were able to raise enough to buy a significant piece from the exhibition. Rothschild’s exhibition was mostly composed of new work made specifically with David Chipperfield’s spaces in mind and, as such, it was a difficult choice to make. However, the explicit use of casting processes in Eva Rothschild’s Wandering Palm, which assembles cast component parts of familiar everyday objects, had a resonance with the existing permanent collection and, in particular, with Hepworth’s own prototype plaster models in the Hepworth Family Gift. This connection will be useful in the learning programme and supporting interpretation in creating a dialogue between historic and contemporary work, an important component of our programme. Also, in discussion with Sam Lackey, the curator of the exhibition, the artist felt that the piece marked an interesting turning point in her direction and would be an important one to consider in subsequent exhibitions of her work.

The other acquisition came about through the CAS Annual Award for Museums, which was awarded to The Hepworth Wakefield in a joint commissioning project with Wolverhampton Art Gallery in association with Film and Video Umbrella in 2010. Our proposal was to work with artist Luke Fowler to commission a new moving image work in response to the teachings of radical socialist EP Thompson and the development of the Workers’ Educational Association in

working class communities in the North and the Midlands. This innovative award, funded by the Sfumato Foundation, is now in its fifth year and has enabled other organisations to secure significant new works for their collections through a commission that responds directly to their collection and context. This has been a challenging project, not only because it is the first work in digital media to be acquired for Wakefield’s collection and, as such, comes with practical considerations about the storage and exhibition of the work in the long term, but also because the work is a co-acquisition.

Galleries face increasing challenges to secure funding that will enable their collections to include works of national and international importance. However, collaborative models such as the CAS co-acquisition process will no doubt be more widely used in the future in order for public collections to represent and reflect contemporary culture properly and in all its diversity; to paraphrase Councillor Carr, “modern art in relation to modern life”.

Frances Guy

Frances Guy is Head of Collection & Exhibitions at The Hepworth Wakefield. It is the largest purpose-built exhibition space outside London and takes its name from artist and sculptor Barbara Hepworth, who was born and educated in the city. www.hepworthwakefield.org.

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Fresh from the Tube: What Keeps Painting Contemporary?

We know from ancient cave paintings, such as those in Cantabria, that humankind has been painting for approximately 40,000 years. Somewhat more recently, after the birth of photography liberated it from a purely representational role in the West, painting took off in many different directions, from abstract to expressionist to minimalist, until, some would argue, it had nowhere new left to go. Yet numerous artists of the last 100 years – from Picasso to Pollock to Riley to Kelly to Martin to Richter – have continued to earn their place in art history via this medium, and further generations – Henny Acloque, Iain Andrews, Gordon Cheung, Sachin Kaeley, Laura Lancaster and Narbi Price to name but a few of the painters I’ve encountered in the course of my work with Contemporary Art Society – are continuing to produce exciting and dynamic paintings. So how and why does painting remain so vital and varied in contemporary art practice?

The marketIn his introduction to Painting Today (2009), Tony Godfrey states: “It is the privilege and the bane of painting to be the darling of the art market”. Indeed, the highest prices at art auctions are for paintings above all other media. The bottom line is that no-one can argue that a painting is art - it is easy to display and doesn’t require technology which may be obsolete - so in terms of contemporary art, it is a safe medium. However, to suggest that art production is a sole consequence of the art market over-simplifies the issue. Market values are achieved through a complex web of critical endorsement by curators and writers, whose own reputations are pinned on identifying the cutting edge and innovative, which in turn places

the responsibility back on the shoulders of the artist to reject the formulaic and strive constantly for new territories.

The medium is the messageOne approach taken by artists to keep painting contemporary has been to deprioritise subject matter and to explore paint itself. For example, working in the most traditional of media, oil paint, Peter Doig thins it to make watery layers, creating an effect that is far removed from the smooth, impermeable skins of conventional oil paintings. Alexis Harding also works in oil paint, but applies it thickly and moves it around the canvas to emphasise its sculptural textures. The combination of paint plus gravity, and an unusual way of applying paint (by syringe) are central to Ian Davenport’s poured stripes, whereas Angela de la Cruz addresses the conventions of display, deconstructing canvases and wooden stretchers. Some painters have done away with the support completely, working instead with the architecture of a space to make site-specific installations, from Daniel Buren to Lothar Götz.

Then there are artists whose paint doesn’t come in a tube, working, for example, with household gloss (Gary Hume), model-maker’s humbrol (George Shaw) or spray paint (Banksy). Other artists applied unconventional materials to their paintings, such as embroidery (Michael Raedecker), lead and clay (Anselm Kiefer) or even elephant dung (Chris Ofili). So before even looking at the subject matter of contemporary painting, we can see how the materiality of painting has enabled artists to continue to innovate.

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The return of the realSubject matter can, however, still be relevant in painting. Where Modernism progressed towards purest abstraction, with Postmodernism came a new attitude of “anything goes”, and for painting this meant the chance to tackle the history of painting straight on: to appropriate, subvert and overrule.

For example, the figure as subject, and, in particular, the perfectly proportioned nude, has at times been considered the pinnacle of high art. What can possibly be added to the subject? Well plenty, if you’re going to refuse to idealise your model (Lucien Freud), or show the aging human body (Maria Lassnig), or depict distorted fantasy figures that are altogether more disturbing (John Currin). And where portrait paintings once depicted saints, royalty and military commanders, contemporary artists, such as Marlene Dumas, Elizabeth Peyton and Stella Vine, have looked to celebrity pop culture for their subject matter.

Other forms of popular culture have been appropriated. For Glenn Brown, this is the low-brow art of sci-fi book covers, whereas Harland Miller makes classic Penguin book design monumental and creates his own one-liners. Text as subject matter has become important in contemporary painting, from the jokes of Richard Prince to the advertising slogans of Ed Ruscha, often painted over a traditional mountainscape.

The landscape as subject, which was so important in both Romanticism and Impressionism and then arguably reduced to the realm of the amateur, Sunday painter, has been revived and overturned, as seen in Nigel Cooke’s dystopian landscapes and George Shaw’s bleak depictions of suburbia. Even the floral still

life, the subject of many a GCSE art classroom, has been given new life in the paintings of Paul Morrison, where imagery from different historical periods is sourced and united on one canvas.

And for those who thought that minimalist painting had reached its conclusion when Malevich painted White on White (1918), or in Yves Klein’s monochrome blue panels, there are artists still finding new expressions in minimal mark-making, such as Maaike Schoorel’s white or black canvases in which just the faintest suggestion of form or figure can be detected.

The list could go on. For, like music, which, despite in essence simply comprising notes arranged in different orders (or in the case of John Cage’s 4’33”, no notes at all), has continued to find new tunes and harmonies to charm and thrill each generation of listener, so artists discover new ways to delight, inspire, educate or provoke us with the oldest and simplest of visual art media: paint.

Rebecca Morrill

Rebecca Morrill is the Head of Collector Development for Contemporary Art Society in North East England. Contemporary Art Society is the membership organisation for art enthusiasts and collectors, and supports contemporary artists by promoting collections by both individuals and institutions. Through diverse activities, the organisation generates funds that enable it to purchase significant works of contemporary art for public collections in the UK. www.contemporaryartsociety.org.

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The Materiality of Sculpture:A Sculptor’s Perspective

As Roland Barthes said, plastic is “more than a substance, plastic is the very idea of infinite transformation”. Well, feathers and bones are my “plastic” – infinitely transformable. Like many artists of my generation, the materials I’m most interested in working with are those that can be transformed in some way, and which have some kind of resonance with me and the context I’m making work for.

You can’t separate the materials you use from the times you work in. We’re all products of our age. I think this particular time demands that sculptors take a more thoughtful approach to their materials. We’re all more conscious of our fragility as human beings and that, I think, has translated into an interest in materials that are open to associations and context as well as to the use of ephemeral matter. None of this would be possible, of course, if it hadn’t been for artists like Duchamp, Picasso and Beuys, who not only redefined what sculpture could be but what it could be made of, throwing open the door to the world of materials – the stuff of life is there for us to plunder. There are no rules to what you use (Piero Manzoni’s infamous cans of artist’s faeces were proof of that); no limits to how.

A sculptor’s choice of materials is like their own personal language, a form of self-expression so unconscious it can be impossible to stand back from it with any intellectual detachment. Looked at superficially, the materials I choose to work with seem to have certain qualities in common: they require a labour-intensive approach to making, in which the slow rhythms of construction become embedded in the piece; the materials can be scaled up or used in a way that transforms the original; they’re often everyday items that are undervalued or would pass unexamined in a non-art context.

Many of us are working in this way, choosing to use the power of

transformation to make a spectacle of the everyday: Mona Hatoum has used her own hair to create a veil of strands that catch against your face as you pick your way through the room of a former convent, while Cornelia Parker has taken a common garden shed and its contents and presented it “exploded”, mangled, burnt, yet somehow beautiful, in a pristine gallery setting. She’s also explored the ductile qualities of gold in wedding rings, reducing them to screwed up bundles that allow the tangle of wires to be read “like entrails” and become what she describes as “an object of projection for the viewer”. But why this interest in “everyday” materials? They’re more democratic for one thing – and in our egalitarian age that matters. They’re also an unconscious part of our ordinary experience, so much so that they provide the perfect means with which to make some kind of transgressive statement, to explore the gap between matter and meaning.

My own interest in pigeon feathers, for instance, stems from my awareness that the feather taken on its own is an object of beauty but comes from a bird that society has written off as “a rat with wings”; when used in large quantities, the feathers produce a work that is both vile and beautiful, eliciting a response in the viewer that – to quote Julia Kristeva – sets up ‘a vortex of summons and repulsion’. Establishing this kind of visceral connection with the viewer is something I always hope to provoke from the materials I use. Work is there to be sensed, to trigger emotions, to produce physical repercussions, not just foment thought.

I explore that fine line of trying subtly to unsettle the viewer in some way by challenging the status quo and focusing on the predator-prey dichotomy. My piece, Cleave, challenges the viewers’

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impulse to perceive pigeons as diseased and parasitic creatures. Constructed of white pigeon feathers, constrained within a glass cabinet, it explores the purity and sensuality of form to attract the viewers’ gaze, delving into and out of itself over and again, falling prey to its allure and undulating physicality.

For the everyday to be interesting, though (at least to me), the material also needs to have an intrinsic ambiguity about it that can be exploited both formally and conceptually. It needs to be able to defy our usual impression of it, to “wow” visually when used en masse so that it sets itself apart from our normal experience of it; so that the finished work becomes “other”. The possibility for transformation inherent in the material – from the minute to the vast, the worldly to the otherworldly, the recognisable to the unfamiliar – is thus a vital component.

My monumental installation piece, Gyre, encapsulates this overwhelming impression by bringing together enduring themes through its gestural obsidian form. Formed from a vast collection of crow feathers, the piece refers to the cultural mythologies of crows as devious creatures, omens of bad luck when seen in pairs, and closely associated with death due to their unbidden presence on battlefields and graveyards. These unconscious associations are inscribed in the silken black surface of the structure, and intensify as Gyre’s sheer scale causes it to exceed the boundaries of the cabinet, viscerally invading the viewers’ space. The piece appears organic, almost umbilical as its tendrils entwine, wrapped closely to the structure evoking the primal dependence of mother, child and the parasite.

Ultimately, though, the real power probably lies in the coming together of material, form and site. An important factor in any

sculptor’s career is being given the opportunity to make work in spaces that resonate with or, in some constructive way, disrupt, the properties of the material they’re using. Very often the site itself will trigger an idea or suggest a particular form, as a hole in St Pancras Church’s crypt wall did for me with Retch (2007) – a hellish geyser of feathers spewing from an underground orifice.

The other aspect of using everyday materials is that they lend themselves to a hands-on approach, to the quiet pursuit of craftsmanship. The often grindingly slow process of making, of days

– even months – spent in the studio, feeds into the form, allowing time for reflection and other ideas to stir. The practical skills that certain materials demand – the endless collecting, cleaning, sorting and sticking of feathers, bones or hair – is totally at odds with the punch of the final effect. It’s a dichotomy that never fails to thrill.

Kate MccGwire

Kate MccGwire probes the beauty inherent in duality, employing natural materials to explore the play of opposites at an aesthetic, intellectual and visceral level. Her connection with nature and a fascination with birds was nurtured from an early age, with avian subjects and materials a recurring theme. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2004 she has exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery, the Museum of Art and Design (New York) and at the Natural History Museum (Paris). Kate is represented by All Visual Arts Gallery, London www.allvisualarts.org. www.katemccgwire.com.

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From Vision to Volume:Notes on Artists’ Film

The late, great Joseph Beuys famously declared that “everybody is an artist”, capable of creative thinking across all spheres of human activity. Had he been speaking today, he might well have altered the observation slightly, to read “artist filmmaker”, so ubiquitous now is the aspiration among practitioners to make moving image works.

In one way, this is not a novel development. The birth of cinema was, in a sense, that of twins with very different temperaments. The Lumière brothers proposed a documentary approach to “reality”, revelling in the motion capture of workers and trains, while Georges Méliès created fecund, filmic fantasias of illusionistic beauty. Binary proposals are always limited, but Méliès was arguably the first artist filmmaker, a pioneering magus of the moving image who realised its aesthetic potential.

A whistle-stop tour through the subsequent century or so might initially appear to suggest that the balance between “reality” and

“imagination” has been maintained in filmic production generally. But closer inspection reveals that, whether Lord of the Rings or Fahrenheit 9/11, the filmic languages that these works deploy are remarkably similar. The focus on concrete character, clarity of plot, narrative arcs, psychological plausibility, logical mise-en-scene and so on is commonplace in almost all moving image production, from Hollywood to Hoxton; the fully commodified to the wilfully hip.

That said, a wondrous lineage of makers from the earliest days has kept alive a radically different way of seeing, one fuelled by ceaseless innovations, whether in technology, thematics, means of production, or political, sexual or movement allegiance. Buñuel, Deren, Pasolini, Antonioni, Godard, Tarkovsky, Mekas, Varda, Marker, Tait, Farocki - a highly subjective list, a handful among hundreds,

makers from both cinema and gallery – are all genuine artists who have constantly tested the limits of the permissible and the possible, seeking a way to fuse form and content in ways that are true to their times and their sense of human identity (and meaning).

And, as with any other form, interrogation of the materiality of the medium itself is central to this, whether it’s celluloid or video, painted cel or pixel processes. It is impossible to separate Stan Brakhage’s world-making oeuvre from his tactile artisanship, or the speculative deliria of David Lynch from his visceral appreciation of cinema’s embodied dream rhythms.

Indeed, among the earliest corpus of artists’ films were those made within, or in fellow-travelling kinship with, the Surrealists. Radical framing, fragmented narratives, freeform cinematography and allegorical, archetypal narrative appropriation all feature in the work of makers like Dulac, Clair, Buñuel & Dali, Cocteau and Vertov. The latter, whose Man with a Movie Camera (1929) almost single-handedly invented the essay film, an associative mode of creative documentary, has proved among the most lastingly influential on generations of subsequent artists. Allowing “background” – be it the city or the natural world – as much priority as those figures moving within it, the cine-essay weds the investigation of its literary ancestor to the fluidity of film. Chris Marker (Sans Soleil and La Jetée 1983 and 1962 respectively) is the presiding spirit here, one who instinctively understood the need to create new formal structures to deal with ever-increasing image production.

When, in 1965, Nam June Paik, widely credited as the first video artist, started using the Sony Portapak, he revolutionised artists’ production, and showed that the moving image was a viable tool of

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expression within the fine art world. Bill Viola, Gary Hill, Tony Oursler and myriad others have, of course, followed suit. Whether in single screen or installational settings, exploiting found-footage, collage, auto-portraiture, expanded and site-specific cinema or structuralist experimentation, the moving image is now indivisible from our understanding of what contemporary artists’ practice has the full potential to be.

However, with this ubiquity has come a new set of orthodoxies. We live in a civilisation that is undeniably defined and driven visually, with images produced instantly and at overwhelming volume across all technologies and platforms. Art has become a high-finance, globalised, gentrifying, even pandemic operation. And, while the two-way traffic between cinema and the gallery is frequent (Steve McQueen, Gillian Wearing and Clio Barnard, to name only three high-profile British artists and filmmakers, work across both spaces), there is relatively little consideration of the implications of these huge shifts in the nature, frequency and potency (or not) of the moving image.

Just as, from the 1990s onwards, documentary makers have found new outlets and eager audiences in cinemas, following with a widespread collapse in television’s support of auteur factual filmmaking, so the gallery has become home to many filmmakers who could no longer raise funds or find screens in a rapidly commercialising and screen-diminishing cinematic environment. Now, beyond the international film festival circuit, the biennale and white cube are almost the default locations of inventive filmmaking for those who can access them. Online exhibition remains open to all, but true “visibility” remains as elusive as ever, as does the ability

to make a living from an art form that is immediately reproducible, in a medium where “editioning” is limited and where the image itself struggles for an extended shelf life, audience attention and even its own “depth” in a culture of instant gratification and constant distraction.

As always, what was once innovative, radical and risk-taking has become assimilated and mainstream. It has perhaps never been harder to be an artist (filmmaker), while at the same time it has never been more necessary to explore creatively the world and the times we are making, to find new but informed ways of telling reality imaginatively, with urgency and reflection. All “givens” must be questioned. Projects like this one, therefore, are more important than ever, nurturing both emerging makers – to test and reach their potential, while allowing them, in Beckett’s words, to “fail better” – and us, their audiences of the present and the future.

Gareth Evans

Gareth Evans is a writer, editor of the journal Artesian, publisher of Go Together Press and film curator at Whitechapel Gallery, London. He curates PLACE, the annual festival at Aldeburgh Music in Suffolk, and recently produced the acclaimed essay film Patience (After Sebald) by Grant Gee. He has also contributed to Jerwood/Film and Video Umbrella Projects as Writer in Residence. www.gotogetherpress.com.

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I work with three-dimensional sculpture and installation, and on two-dimensional surfaces. The main focus of my practice is on personal and political relationships, and patterns of involvement relating to issues of human rights and social justice. Triptych (Untitled) addresses three pressing global issues. It represents three types of journey, usually conducted in secret, pertaining to grave abuses of human rights: the trafficking of women and children for commercial sex exploitation; routes taken by unaccompanied minors (children seeking asylum on their own), and flights conducted by the CIA in the process of extraordinary rendition. Each route

is graphically represented by lines linking a starting point, major staging posts and a final destination, and includes a symbolic, blank map of the world rendered as an abstract form. Triptych (Untitled) lies somewhere between a painting and a drawing, and is made in acrylic piped onto coarse linen. This material is similar in appearance and texture to sackcloth and was chosen to underline the crudeness of the travellers’ experiences, whether before, during or as a result of their journey. The triptych includes three landscape panels which are unusually elongated, suggesting information boards in a travel hub such as an airport.

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FINALISTPAINTING & DRAWING

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With a background in film production and photography, I have completed two photographic series, exhibiting the Suited Man in Melbourne and the Trespasser in northern New South Wales. I was awarded a Regional Arts Development Grant in 2012 for two video art pieces exhibited as video projections at the Swell Sculpture Festival, and I am currently working on a photographic series investigating contemporary masculinity through traditional work roles. Trespasser depicts suited men in places that are ‘‘off-limits’’ or ‘‘out-of-bounds’’ to people in corporate roles. While the image of the suited man denotes feelings of conformity to role and position,

the presence of large-scale machinery or infrastructure suggests the insignificance of the individual in this environment. The works portray an individual in a conservative role within a dominant environment, crossing a threshold. They reflect the dilemmas of the quarter life crisis in contemporary Australia, where professionals in their 30s increasingly reject corporate careers and question the social mores that led them to that world in the first place. The works interrogate the value of role and position in the attainment of a meaningful, authentic existence, and the suitability of the traditional paths available in achieving those goals.

Trespasser Series

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PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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Through the medium of social, collaborative photography, I am committed to pursuing my passion for education and the plight of marginalised communities. I recently gained a First Class Honours Degree, and during my studies I produced work focusing on Travellers and Transylvanian Roma, highlighted by a solo exhibition in Istanbul in September 2012. I am currently continuing with this work as well as studying for an MA. My series, Roma : Transylvania: January 2011, narrates the experiences and situations that I encountered whilst meeting and photographing Roma families living on the outskirts of a Transylvanian village. The portraits represent proud and defiant

people who have suffered and are still suffering. The series captures the essence of their identity, and their confident and strong personalities are blatantly exposed by their uninhibited gazes. The depiction reflects their hardiness and resilience despite the basic and stark conditions that continue to prevail for these communities. Information is presented within the frame, but beyond it further questions arise concerning the subjects’ past and present ways of life, their impact on today’s society and their future. Much suspicion and folklore continue to surround the Roma communities. I want my photographs to provoke questions for viewers, such as “what is the reality?”

Roma : Transylvania : January 2011

Mary HumphreyFINALIST

PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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My work has been exhibited in New Contemporaries 2011-2012 (works chosen for Saatchi Gallery’s Public Collection), Academy Now (2013) and London Art Fair (2013), and I recently won an award for the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Subverting and deconstructing animated anthropomorphic and zoomorphic forms, I use assemblage to reconfigure conventional forms into surprising and playful arrangements, portraying the flaws and failures of the human condition and the personal relationships within our lives. The Family Meal is a consolidation of disfigured and reconfigured objects composed in a skeletal and structured kitchen/living room space.

Through my work I employ DIY methods with an alternative slant, using absurd mechanisms for fixings and means of construction. Consequently, my works juxtapose a practical process against deconstruction. Each furniture explodes out of, or cuts through, a catalogued setting, displacing the viewer from the original sense of order and composition of objects. The Family Meal plays with memory, projecting broken fragments of past events into reality with a physical presence, exploring to the extreme our relationships with each other and our expression of physical action in relation to the domestic setting, which has a certain preconceived meaning.

The Family Meal

Poppy WhatmoreWINNER

THREE-DIMENSIONAL DESIGN & SCULPTURE

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I explore the intricacies of nature through a labour intensive paper-cutting technique. Since graduating from Fine Art Printmaking at the University of Brighton, I have been awarded a number of residencies in both London and Spain, and I have participated in several group shows. In 2012, I was awarded the Judge’s Choice for the British Women Artists Competition. My work responds to visual phenomena in nature; the endless geometric patterns found on all levels of existence. Starting with tree formations, I create an idealised aesthetic of nature through the symmetrical rendering of digitally printed photographs, which are then hand-cut and layered. The

meditative quality of the work is reflected in my interest in artistic and devotional practices of Eastern Cultures. The hand allows for subtle deviations from the lines and emphasises craftsmanship and wonderment. Once layered, the two-dimensional paper cuts have an inherent sense of depth, creating three-dimensional drawings which are separated between glass. In Untitled, Secondary Growth and Matter, I navigate the division between science and art; traditional processes and contemporary practices. The white planes of paper become infinite and abstract, and my work has the appearance of something viewed through a telescope or under a microscope.

Untitled

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FINALISTPAINTING & DRAWING

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I completed my Master of Fine Art at the Slade School of Fine Art, and since then I have had exhibitions at the Bargehouse Gallery and Smokehouse Gallery in London. Heavily influenced by my childhood, my work focuses on certain customs that have been handed down since ancient times. It is these traditions and faiths that form the basis of who we are, however unlikely we feel this may be, or how dependent we have become on our current and most recent experiences. In forgetting these traditions, we lose sight of where we have come from, and how fundamental they are to our current life. With this in mind, the doubt and the questions surrounding

what we see and what we don’t see are the main themes of my work. My practice is particularly focused upon that which is invisible and the use of transformed and abandoned objects. I concentrate on deconstructing value systems, personal histories and culture, commenting on wider narrative structures. The shortlisted piece Untitled transcends the concept of time and value, moving beyond tangible appearances into a new and exciting temporality. Light is used to express the eternity of time; the reflections on transparent materials illuminate the enduring traditions that are often forgotten or adapted to contemporary life and everyday experience.

Untitled

Kyunghee ParkFINALIST

THREE-DIMENSIONAL DESIGN & SCULPTURE

20

I work through a range of methodologies, employing video, sculpture, sound and electronic components to forge hybrid memories and re-examine those once thought lost. My work has been exhibited in Japan, Korea and the USA. Chromaphone II is the second in a series that explores the phenomenon of synesthesia, an experience of “seeing sounds” and “hearing colours.” Across the globe, cultures stick to rather arbitrary palettes of colours and sounds, which are then seen as fundamentally linked. To defeat the pre-existing symbols, clichés and stereotypes that dictate or confuse meaning, we must challenge our unacknowledged prejudices about

beauty. This work examines sound and colour associations from across the globe by replacing the Western colour wheel and musical scale with the traditional Korean colour scheme and pentatonic scale. The five wall-mounted tubes were painstakingly tuned to produce a “Korean” note and a corresponding “Korean” shade throughout the surrounding space, creating a unique audio-visual composition. Western audiences are immersed in an alternate conception of colours and sounds from another land. The abstract image-song momentarily erases the barriers of culture, replacing one form of cultural synesthesia with another.

Chromaphone II

Hyung-Gyu KimFINALIST

VIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

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I have recently exhibited at the Flatout AC Institute in New York and Open12 at the WW Gallery in London. My practice is based around the appropriation and manipulation of films in the public domain. Using them as a found object, I re-edit them into short videos focusing on the female lead character. Footage of the female alone in the frame is used, the rest of the film is removed, and the images are edited together to run consecutively, following the chronological order of the original film. This re-editing interrupts the patriarchal narrative structure and makes visible the usually invisible editing that is demanded by realism. The presence of a woman is an

indispensable element of spectacle in normal narrative film, yet my visual presence tends to work against the development of a defined storyline. The woman is on display; to be looked at and to provoke rather than represent. She functions as an erotic object on two levels: for the characters within the screen story, and for the spectator within the auditorium, with a shifting tension between the looks on either side of the film. By removing the male protagonist, the gaze is transferred solely to the spectator, which intensifies our own voyeuristic position. The female character is left looking passive, vulnerable and unstable, causing the viewer to reflect on her position.

Mary

Sara BrannanFINALIST

VIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

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In my current body of work, I have set out to explore the landscapes of Britain that are passed through, ignored or deleted from the collective memory. These are universal landscapes that can be found in any country, on the edges of any urban or marine environment. These “waste zones” put me in mind of fleeting glimpses from a car or train window or departing ferry, and are seen as a landscape of arrival and departure where quays, rusting hulks and oil drums,

nuclear reactors, depots and gasometers loom large and question place, memory and transience. Realised as a series of large, gestural paintings, the work takes viewers on a gritty journey through the forgotten sites it depicts. As a whole, the project marries the images with atmospheric music by Transglobal Underground and a poetic short film, Jonah and the Whale, by award-winning filmmaker Ian Knox – both great complements to the artwork.

Wharf Piping 1

Day BowmanPAINTING & DRAWING

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I deploy tools such as trowels, or more often a squeegee, to layer the surfaces with acrylic paint. Dragging and pushing paint across the canvas forms a richly layered effect, creating a congested, overflowing texture. These paintings are layered time after time until the upper layer explodes and transforms from its volcanic creation into a vivid landscape. These are eruptions of colour and beauty intended to transfix the viewer. I am inspired by such artists

as Gerhard Richter and the New York School. My works revel in the history of abstract painting but of late they are also reaching towards a vision of figurative abstraction that captures the Welsh landscape. I focus on richly worked surfaces, employing many inventive and risky strategies to exploit chance and accident in the works. All of my works are given Welsh names that have personal significance to me. The languages of paint and word come together to make one whole.

Dorothea

Elfyn LewisPAINTING & DRAWING

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The 6141 series (6141 being the dimensions of the work) was a successful continuation of the concept behind my work, but also an advancement of technical ability in terms of production and finish. My studio is currently in Camberley, and the complexity of space becomes mere geometry that offers no trace of intervention. The sphere of concrete experience morphs into a realm of abstract possibility. This is achieved through a 3-D representation of standard

architectural drawing techniques that are rendered in MDF and acrylic, giving a unique perspective on both the planning and building stages of architectural production. The works, as such, are at once representations of space and representations of representations of space. I employ strong, solid blocks of colour that complement the dynamic planes and shapes found within urban spaces. My 3-D works explore the links between the material world and art.

Andrew Harrison6141M PAINTING & DRAWING

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I make landscape paintings using acrylic and collaged wallpaper. I’m interested in the traditions of the art form and wish to resurrect it as a serious pursuit. My paintings are based on found images that I reinterpret and collage using wallpaper. I focus upon ideas of the picturesque, the romantic and the sublime – all ideas that are inherent in the traditions of landscape painting. The colours and patterns suggest an aesthetic link between aspirational working class

homes and high art. Using a technique similar to marquetry, I seek to reclaim landscape on my own terms. Cicely depicts an unidentifiable and beautiful landscape. Unlike other more traditional examples, Cicely is unpopulated and mysterious, bordering on fantasy. Though not Arcadia or Eden, it is a beautiful nowhere place. However, its beauty is interrupted by the material it is made from: wallpaper. Not only is the landscape of Cicely uninhabited, it is also uninhabitable.

David WightmanCicely PAINTING & DRAWING

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I have heard the baby crywho sings the lullaby? A voice like an angel confronts meI am awakeI can now see.Grace is from the series Ink in my carnation, a play on the word incarnation. Living in this contemporary climate, in which our want

supersedes our need, I believe that we as a population have lost sight of what matters most: the cycle of life, fauna and flora. Grace has been created in a bid to remind us that we are a part of our planet, not apart from it. To convey vibration, a sense of depth and universal breath, layers of natural pigment are applied, manipulated by hand over several months and bound with oil and beeswax. Contemplative deep glowing spaces suggest a site for spiritual renewal.

Caroline HartleyGrace PAINTING & DRAWING

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My body of work aims to confront sociocultural issues that lie at the core of modern society. I am looking for a visual language that is truthful and points to the space that exists beyond the screen of representation; to what lies hidden in the everyday lived experience of “the unspecial, the unchosen people”, in their relationship to society and culture. I use video, performance and drawing to investigate and develop representations appropriate to these

concerns. Can these “unseeable” images only be “seen” through the representation of the drawing which unfolds its truths over a period of time? I invite you, the viewer, to look through a “peephole” into a private room; a life. You may feel curious, voyeuristic and uncomfortable as you observe this other in an intimate space. And yet, if you and I cannot witness these images, how can we begin to understand the complexity of the world we live in?

Caroline BurrawayUntitled 10 PAINTING & DRAWING

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This painting is part of The Beginning, a picture book written by Paula Carballeira, published in 7 languages by the Spanish publishing house Kalandraka. The Beginning contrasts tenderness with horror, imagination with terrible hardship, and the strength of close family ties with human drama. It’s told from childhood and takes us to where bombs explode with every attention to detail. Despite the cruel and devastating effects of a war, this sensitive story is a message of hope

and a tribute to picture books as instruments of peace; libraries as glowing beacons that fade in the shadow of violence; written and spoken words and drawn pictures as sustenance for our souls.Once, there was a war. When the war ended, we didn’t have a home.“Never mind,” my mother said. “We have a car.”So we lived in the car.And from then on, we lived on the road...

Once, there was a war

Sonja DanowskiPAINTING & DRAWING

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I would like to burden the viewer. Absorbed in the social dance, we forget to think about the masses as individuals. It has become my obsession to keep these individuals in their element while exposing their authentic self, and the subsequent truth that comes with it. Most of my work attempts to capture what is attractive, but upon further study seems to reveal an unsettling blemish. Sunbathers is set in early 1960s America but could take place anytime, anywhere. These

leisurely women are the faceless lot that we encounter but never take the time to understand. Searching beyond the surface, we discover their blemish. These women present their most hostile selves in a very unthreatening and regular way. Soaked in warm sunlight, they appear darker at a second glance; their attractive faces revealing their truth – an ominous appreciation for bigotry. I offer you these women and burden you with their imperfection.

Sunbathers

Eric KasperPAINTING & DRAWING

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I find the majority of my inspiration in the urban landscape as well all around me. The urban environment gives me the opportunity to observe the deterioration of buildings and of my surroundings. In my recent work Hammer Reality of Sweet Paradise, I have added the three-dimensional architectural element as a part of these observations, trying to break light and colour, creating tension between elements of the paintings. Three-dimensional elements

create a ribbon which can represent the urban dynamic life of London; where I work in my studio. I observe my surroundings and see this particular blink of colour almost everywhere. What attracts me a lot is the specific energy and brilliance in the colour as well as the time spent creating the piece, which has a lasting impression on what I undertake next. During summer 2012 I did a residency in New York (Brooklyn) concentrating on my new work.

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Gracjana RejmerPAINTING & DRAWING

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A self-imposed period of 12 hours was allotted to construct an aesthetic image with the dynamic of supple changes when viewed throughout a 12 hour day. The construction process of layering is not disguised but rather becomes an integral part of showing the process or hand. Dominant iconic colours were used to create an initial attraction and to produce the effect of “settling” the image for the viewer. The use of collage as a medium enables work to be created at

a quick pace that, in turn, speeds up the subliminal decision-making process. It encourages experimentation with all dialects of the art language without the burden of “artisanship” to contend with. To understand all art fully would be an impossibility as it is an infinite language with each artist providing a different dialect. Therefore, if an artist is honest and follows his or her own instinct when creating, it is likely that it will be received the same way by the viewer.

Twelve Hours

Tony Girardot PAINTING & DRAWING

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I am a two-dimensional artist combining the social stigmas of nudity, politics and philosophies. The body of work I produce is generally large in scale in order to create clear, strong statements with relevance to universal concepts related to the human condition and human nature in general. I start each drawing by applying charcoal powder with a large brush for the basic shape and composition. Thereafter, an eraser and a charcoal pencil are used to develop a realistic

representation of my visions. Fabric is a demonstration of how social penetration can affect a person both mentally and emotionally. The fabric is a symbol of comfort, used to protect and hold someone who is exposed to and sometimes incapable of understanding the harsh realities that surround cultural structures. It is life captured inside a vulnerable woman in her moment of emerging into a vast world of complications, lessons and individuality.

Fabric

Kelly BlevinsPAINTING & DRAWING

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Common Ground is one of a recent series of paintings and sculptures that focuses on landscape and urban imagery whilst attempting to explore the fragmentation and physical isolation of contemporary life. This theme has emerged from many years working as an artist with disparate communities and with people living on the margins of society: older people, homeless adults, mental illness survivors and others. I endeavour to bring elements of fragility and rawness to my

work through the use and re-use of ordinary and discarded materials. I favour collage – cardboard, newspaper clippings, old photographs and other ephemera, paint, varnishes and various cement-based products – and develop multiple artworks over extended periods of time, so that new ideas are able to emerge from the creative process in the studio. This method of working is also evident in my most recent concrete sculptures, installations and large drawings.

Common Ground

Je� PigottPAINTING & DRAWING

34

I admire Robert Rauchenberg. He was not afraid to experiment, often incorporating the most unlikely materials into his work. He said, “You begin with the possibilities of the material.” I had this in mind when I made Rauchenbirds and titled it with an appreciative nod to his free spirit. The work is a mixture of painting and screenprint. It’s typical of the way in which I work, building up contrasting layers of colour and texture that have great physical presence. It exploits the different

qualities of light-absorbing Prussian blue and light-reflecting gold pigment using soft brushstrokes, glossy enamel paint and a photographic image of a redstart. The latter has been manipulated in Photoshop and screenprinted. It is satisfying when images just fall into place, depending on what comes to hand in the studio at that moment, rather than being meticulously planned. Paradoxically this takes practice and requires that you first collect a lot of material.

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PAINTING & DRAWING

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My work is a result of working between abstract and figurative elements, crossing action painting with objective subject matter. Its major themes are a reflection and commentary on global political and social concerns, and a resistance to a transforming world order, one that sets corporate interest and profit first and in which humanity comes second. My subject has varied over the years, but its core, regarding our current direction, has remained consistent. I have no

intention of dictating to the viewer, but prefer to challenge critical thought by creating an ambiguous puzzle through gestural qualities and a crossing of styles for the viewer to decipher on his own. Most works are often issue-charged environments, employing symbolic imagery that works in harmony to engage our innate concern for humanity’s wellbeing. I am not a political painter, but I continue to address conditions in the world I inhabit.

Imminent Threat

Marcus JansenPAINTING & DRAWING

36

My bi-cultural background naturally leads me to have an interest in mixing cultures, bringing things together and building bridges. I mix traditional Korean painting’s stylistic approach with Western abstract expressionistic ideas. This piece is a record of my thoughts and memories of the moments around Hanoks that formed the Korean culture within me. In the creation of inward significance, I took a sublime approach; different layers are for recounting the sequence

of events that surrounds Hanoks. I used a monochromatic colour palette to give viewers a boost for visual imagination and also for the audience’s interpretation. For the outward appearance, I used straight and curved lines. I employed symmetry, but disassembled it in composition, and also used limited colour palettes. This is because a Hanok’s ideal mixture of straight and curved lines, moderate colour palettes, provides energetic and elegant beauty.

Reminiscence of Hanok

Mishael Lee PAINTING & DRAWING

37

In my practice, I abstain from using conventional tools. Instead I throw, splash, drizzle and swoosh paint onto the canvas. In my attempt to escape point of view, I focus on process and experimentation instead of plotting a final product. The key to creating such pieces is to paint without being conscious of what is emerging. I let each painting impose itself on me instead of letting my thoughts impact upon the painting. This can happen only by

eliminating the self. As such, my paintings act as mirrors. The motifs are a reflection of the viewers who stand in front of them, inviting those who view them to create their own meanings actively, and consequently make the paintings their own constructions. This involvement turns the viewer into the creator. The pieces, therefore, are dynamic and fluid. Each time they are viewed, they change. Each work finds a new identity when it is viewed by a different person.

London

Nasser GhaderiPAINTING & DRAWING

38

Untitled 2 is an oil on board, abstract interpretation and representation of complex emotions based on an intensely personal experience – the circumstances of which I prefer not to divulge. Although the meaning and emotions that helped me to create this work are personal, I also realise that by keeping the subject matter a mystery, an individual response and interpretation will be formed by the viewer, forcing a new relationship with the painting and

consequently developing a private personalisation of the piece. This is a response that I wish to encourage. My recent works have been influenced by Abstract Expressionism and the highly sophisticated works of Gerhard Richter. The practice of combining colour and mark to express emotion is not a new concept, however I strongly believe that the freedom of expression provided by abstract art is a groundbreaking and liberating experience for both artist and viewer.

Untitled 2

Phoebe Salmon PAINTING & DRAWING

39

My work hovers in a place between figuration and non-figuration which allows the viewer the space to impose their interpretation. It comes from a meditative place, where metaphorical or symbolic images, barriers and passages are explored in the painterly dialogue to speak of the conditions of being human and also of the concept of living through time. My process revolves around the building up and stripping down of imagery, exploring different painterly

languages and reducing down to the lowest denominator where an edgy quietness falls. My works are snatches of images, sounds and thoughts forming into coherence briefly, like a painterly slideshow of memory. The Monolith series was based on a glimpse of roadside flowers strapped around lampposts in memorial – a momentary everyday reminder of our mortality; an evocative glimpse as we pass by, busy in our own lives; a space that’s part real and part imagined.

Monolith V

Sarah ShawPAINTING & DRAWING

40

A desire to be elsewhere is the central theme of my work. I approach the concept of unfulfilled desire as a condition in which Heimweh (longing for the known) and Fernweh (longing for the unknown) intertwine. The urge to leave behind inevitably also implies loss and farewell. I try to make the metaphorical boundary perceptible that isolates the here and now from other realities, be they past, future or imaginary. In the painting Saudade, which gives a view from behind

the rain-covered windscreen of a car, I approach this boundary as a physical one. Thick drops dance over the screen and deform the view, separating the here from elsewhere; the film of water and the reflection of the sun on the otherwise invisible glass partly deforming the view. In this way, the screen both uncovers the world that is longed for, but excludes it at the same time. The boundary between both worlds coincides with the canvas of the painting.

Saudade

Esther NienhuisPAINTING & DRAWING

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308.3 is a part of a series of works in which I confront my obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and use it as a starting point for investigating psychological disorders overall. My training in immunohistochemistry serves as a vector for the exploration of my OCD, and I use my condition to render thousands of diamond-like cells. Each cell is painstakingly layered, but the composition of the accumulation of these cells is not premeditated – the forms occur

as a result of what I feel is “right” during my working process. The results are abstract, amorphous shapes that serve as mappings of my thought process. Thus, by making these works, I hope to investigate my unconscious and regain control of what has controlled me since childhood. Because I have a degree in Neuroscience, I am interested in seeing the resulting images that form purely from following my tics and compulsions – a cartography of my psychopathology.

308.3

Timothy LeePAINTING & DRAWING

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I seek to portray a sense of a body that speaks to a viewer of their own condition – an ambiguous form that is universal but simultaneously imperfect. The body is abstracted within a geometric space and it is a resulting tension that I hope provokes the viewer to reflect upon their own experiences. My work attempts to embody the discord that exists between the body and the manmade: from the spaces of the built environment to the virtual spaces of an

increasingly digitalised world. In Rupture I, perspective, a man-made spatial construct, and the grid, synonymous with standardisation and geometrisation, describe this imposition of a geometrical scheme on reality. These ambiguous spaces allow the restriction of the human form to be read as a metaphor for emotional or cultural confinement. In this way, the work speaks simultaneously of the physical and non-physical constraints imposed on the body by contemporary life.

Rupture I

Jack Spencer AshworthPAINTING & DRAWING

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My main practice is painting using acrylics on canvas. I make work which is heavily influenced by Britain both now and 2-300 years ago, and which frequently considers current social and political issues, linking these with our cultural history and the human condition. Satire can be found in many of my paintings, which are also often laden with far more serious undertones owing to my chosen subjects. The painting Suffragette Century was inspired by the following quote

by Queen Victoria:“The Queen is most anxious to enlist everyone in checking this mad, wicked folly of women’s rights. It is a subject which makes the queen so furious that she cannot contain herself.” While the suffragette movement not only changed the lives of British women forevermore, it also had huge impact in many other parts of the world. Here I am seeking to bring the plight of the suffragettes to the forefront again, especially as it is a fight which has not yet been won.

Su�ragette Century

Twinkle Troughton PAINTING & DRAWING

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My images are my waking companions, my accomplices, my alibi. My work reveals my dialogue with the world. It is immediate. I do not stage, light or prep. Its subjects are the people, places and moments that share my journey. Confessions from the Still is a series of images taken throughout Southeast Asia. The modern soul of these countries lies along their riverbanks, on the surface of their lakes and hidden quietly in their city waterways. It is the

tumultuous and sometimes terrifying past that speaks quietly from the depths. The souls of those lost to the Cambodian genocide, the dictatorship in Burma and the Vietnam War rest hauntingly in the currents below. From the Mekong Delta to the Chao Phraya to the Irrawaddy Delta, the aesthetic perfection of the elements floating on the water’s surface tries to mask the secrets lying below... to silence the confessions from the still.

Confessions from the Still

Alec Von BargenPHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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These gates to Shinto shrines are in the Shakotan Peninsula on the west coast of Hokkaido, situated at the north end of Japan. Unlike in metropolitan cities such as Tokyo, Shinto shrines in rural Hokkaido are surrounded by severe nature and covered in deep snow during winter; this is symbolic of the local residents’ strong faith. The gate arch, called Torii in Japanese, signifies the entrance to a sacred area and represents awe and holy respect, particularly to the ocean in

this coastal area. It is also an icon of the fisherman’s wish for safe voyage. The colour contrast amplifies the sanctity and condenses the indigenous spirituality of the Japanese fishermen. I took these photographs with a medium format camera with films and digitally converted the colours to black and white, except for the red gateway. My aim was to capture the pure and quiet belief of Shinto, and to express the contrast as well as the unity between humans and nature.

Gateway

Ryota Kajita PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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I am a dynamic creature who often wants what is generally least desired: change. Yet, even with the fear of sweaty palms, the slight pressuring pain of anxiety, and the possibility of complete failure, I have learned to welcome it. It’s the alluring voice that whispers to take a reckless challenge and embrace it. Only when I allow this do I know for certain that I am growing, and there is always hope for a new creation. Recently, we have forgotten to be minimalists – to interact

with each other face to face, to call and say I love you, to have an intimate and simple conversation. In Old Time Talk, the beauty of a phone bound with a cord and a spinning dial is a nostalgic flashback to the past – a time when people still communicated in these ways. It is the intricate force between two human beings where a conversation goes further than five typed words and a selection of shorthand symbols for the emotions we uphold.

Old Time Talk

Maria Mor HuertasPHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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The idea for 1517-1632-1-6 began when I moved into a new apartment building. I was amazed by the structural rationality of this space, but at the same time I liked the diversity of it. All of the doors had been worn in different ways; modifications had been made through the years to fulfill changing needs. All of this was visible, so that even the adaptations had a presence. The level of detail in the image gives the spectator access to all of this information at once, which gives it

a subtle diversity in its otherwise strict and static expression. It tells a story about the present and asks questions such as, “what it is like to live in the building?” However, the image also tells a story from the past. My work usually deals with the city, living, and monumental and material values, and my practice explores identity, fantasy and simulation. Architecture and buildings are important to me because of the political and historical values they possess.

1517-1632-1-6

Pär Axell PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

48

My work focuses on our relationship with surrounding environments and technology. Initially inspired by medical sources, historical etchings and engravings, my pieces explore our physical presence within a rapidly expanding, electronically manipulated reality. I use photography to experiment with new forms of communication. My Russian heritage and background influences the context of my work, and I often explore areas of political interest as well as looking

at the impact of media culture and contemporary consumerism. Within The Hours, the focus is a narrative created by the trauma of a recent event, and an exploration of its aftermath. There is an interplay between something imminent and something remembered, a “sticking” of a memory that cannot be altered. It is both the healing aspects of time and the unbalancing psychological consequences produced by unalterable memories that are brought into question.

The Hours

Vasilisa Forbes PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

49

Don’t we all like the idea of a Guardian Angel? The partnerships of hope and faith, safety and gratitude, new with old. The aesthetic juxtaposition of a modern angel with an antique market on Portobello Road struck me immediately. The appearance of a fleeting moment where fresh-faced allure, the spiritual and the celestial meet old, weathered, unique and coveted objects. I took Angel of Portobello to show the arresting beauty of both – not only

of the angel, but of the antiques that she guarded. Antiques possess a mysterious beauty and beguiling air of reminiscence, and an angel is assumed to be a beholder of natural beauty and elegance. There is an argument of juxtaposition of the image elements, yet it’s easily blurred, as each of the subjects possesses many of the same qualities – grandeur, charm, grace, reminiscence, uniqueness and protection. The guardian angel was sent to be paired with such a place.

Angel of Portobello

Rianna Goss PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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My work focuses on the creation of large-scale painterly images made through the combining of layers of landscape photography. The ideas surrounding my practice are nostalgia, romanticism and inevitable change. Layer upon layer of beautiful English landscape is combined and distorted into a single lonely frame. This particular artwork, That Time Has Passed, is influenced by early impressionist landscape painting and pays homage to the beautiful English

landscape. With natural beauty, however, comes sadness – sadness for a world that is changing, a world in which retrospect is often better. In my images, figures seldom appear as these so easily date the work; I prefer a scene cleansed of human form. This image, like many of mine, is reminiscent of an unseen sight – a moment of history trapped, fabricated and changed, yet also represented, highlighted and admired through the naivety of the lens.

That Time Has Passed

Sarah TodPHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

51

As an observational photographer, I have a keen interest in people, animals and the architecture that surrounds and separates them. My Empty Enclosure series of photographs, which was taken in a modern, urban zoo, is deliberately difficult to read at first glance, inviting the viewer to peer in and decipher what has been captured and placed behind the glass. In the zoo, invisible barriers are created between us and the animal, cages are consigned to the past and thick glass

and distance are relied upon to separate one creature from another. While the physical and metaphorical distance between ourselves and the animal becomes greater, a dominance is enforced over nature to create an environment strictly under human control, made almost entirely for our viewing pleasure. Yet the lack of observation in return from an animal can be somewhat frustrating (though not quite as disturbing as finding an empty enclosure).

Empty Enclosure - Along the Barrier

Beverley CornwellPHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

52

Working in painting, drawing and digital photomontage, I present compelling images of the global climate change. Not interested in delineating factual specifics about climate change, rather I present overt representations of a world in trouble. I refer to my work as visual bomb throwing – yelling from the cheap seats. Charts and graphs showing rising sea levels or the agglomeration of particulates in the atmosphere, while necessary, are not visceral enough to bring

us to action. My belief is that alarms are in order – a shock to call us to action. The work I make can be deceptive in its import. For instance, my digital montage, The Arrival, No. 1, shows a boy hunter quietly standing on an ice floe watching as a cruise ship passes by. The implications of this scene become apparent only slowly. The ship seems innocuous enough, but really it represents the end of his way of life and even of the very ice he stands on.

The Arrival, No. 1

Herman James PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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Since the 1990s I have produced projects including Borderland, Moldova’s Water, Chile’s Water and Ice Edge, based mostly on specific facts. The umbrella theme of these projects is the climate and water issue. My portfolio consists of some photographs of Ice Edge (2008-2011). This project started when I came across a photo album with a tiny photo of my father. In that photo from 1955, my father, who was an engineer on a coaster, is standing next to a ship

on the ice in the Isefjord in Denmark. The ship is ice-bound and waiting for an ice-breaker. I went in search of this location, making two identical voyages by ship and photographing the sea in a variety of atmospheric conditions. With wind force 9 on the North Sea, in thick fog off Estonia and through ice fields further north, I eventually sailed into the pack ice that occurred at the top of the Gulf of Bothnia, much further north than at the time of my father’s voyage.

In Search of New Ice Edge 4

Anja de JongPHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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My photography revolves principally around our experience of place; how we navigate and construct certain spaces both physically and psychologically. I am especially interested in the effects that place has on us through the operation of memory, fantasy and myth. I seek out the intangible imaginative potential of particular sites, drawing out their hidden stories and the implicit associations behind them. In Halcion Lounge, the hotel foyer, an ambiguous

non-place within modern day society, acts as a gateway to an escape from daily life. A transient space, it is both familiar and strange to us, creating a sense of rootlessness and stasis. Without our expected markers, the experience of time becomes slow and alien within it, altering our sense and interpretation of reality. The site of a brief encounter, and countless entrances and exits, the foyer is a gateway to all floors, and consequently all experiences.

Halcion Lounge

Chloe LelliottPHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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Industry is the central theme of much of my work, in the form of manufacturing facilities, power stations, building sites and machinery. Reflecting the duality of our relationship with industry (concern about its effects on the environment whilst craving the goods it creates for us), I try to photograph subjects in the most flattering light available. Recurrent elements such as the sun and the moon also provide familiar reference points in terms of linking subjects with the

natural world. In City Break, the jaws of the demolition machine take on a bestial quality, devouring the high-rise building and providing a narrative for the post-industrial urban landscape. To an extent, my work is about redefining the “picturesque” – trying to elicit the same emotional response to images of the built environment that one would associate with traditional landscape art. For me, this relates to the idea of photography showing us what’s worth looking at.

City Break

Nigel Lord PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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I attempt to combine my fascination with films and narrative paintings in the construction of single large-scale photographs. I am particularly interested in developing and establishing protagonists within these to create an enhanced view of the world. I am intrigued by how the absence of the fourth wall in staged photography makes it difficult for the audience to suspend disbelief. In my work I play with these problems through setting the scene in the past as a means

of heightening the idea of a paused narrative. These narratives are intended to reveal themselves slowly, thereby creating ambiguities, both accidental and deliberate. I achieve this by designing and creating my own sets, each one unique to complement the narrative subtleties of each concept. To deepen the worlds I create further, I make my own props ranging from vodka labels and cigarette packets to portrait photographs with art deco frames.

She Had Absolutely No Idea What He Really Did

Calum James CrowtherPHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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We live in a time of paranoia, in which photographers are stopped from taking images in public places, yet by using one of a number of simple search terms, thousands of unprotected CCTV cameras around the world can be accessed, and often controlled. Many of the cameras allow us full control: you can pan, zoom, focus and “take” the shot at the moment of choosing, raising questions about the nature of photography. Are these stolen images any less

definable as photography than those taken with fully automatic cameras from a designated point at a beauty spot? The images of the launderette were taken by setting up access to a camera and taking a picture at the top of the hour from midnight to midnight, capturing a 24-hour cycle. They contrast the mundanity of everyday life with the voyeurism of watching people who have no idea that they’re under the all-seeing eye of a CCTV camera.

Launderette: 24-Hour Cycle

Juliet FergusonPHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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The superlative invasion of the villainous outré is part of the series You can be a cop, a criminal or a lawyer. When you are facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference? (2011), comprising eight cinematic tableau vivant photographs negotiating the thematic traits unique to the B-movie and the gangster genre. Focusing on the critical narrative moments of these films, the photographs trace the trajectory of the finger to the trigger and, through temporal elongation, map

the production of fear and suspense. By paying primary attention to freezing recurring narrative tropes as they come across in the aforementioned film genre, such as briefcase swaps, car chases, hostage situations, roadblocks, extraterrestrial invasions, betrayals and back-stabbings, the meticulously constructed photographs function as fragments of absent grand narratives alluding to what might have preceded or succeeded the constructed duels.

The superlative invasion of the villainous outré

Constantinos Taliotis PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

59

My work is linked with a crisis of moral dualism and ontological ruin in human existence. This can be understood through depicting a personal reality of both good and evil in the world. The artwork explores the common fate of being fallen souls, simultaneously experiencing faith and doubt in this transitory life. It is also about ethical issues related to viewing artworks, whereby viewers are becoming immersed in representations via multimedia technologies,

allowing them to be increasingly deceived by their sense of reality. For me, images are full of limitations and contradictions. I believe there is counterfeit seduction contained within representational imagery that offers a falsely accurate depiction of reality. In response, I look for ways to break this apart. This allows for a greater opportunity to explore figurative meanings beyond the work, giving viewers’ imaginations a place richer in contemplative potential.

Acceptance

Nick Greenwich PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

60

I was working in Thailand on assignment photographing the Eastern & Oriental Express Train and, while on route to Singapore, I spotted these young girls working in the fields near where I’d been shooting. The village was close, so I asked if I could take some pictures of them, which they were very happy to let me do. I wanted to place them close together with a simple background to make them stand out, which would not detract from their gestures and familiarity to

each other. Because of the natural setting, I felt that nothing more was required to improve the composition, as I didn’t want anything to diminish the main subjects. Apart from my commercial work, I like to travel to different places on my own to shoot new work for my art portfolio. It now consists of a combination of landscape and portraits of interesting people, and I take the opportunity to photograph them whenever I have these chance encounters.

The Fisher Girls

Ron BambridgePHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

61

Xochitl is an image taken from my photographic series Inertia, which addresses my own challenges with the age-old cultural ideals of “home.” Using the main theme of estrangement, Inertia portrays the paradoxical effects that one’s home can have on an individual. Through the series, light is shed on the notion of the household being only a temperamental place of comfort and security – ultimately serving as a period, rather than a place, in a person’s life,

during which roots are set down and character is established. There comes a point at which the yearning to leave home is at its strongest vigour, but the willingness is not there due to the permanence that “home” represents for an individual in American culture. The work looks at how home symbolises a means of conquering the fear of the unknown, and how this can hold us back. A highly personal reflection, I consider Inertia to be my most successful work to date.

Xochitl

Dareen HusseinPHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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Cocoon was created through three-dimensional paper work, which was based on a Möbius strip. It was intended to express the image of a living thing that is waiting for life within the encasement, which has a gleaming white appearance suggesting softness and protection. The series is composed of six images depicting the growth process of living things in relation to a baby’s development in the womb. I express the image of a life waiting to emerge from

the shelter, but also confinement, of the cocoon. I imagined the faint breath of a living creature developing into dynamic breath as it grows, remaining beautiful as it waits to be launched into new life. Cocoon began as a three-dimensional form derived from white paper. After taking pictures of the three-dimensional shapes from various angles and in different light, I selected several cuts, which were then edited and polished on the computer.

Cocoon

Jiseon Hwang PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

63

The piece is part of the series A Study of My Mind, in which I use my naked body as a model, showing my vulnerability, and blurring my social status and nationality. In acting simultaneously as model, photographer and observer, I reflect upon and challenge my own identity and position, and my transforming experience of this. I study my mind, represented by the non-locatable warehouse. I’m alone, trapped inside myself, isolated in an inner despair where

only the windows – small and unattainable – can lead me out of my desperation. The image thus becomes symbol of an inner psychological state for the post/late modern individual rather than an actual reality. My artistic practice often focuses on the new issues in the present-day society and how the use of digital manipulation techniques when creating this and all of my other pieces affects the understanding of the boundaries between reality and fiction.

Caught In Desperation

Marie Wengler PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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My work revolves around the human figure. The figures are treated as visual symbols positing human characteristics, resulting in a constructive and deconstructive process. I see the latter through the lens of postmodern theory, as something multifaceted, fragmented and always in two separate worlds, an outcome of a layering process. I explore the ways the human body is misrepresented visually in mass media, and aim to subvert expectations. The elements of

human uniqueness that are absent but dominate visual culture serve as a starting point. Found images are assembled to highlight the multifaceted and always in flux postmodern identity (Butler, Sennett, Hall, Turkle). The latter is a product of a process of mimicking without an original. Yet, the very act of mimicking produces “the original” (Butler). It is grounded on an absence. It is this absence that serves as an inspiration for, but also the backbone of, my work.

Untitled

Martha ZmpounouPHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

65

By tapping into a perennial milieu using archetypical themes, I aim to illustrate the modern states of isolation, vulnerability and escapism through the classic contrast of sharp black and white imagery. The images I produce, which are at once familiar and strange, move the viewer through a definite point in space and time while in some ways retaining a timeless quality. Alluding to the eternal, which is usually obscured from our experience by the veil of time, the

ethereal quality of my images represents a sensual and timeless femininity, resulting in beauty and thoughtfulness. Resembling a half-dream state, the subjects appear to be floating, transcending the banality of the everyday and entering a fantastical world – a world of possibilities. As is the case in much of my practice, Walk With Me bears the marks of personal emotion and my own experience, but can be interpreted by the viewer in a way that chimes with theirs.

Walk With Me

Luzena Adams PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

66

The images of Bathers are inspired by childhood memories of seaside holidays and day trips with family and friends. As with many such recollections, the exhilaration and pleasure is transient, resembling the waves and tides that wash away the evidence as they ebb and flow. These photographs are part of a series taken from the esplanade in Tenby, a coastal resort in west Wales. They arouse memories and personal thoughts, yet within me prevailing

emotions are reserved. The scene’s elevated viewpoint accentuates my absorption and fascination but with a sense of detachment, allowing the picture to retain a pensive clearness without drifting into sentimentality. A theme that runs through much of my photography is connections with places and people who hold significance for me. This passion for nostalgic glimpses of the past is also evident in other facets of my work, such as abandonment, decay and solitude.

Bathers

Irene FearnsidePHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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Malakoff is a recent work that resulted from psycho-geographical adventures into marginal and semi-abandoned areas that often lie at the edge of the urban environment and the countryside. The subjects I photograph have “minor histories” from their creation to destruction; from usefulness to abandonment. Repair and recycling act to enrich their history further and increase the complexity of their appearance. I seek locations devoid of people with an atmosphere

acutely affected by the knowledge that people have been present in the past, recently or will shortly return. I exist in a space between these moments, observing absence. Extracting specific details from photographic images, I isolate them from their original context. These provide materials or palettes that are combined using collage. The resulting structures attempt to define and express the uncertain sensations and responses experienced during my explorations.

Malako�

Daniel ShielPHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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For the past two years I’ve been working on a project called Free from Time and Sky, which focuses on a local dairy farm in Worcestershire. My Place is connected to this documentary project, but moves away from the usual activity and work on the farm and focuses more on Bill, the farmer. I was keen to capture something different from the purposeful hubbub and hum of regular farm life, and to do so in a place personal to Bill. His trust in my work has enabled me to get the

photo I really wanted: a portrait shot showing a more ethereal and elusive moment of calm in the milking shed following the 4am shift. From a work perspective, it’s the place where he feels most at home. To complement the stillness, I chose to photograph the deserted, silhouetted symmetry of the milking shed – the mechanical, pulsating heart of the farm. The light, shadows and patterns provide clarity, focus and a calm connection to the portrait shot of Bill.

My Place

Spencer Winnett PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

69

Primarily my work is concerned with the essence of things. By capturing the fleeting beauty of the impermanence of the physical and natural world, I attempt to create a meditative space. The atmosphere contained within this space is not quite yet known but remains just outside of consciousness in a “foreign hull”. The ethereal motifs that I record and re-present attempt to delineate thresholds and promontories. Through them I would wish the viewer to reflect

on and explore ambiguities and disorientations. This image, Willow, is of a tree that had experienced a sudden drought. I had taken the photograph late one summer evening. It was significant as the next day I would move from the house and garden to a new home. A tree I had thought I knew, suddenly presented as almost alien, petrified and electrified. There was a sound here … of something being left behind and something new beckoning.

Willow

Mark Brani� PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

70

Working with both traditional and digital media, my art explores ideas of reality and representation, and I am fascinated with the uncanny duality of photography. I like to gather and relocate particular events that happen to me that were once lost, forgotten or left behind. I concentrate on intertwining traces of dreams with the spoken words of stories, all the while creating my own physical landscapes in which my ideas can exist. When reinterpreting the facts and fictions of my

past, I never fix meaning to the impulsive performance. The emphasis is on pre-planned stages or the fragments of reality, all of which remain tangible within my work. At first glance the work conveys reality in the way that photography demands as a medium. Upon closer inspection, however, the secrets contained within the images unfold, playing with our perceptions and creating tension between the presence of representation and the absence of reality.

Boating to School

Sarah Francis PHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

71

My photographic practice is most generally concerned with ideas of place as mediated through personal experience, technology and photography. For three years, my family and I lived directly below the flight path of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Located in the heart of the city, Sky Harbor is the ninth busiest airport in the United States. On any given day, some 1200 aircraft fly through the airspace above the Phoenix suburbs. The ever-present roar of 737s is

therefore deeply embedded into the fabric of Phoenix. Seventy Flights in Ninety Minutes explores the social, political and psychological effects of living within the flight trajectory of a major commercial airport. At its centre, the work investigates the connections between physical place and both personal and collective experience. With the affordances of photography, the project aims to translate abstract ideas, such as place and experience, into conveyable understanding.

Seventy Flights in Ninety Minutes

Bryon DarbyPHOTOGRAPHIC & DIGITAL

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Tangential Meditation on the Shape of the Universe

Ben Applegarth

As a method-based artist, I investigate the ways in which light interacts with objects, employing a clinical approach to create intricate objects and immersive site-specific installations. Tangential Meditation is concerned with semiotics and space, which led me to research physical cosmology: the study of structures and dynamics of the universe. The string suspended in the box is a conceptual interpretation of the Picard model for the shape of the universe.

The box acts as an observation platform from which to view the theoretical form of the finite universe. The work is a fusion of drawing and sculpture. It was important for me that the shape could be viewed from nearly any angle and also that it was to be created with only straight lines. The perpendicular conic sections were mapped out in a vector drawing programme; the best method was to draw tangents along the circles and parabolas at evenly spaced points.

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[ ]~ No.7

Benjamin Nash

In [ ]~ No.7, crude, seductive oil churns away, slipping between consciousness, morphing along, spilling gently from frame to frame to frame. Its very properties define its worth; buried away, a (de)composition of compressed death slumbers deep within the earth. We need it abstract, we need it unsettling, we need it bubbling just beneath the surface. Often using the universally familiar as a point of reference, my work probes the soul of major catastrophes or social

issues of our times. Rather than building up material, the artworks appear to fall apart, exposing the residue, fibres and nerve endings within. I prod the fragility of balance as well as consequences of over-dependence contained within theories such as democracy, substances such as oil or knowledge such as technology. Central to my process lies the philosophy that innate materials and objects absorb and radiate the organic qualities invested in them.

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Small Worlds

Chandra Paul

Small Worlds is a body of work that consists of collections of four and five slip cast and polished porcelain spheres. Each sphere is individually sagger fired in alumina to avoid slumping during the vitrification process, and they range in size from three to 11 centimetres in diameter. They are a picture of worlds “coming and going” and allude to the arbitrary nature of reality in a world that has no boundary or centre. It is the second piece in an ongoing project

that explores the idea of the void, a personal loss of place, and the existential notion that we exist as a reflection in another entity. As an expression of this idea, I create pictures of elusive spaces that cannot be defined, or spaces which don’t exist, such as “the shape of clouds”, “the space between the waves” and “the sound of light”. I employ a range of sculptural modalities including object-based, ephemeral, installation and outdoor public art to encapsulate my oeuvre.

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Presence

Chika Modum

My work Presence is rooted in explorations surrounding cultural dislocation, disconnection and hybridity. It consists of a massive drape-like structure of braided black bags. Presence is not a direct representation of hair on heads, and, although it makes reference to it; it transcends hair on the body. It becomes hair off the head manifested in strange, abstract forms while still referencing its previous life on the body. The excessiveness of the massive form and

the obsession in the process of braiding the work are reflections of my need to weave my past and present memories and experiences together in order to interpret and construct a future. The symbolic act of braiding is made a monument in this work and given a place of prestige. The braided work becomes animate and emits it own presence. At this point, the form embodies my perceptions of identity and beauty in the face of cultural interpretations and shifts.

THREE-DIMENSIONAL DESIGN & SCULPTURE

76

My works are utopias; they depict the ideal. Universal hedonism as an attitude to life shows in the way I work; in life, my works create links to everyday living. My series are not driven by a particular idea; works come into existence and grow from the work process. The aim is for my pieces to come from everyday work, and in turn form part of everyday life. “The depth of an individual’s private ideas inspires the most universal works”. In other words, the more personal the

starting point, the better the sculpture. The individual is inevitably in relation to the collective. My love of working reduces the materials in my sculptures to tools. Form carries more meaning than material in my pieces. On the other hand, a large part of my interest is directed towards the ability of the materials to act as a structure or as a part of it. Variations in forms and the depiction of states of matter in relation to living organisms create end products with multiple meanings.

Telling Tales

Aaron Heino THREE-DIMENSIONAL DESIGN & SCULPTURE

77

I create sculptures and vessels, predominantly in silver, referencing archaeological artefacts, specifically Bronze Age weaponry and Neolithic goddess figurines. The process involves transforming a flat sheet of metal into a 3-D form purely by hand through the use of hammers and stakes. As such, each piece can take weeks or months to create. The evolutionary nature of the work means that each piece is unique. I am fascinated by the folds and forms of the human body

and the sensuous qualities that our bodies possess. The work is often derived from areas of the body that are not normally associated with these attributes. From this, I create pieces that signify the warmth and softness of flesh in a material that is inherently hard and cold, producing a piece of sculpture that is tactile, sensual and invites interaction. Isis is a culmination of 11 years of artistic practice and is ultimately the most seductive piece I have created.

Isis

Abigail BrownTHREE-DIMENSIONAL DESIGN & SCULPTURE

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Sound Bombs

Rob Miller

Using musical boxes sourced from museum gift shops, Sound Bombs deals with the abject terror of familiar sounds. When turned, alluring melodies play despite being filtered through lead encasements – a macabre insistency somewhere between the precious and the destructive. The work originates from an interest in repetition; the reiteration of the same and its relationship to our temporality. The grey everyday seduces through conformity and standardisation. Our

malleability through habit, ritual and tradition confirms that we are simply processing machines, born out of pattern and destined to live out our lives as routine. Familiarity and pattern give meaning to life, cushioning our inherent time-dependency and allowing us to deal with the urgency of life. Confirmation through repetition qualifies our endeavours, pattern is control and safety; it is titanic, ubiquitous and blind. Routine gives continuity without consideration – it simply is.

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Nails Series Form VI

Naomi Doran

Nails Series Form VI is part of a current series using concrete and nails. Its composition is inspired by formations that occur when strong magnetic fields are introduced to iron filings, thus creating a balance between rigid geometry and organic variation. The position of the viewer allows the piece to be perceived in very different ways: from a distance it can seem balanced and tranquil; from close up the barefaced concrete and sharp, twisted, corroded nails can instead

appear to be aggressive and threatening. My works continue to evolve over time; hairline fractures appear and rust develops, growing ever more intense, seeping into and staining the concrete. The outcome of this symbiotic process is a collaboration between nature and myself. My art is a direct abstraction of nature and the built environment. A 3-D vocabulary surrounds me, and it is through this process that I’m able to discover and learn new forms of expression.

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Interloper

Jo Aylmer

I am motivated by an interest in physical and psychological responses to material and form. My work investigates this, using the material, formal and metaphorical potential of rubber and clay, and the relationships created between them. I am attracted to materials that have the capacity to be structural as well as transformative, and to those that delimit the forms that they can take or shape the relations they enter into. In the process of making Interloper, I have

worked in conjunction with the action of my materials – the cracking action of drying clay and the elasticity of rubber. Sprayed rubber creates a juxtaposition with the rawness of ceramic – the fragility and purity of unfired bone china sits next to the pliability and frisson of rubber. In addressing relationships between materials and the responses they engender, the work is concerned with the complex nature of interaction and intimacy with sensation and memory.

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It is the journey.It is the gathering and sorting. It is physical.It is ephemeral.It is deliberate.It is methodical. It is accidental.It is the process.It is the satisfaction of doing.

Solitude is a reflection of my observations of patterns found in nature, and of the beauty hidden in the dark corners of poetry and prose. I’m interested in how these studies connect to stories that are repeated again and again, and how the patterns I create lead back to personal memories. The title is a direct reference to Emily Dickinson’s poem There is a Solitude of Space.

Solitude

Stephani MartinezTHREE-DIMENSIONAL DESIGN & SCULPTURE

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Veins of Vanity II

Iluá Hauck da Silva

The core of my practice is investigating existential concepts from challenging perspectives and working in a wide range of media in order to create subversive and thought-provoking art. Permeated by a strong sense of the relationship between decadence and beauty, my work explores dark aspects of the human condition. Drawing on my background in art history, I produce pieces which rethink Greek and Catholic Mythologies, and classic themes. Veins of Vanity

II approaches Vanitas with a contemporary vision, articulating reflections on current social values, the ever-pertinent issue of vanity, and our attitude and feelings towards it at present. My choice of materials is dictated by the concept behind my ideas, as an intrinsic visual dialogue between matter and meaning is vital to my practice. Here, optical glass charges my piece with an ethereal intensity and an uncanny transparency as beauty, pain and pleasure crystallise.

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Banded Line

Jay Battle

I am always inspired by seeing the evidence of man within his “natural” environment. It is not usually the beautiful creations that grab me, but the rusting hulk of something once quite powerful and controlling, or the scar of some redundant industry. My work is informed by the impressions or markers left in our landscape or the fading technologies that once controlled it. Part of my visual language expresses the ability to reorder a natural arrangement

of materials, reflecting how I see our ability to reorder nature to our advantage. This is demonstrated in Banded Line by the forced arrangement of stone. The inspiration for this work came when I was on the beach with my family and I sat watching a portion of man-made sea defence reshaped by the waves. The lines of the original form and structure of the defence were clearly visible while the overall strength and purpose was being eroded.

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Downfall

Hollie Mackenzie

In Downfall, I explore the transitional space of the staircase and investigate the notion of the “stairway to heaven” – stairway to Utopia. The melting staircase symbolises the impossibility of reaching Utopia. The eye is drawn up the freestanding staircase to the perfectly formed step attached to the wall, separate from the unstable stairs below and out of reach. Downfall was sculpted using pine wood and crafted in such a way as to present the illusion of

a full size melting staircase. I explore the notion of the impossible Utopia by creating my own version of a dystopian landscape in the form of installation. I encourage the viewer to interpret this dystopian reality and its proximity to the world we live in. By doing this, I aim to provoke debate around the unattainable within our society. I wish to extend my political knowledge and the conceptual quality of my art in order to explore Utopian ideals through artistic expression.

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Life, Interrupted

Maren C Raaum Gyllenhammar

This piece was part of the major project for my degree, in which I chose to make graphic art exploring different disasters. In a simple, calm yet provoking way, it allows you to experience these as well. The work is in two parts. The first comprises three long posters that depict timelines of the emotions and reactions elicited by disasters with embossed type. The posters represent Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti and the Japan Tsunami (Tohoku). The chaotic

ocean of words represents the chaos that rules in a disaster. In the second part I explore the Titanic disaster. With the lack of identity papers, small belongings served to identify many of the dead and found ones. After researching the subjects, I made three posters: one for a man, one for a woman and the last one for a small girl. The resin boxes are small ice cubes of their belongings frozen in time. The posters stand as a reminder of all the people who died that day.

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Please Lie Down: Galaxy

Llewelynn Fletcher

I create inhabitable sculptures made for listening to one’s own inner space and body. I am investigating the notion that both clothing and architecture are structures built around the body, merging a material and physical engagement with questions of potential transformation and change. Part armour, part shelter, part costume, my sculptures examine how these structures can shift our perception of our external vulnerability. I wonder if this perceived safety can allow an

increased fragility and receptivity, and with that an increased sense of possibility and power. What environments serve to shut listening down? Can a particular alchemy of material and form enhance a willingness to be vulnerable; a willingness to be changed? My recent sculptures, made using materials and techniques that parallel specific instruments and energy systems, pose these questions, and are invitations to explore these possibilities for yourself.

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A prisoner’s dilemma

Jurgen Winkler

In game theory, a prisoner’s dilemma is a powerful mathematical metaphor that demonstrates how defection can undermine cooperation. In my sculpture A prisoner’s dilemma, I show the different sides of dependency in relations. Alienation and intimacy, power and impotence are recurring themes. In my sculptures, installations, drawings and photographs, humour is often perceptible and palpable; humour with an aching undercurrent. Human behaviour

is the source of astonishment and inspiration for my work. My biology studies at the University of Amsterdam laid the foundations for scrupulous research and recording; as a biologist I did detailed research on jellyfish and toads. My interest in human behaviour results from the observation of animals. During my studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, I turned these observations to drawings and sculptures. In my work I use different techniques and materials.

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Portals of the Soul

Emel Hamlet

My artwork Portals of the Soul depicts nature and our relationship with it; how we catch glimpses of understanding through experimentation and observation. Portals can be any scientific work that strives to discover the essence of ourselves or our environment, or abstract concepts such as winter, a time when nature is denuded of foliage to expose its depth. Coming from an architectural background, tectonic forms with clean lines are always at the core of

my work and have always been the primary route for the realisation of my ideas. Nature is at the root of my inspirations as it provides forms, shapes, textures and colours. My artistic process involves deducing, tweaking and blending nature’s elements using scientific principles as both a tool and further source of creativity. The objective of my art is the creation of forms that express my thoughts, understanding and imagination of the subject.

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Explore 1

Line Jakobsen

I’m fascinated with everything about foam: the aesthetic qualities, the several conditions that it embodies and the creation of it. When I look at foam, I feel like I’m looking at a microscopic world. My eyes wander to explore the layers of perishable lines and meeting points that seem strong in their construction but fragile in their material. In the creation of foam, bubbles transform into a geometric grid, and, though I may blow the bubbles, their interaction is out of my

control. My inspiration comes from the embodiment and functioning methods surrounding foam. I wanted to make interpretations of foam in my practice, and the interaction of it became the key word behind the process of making the glass objects of my piece Explore. I used the quality of hot glass both having control and not having control, and the different interactions between glass bubbles, to make objects that urge the viewer to explore the inner landscape.

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Sphinx

Julian Voss-Andreae

My sculptural interpretation of the Sphinx brings with it a post-modern twist, providing a make-over for her historical allures and renewing our frustrations in attempting to capture and define her. Taking inspiration from Quantum Physics, my work plays upon the Sphinx’s timelessness, presenting an updated postmodernist paradox of being both here and not here. With our gaze transfixed, the beauty of the Sphinx appears before us with all the solidity of steel, but then,

with movement and change of perspective, she virtually disappears, replaced by the void of space. Ineffable and challenging, the Sphinx seduces our further interactive play. This effect has been achieved sculpturally by overlaying the human figure with a Cartesian grid of vertically arranged, parallel steel sheets. As we seek to embrace this Sphinx, light reflecting from clean, laser-cut edges shimmers and draws the 3-D sculptural volume into space.

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Hibernation

Lisa Pettibone

The sculptural form of my work is the result of observing the natural forces that shape our environment. Gravity, wind, pressure and energy flow are invisible forces that can be revealed and exalted through sculpture. Though my work does not directly aim to imitate nature, it seeks to reinforce our connection with it. My objective is to create work that becomes part of the environment in which it is placed. The dense mass of winter hedge branches, neatly trimmed,

observes a natural structure and demonstrates mankind’s desire to curtail its growth. The glossy line of inky black glass with palladium lustre describes a tangle of lines with a potential of growth. My work often contains an element of self-making, where I lose control over the final processes; in this case, it is the merging and bending of sharp glass in the hidden atmosphere of the kiln. In this way, I give way to natural forces to finish the sculpture.

THREE-DIMENSIONAL DESIGN & SCULPTURE

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Droplets

An Yung Yau

I work across sculpture, installation and painting. Personal collections are my main inspirations and palette. I am fascinated with small objects and spaces; objects with extreme fragility. As a sculptor and miniature-fanatic, I sculpt imaginations and visions into tiny worlds and utilise small spaces for accommodation. I also construct new habitats, stages or resonant scenarios to transform, accommodate and manifest collected fragments. Droplets represents

an imagery of the accumulation of water drops, inspired by the Chinese saying “droplets of life”, referring to everyday matters and trifles. As experiences accumulate to form one’s memory database, just like water drops flow together to form a larger puddle, inside each droplet are handcrafted works and found objects collected from a single day to configure micro-worlds. These narrate or depict the day or embody thinking and emotions in resonance with the saying.

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Collection

Andrea Spencer

My work is concerned with creating environments that shape the perception of an object, and, in doing so, extend the meaning of that object. I begin with an exploration of a natural form, which leads into a process of investigating different manifestations of it. Collection looks at arranging a group of like objects, originating from studies of Scyliorhinus canicula, commonly known as the mermaid’s purse. This is the egg case of the small-spotted catshark that is commonly

found washed up on Irish beaches. I have found this form to be a rich source of associations through which to explore themes of fertility and mortality. I am concerned with containment – natural objects that are contained within or by a man-made object (whose form is drawn from the natural world) – and referencing cycles of life. I use flame-worked glass as it has the material properties of transparency and fragility, and allows a great degree of fine detail.

THREE-DIMENSIONAL DESIGN & SCULPTURE

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My work explores aesthetics and sculpture-making processes.Tweaking traditional fabrication, casting and performance practices, I create monumental feminine forms. Planes of industrial sheet material are bolted into “flat-pack” forms and balanced in the gallery and landscape; contemporary ephemera are cast and displayed with evidence of foundry processes intact; early performance works are replayed with a strong participatory element. I originally trained as a

painter, and decorative surfaces are important in my work. I use the ancient golden ratio and the contemporary silver ratio of modern paper sizes combined with traditional gilding and metal polishing processes, challenging the severity of modernism. Untitled (Hera) is a four metre high work comprising A4 bolted panels gilded in silver leaf. The repetition of the silver ratio rectangles, the decorative surface and the scale of the form combine strength and delicacy.

Untitled (Hera)

Susan ForsythTHREE-DIMENSIONAL DESIGN & SCULPTURE

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Ceramics Field Array

Joon Park

In this seemingly connected and decentralised global village, people have a very limited knowledge about what cultural conditioning they bring to the conversation. During the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), Korean potters produced simple yet unique ceramic vessels that embodied strict neo-Confucian values of formal restraint and ideal measure. These values still influence the lives of billions in the East Asian societies including Japan, Korea and China. The ideological

grip of Confucianism, with its pervasive societal influence, exerts hegemony on the collective psyche, including my own. Using the association of Joseon ceramic objects with Confucian values, I defy the neo-Confucian hierarchy by exploring different contextual possibilities. My use of pedestals signifies my interest in blurring the distinction between high and low culture, and establishing non-hierarchical dynamics between objects and modes of presentation.

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Untitled 312

Miik Green

Untitled 312 is a suspended, sculptural work composed of aluminium tube and auto paint, with an overall size of 1000 x 900 x 850cm. This large-scale piece references microscopic forms that, on closer inspection, reveal more intricate iterations of the same form. The work offers a different visual experience as the amalgam of organic lines interact with one another, creating an appearance of movement and growth. The basis of my practice lies in my ability to translate

microforms such as fungi, coral, seed pods, diatoms, blood cells and radiolarian into paintings and sculptural pieces, while preserving the integrity of the original form. The resulting work captivates and intrigues as shapes emerge, emulating movement, and viscous surfaces intermittently reflect and refract light. Vivid automotive paint hues, inks and resins create high-gloss finishes, imbuing natural shapes with a sensual quality, reframing them as objects of desire.

THREE-DIMENSIONAL DESIGN & SCULPTURE

97

Our artistic aim is to research the aesthetics of light and its emotional power to trigger the viewer’s response, creating a sense of identity or setting a mood. The projects we undertake often explore the relationship between audiences’ bodies and spaces, allowing a new form of aesthetic engagement and creating the opportunity for a collective social experience. The Colour of Phi is a lighting installation which uses the golden ratio and Fibonacci numbers as

mathematical and aesthetic principles to draw lighting geometries with electro-luminescent wires. People can enter the installation, designed around exact and complex proportions for an immersive involvement. The work questions how senses influence the viewer’s perceptual engagement with space - both internally and externally

- embodying an optical and physical experience for visitors and challenging participants in the discovery of new sensory strands.

The Colour of Phi

Aether & HemeraVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

98

Inspired by the nightscape of Tokyo, my work instigates an eerie and haunting aesthetic experience in the viewer. It is a reaction to Japan’s earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, and the subsequent restriction of the power supply caused by the destruction of the nuclear power station. The concept behind my work is to comment on our vulnerable existence as a temporary phenomenon; one of many patterns within a vast universe. The play of light and

darkness attempts to express the fragility and beauty of life, as well as the irony that, as a digital artwork, this piece depends on electricity in order to function. In relation to the increasingly global concern of water-related disaster, the video of the water surface is used and layered upon the animated digital photographic image. My practice is currently based on the photographs I have taken in Japan, but my aim is for the work to have global appeal.

Light Life

Sumiko EadonVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

99

The themes I pursue involve exploration between art and technology as means of recording and documenting everyday journeys made in the evolution of a “Modern Metropolis”. These include personal narratives and environmental awareness of Psychogeography specific to the location. Comparing historical, architectural and cultural influences raises questions about how far one can observe at any given moment. An integral part of my art-as-process addresses

both what meets the eye and what the eye constructs. The scope of my practice runs from exhibiting drawings on a small-scale handheld device to creating pieces that, through installation, almost convey the experience of stepping into the environment. Drawing is a map of time; recording the actions of the maker allows the viewer to move through the journey of creation. What can the medium of drawing do in relation to altering the perception the landscape we live in today?

A Vision of Urban Utopia

Jordan RodgersVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

100

My work is informed by notions of accumulation, connection, interplay and context. Ideas are developed through a range of practical strategies: painting, collage, photography and objects. I work intuitively, reacting to work as it is being produced. Archive & Handle Installation (2012) is a 3-D, multi-disciplinary work. A floor-based metal structure, from which sheets of paper are hung using magnets, suggests an archival file system containing layers

of information. The diaphanous quality of the paper allows the printed image on one side to be visible on the other, alluding to the interconnection of information. An arrangement of regularly spaced plastic drawer handles climbs the wall, echoing the pattern created by the metal rack. The placement of these works in relation to one another is significant, suggesting equivalences between one fragment next to another, rather than situating one after another.

Archive & Handle Installation

Fiona McGurkVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

101

I seek to bring multiple contradictory subjects together in the same single work, which results in pieces that are in conflict with themselves. My work triggers discussion about its existence and the viewer’s opinion. Using humour and cynicism, I create another perspective on the matter of art and one’s own assumptions towards our daily life surroundings. I examine the function of art on society, and my own role within it, playing a cat-and-mouse game with the

audience. With the work Savings, I tackle the idea of (finding) money, questioning the role of an artist and the value of money. For Savings I built 1000 Euros into the gallery wall of the Frank Taal Gallery, Rotterdam, for their exhibition Earth is smaller than thought (2011). Over a year later, during the opening of the gallery’s exhibition Figure This, I walked into the gallery and collected the 1000 Euros out of the wall without informing the audience beforehand.

Savings

Daan den HouterVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

102

Cilliní are infant burial grounds found throughout Ireland. Traditionally they were the cemeteries for un-baptised infants and stillborn babies, as the Irish Catholic Church of the time forbade their burial in consecrated ground, and they date from late medieval times up until the mid 20th century. Lullaby features 15,000 paper butterflies hand cut from classic children’s books and pinned onto the gallery walls, accompanied by a sound piece of a woman softly

humming a traditional Irish lullaby. The idea is based upon an old belief: “In Irish mythology the butterflies, or ‘Féileacáin’, are said to be the spirits of the departed who return to visit their favourite place and their loved ones to reassure them that they are alright. Up to the 1600s it was against common law in Ireland to kill a white butterfly because they were believed to hold the souls of dead children.” Féileacáin - Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Association of Ireland.

Lullaby

Sheena Graham-GeorgeVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

103

My practice is an extension of my fascination with everyday life and behavioural patterns. Flask Walk follows Barry, Jamie and Jackie, who work as house clearers. Their role is to empty out the houses of those who have passed away and either left no will or had no family to claim their possessions. The house clearers discuss the banal procedures their job entails as well as the extraordinary insight it affords. Highlighting the moral ambiguity of their work, this also

reinforces a necessity to recycle and award these objects new homes. The collector, the storyteller and the grave robber become entwined in one confused narrative. There are poignant moments of profound personal reflection. My works seeks to understand how people relate to their environments and how they value and use the objects they encounter on a daily basis. It asks how we attribute value to objects and people and why certain notions of hierarchy are established.

Flask Walk

Gabriella Sonabend VIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

104

The persistent stream of mind chatter – the background inner hum to our daily lives - is something so familiar, so constant, that it has had no problem gaining our trust. Most people are under the illusion that this voice is who they are, yet in The Lilies of the Field I am questioning the authenticity of this voice – is it really our true selves? I investigate whether humanity’s original affiliation with the natural world has gradually been superseded by the

manipulative ego – the very ego that operates through our inner stream of thought. My work questions whether modern man’s obsession with thought has triggered an immense separation and lack of empathy, allowing humanity to carry out horrific atrocities against his fellow man and create havoc on the planet. My hope is to draw the viewer’s attention to the consequences of this separation, and to question whether a balance can ever be restored.

The Lilies of the Field

Josephine SowdenVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

105

As a collaborative partnership, we are interested in manipulation. Our practice examines how 21st century human beings are constantly pelted with a mash-up of loaded words, images and sounds. We explore how consumerism lays down exacting and exhaustive rules on the way we should live our lives, and how, when altered, the manipulative language of consumerism speaks powerfully about the loss and alienation that results from it, something which in

today’s society we are all suffering from. This position explains how humanity manifests itself amongst all of this. high voltage acts of kindness is one of a series of “snatches” – digital artworks that feature words and phrases that have been snatched from ads and other forms of mass communication. Through our work, we reorder and align new images, footage and sounds to reveal a shadow narrative: the pit behind the promise of the consumerist dream.

high voltage acts of kindness

Lees RooneyVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

106

Surge explores the emergence of early adulthood and the impending arrival of awareness and sexuality. I am preoccupied with notions of identity, exploring constructs of beauty, rapture and sexuality/gender through my practice. By examining race and gender roles, Surge investigates Western culture’s impact upon the notion of love between men and women, and upon same sex relationships. These series of portraits investigate gender roles and the perceived

blurring aggression of men and tender sexuality of women, and a young girl’s turbulent transition to womanhood and having to confront the male gaze. Surge posits captured subjects in a darkened cave, surging forward amidst transitional tensions, connected through their uncertainty. Contrasting portraits present the next stage and a glimpse of certainty, as the still life concludes the work represents the cyclical, inevitable nature of life as it slowly revolves.

Surge

Lucy KnoxVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

107

My pieces visually expose and distort the processes involved in their creation. The solo, Sutre, uses costumes that evolve and decay, reflecting society’s complicated relationship with self-image, particularly in a culture that is increasingly saturated with digitally altered images of the female body. The piece culminates in a disintegrating dress which gradually merges the material with the surface of the skin. Sutre has developed into a hologram through

collaboration with Musion, and here the technology displaces the body, engaging in a dialogue with the medium. Whereas the live performance presents an imperfect body as the object of focus, this digitally manufactured image does not alter the body, thus subverting technology’s potential to sculpt the female form. My photographic practice experiments with camera-less photography and alternative processes, printing onto glass, wood and metal.

Sutre

Madaleine TriggVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

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The installation Personal Puzzles was a part of the tour exhibition At Play 2012 in South Hill Park Arts Centre in Bracknell and in Ovada in Oxford. This project explored concepts of play and participation; one is intended to put together pieces in a logical way in order to come up with the desired solution. Solutions to puzzles require recognising patterns and creating a particular order. One puzzle-solving strategy is using the picture as a guide. The added difficulty is the fact that

Personal Puzzles are black on both sides and the picture, which should help, is black as well. Although installations such as Personal Puzzles are only a small part of my artistic output, they are an unavoidable part. In my case, this theme usually affects the choice of the media, not vice versa. It’s an experimentation with technique, subject and with myself. I am looking for the best way to express a “dynamic impression” and new ways to achieve compositional depth.

Personal Puzzles

Leszek BlyszczynskiVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

109

“We are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost.”Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (1958).

My work in video and photography is concerned with our relationship to the past as a performative experience that opposes a global, fixed and document-based version of history. I often work at a local scale

in order to immerse myself in a specific space or territory. Burst (2011) is a video installation that questions the notion of spaces of intimacy through the exploration of two places of the artist’s childhood: a bathroom and a washing house. The work is divided in three actions with balloons that together form a ritual: blowing, bursting and collecting. Through them, I expand the spatial, temporal and mental limits of my body, the initial intimate space in the outer space.

Burst

Nathalie Jo�reVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

110

Cosmic arrangements of broccoli, burnt toast, diasporic peas – these are the strange sublimations that come from celibate bodies navigating spaceless electronic worlds. My work reveals the erratic functioning of thought by stripping everyday objects of their normal function and meaning, creating arresting and irrational forms that are beyond the logic of formal arrangement. I erode the distinctions between art and life, body and space, space and object,

creating a heterogeneous spatial continuum onto which the viewer may imaginatively project their body through prolonged visual engagement and inquiry. Peabike is an attempt to radicalise the everyday. When viewers advance closer to the bike, their perception of what it is covered in evolves, until they have a moment of shock and partial understanding. That interstitial space – that gap in understanding – is what I’m trying to capture and elongate.

Peabike

Bess KenwayVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

111

In Impulses (2012) I deal with translation of the physical onto paper, using drawing in an experimental way. I record my trip to work by putting my hand on the bus window and giving freedom to the pencil. These drawings illustrate my regret at not filling my working day with new and fresh drawings. Neglecting my creation process because of work has led to works whose nature has been uncontrolled by consciousness, so that their frail lines made unbound forms.

Creation in a strictly given situation makes the body seem like a machine. The inspiration of these small experiments makes me only want to view the media in which I am expressing myself through an interdisciplinary manner. I’m interested in researching the processes and consequences that surround human life, and the roles played by those we come into contact with. I want to question the spaces and locations where individuals feel they belong.

Impulses

Ana SladeticVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

112

MUC 72 was filmed at the site of the Olympic Village that was constructed for the 1972 Munich Olympics to house the visiting athletes. Today the apartments are designated residential housing units. The film contains both found archive footage depicting moments around the 1972 events, and contemporary footage that I shot in 2012. The buildings serve a residential function but stand simultaneously as authentic artefacts of a historical event. In an

attempt to navigate the slippage between the alternating functions and temporal positions of the buildings, I adopted documentary filmmaking strategies and techniques while refusing to represent the iconic. I have a great interest in sites that are in transition, from temporary housing to permanent housing to military usage to commercial usage and so on. What develops is an investigation into what is then being concealed or revealed in the landscape.

MUC 72

Jamie BuckleyVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

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Kelesh-Panovi (2011) is an audiovisual artwork that explores the relationship between a home and its identity. More specifically, it examines how a house becomes a home, and how the space absorbs the emotions of its inhabitants. The dwelling presented has belonged to my family for decades and has witnessed many events, especially during the communist era and the difficult times afterwards. I was intrigued by the house’s history and decided to explore it and create

a visual presentation of its memory and spirit. Shooting moving image on a motionless camera allowed me to capture even the slightest movements within the house. The feeling of the uncanny becomes essential, especially as the dwelling was uninhabited during the production. In the editing, audio recordings have been attached to the imagery, using ambient sounds of the house and voices of the inhabitants to create an encompassing narrative.

Kelesh-Panovi

Petra SemerdjievVIDEO, INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE

114

Ben Applegarth graduated from Newcastle University with a BA in Fine Art in 2012. He has participated in group exhibitions in conventional and unconventional spaces. His work takes the form of site-specific installations, visual deconstructions of musical scores and intricate constructions concerned with repeating patterns and formulae.

Benjamin Nash is a British artist living and working in Strasbourg. His artworks centre around sculpture and installation. Mixing traditional and non-traditional materials, a process is meticulously reworked over a long period of time and through a series of complex experimentation. info@sculptedcolour.net.

Bess Kenway is an installation artist whose work is about play. In 2012, she graduated from the National Art School, was offered her first solo exhibition (SOLID VOIDS, galleryeight), was nominated for the Clitheroe Foundation Scholarship and the NAS Aboriginal Art Centre internship, and received a William Fletcher Foundation Grant.

Beverley Cornwell is a photographic artist and conceptual videographer with an interest in the urban interactions between people, wildlife and architecture. Themes that occur throughout her work include human and animal interplay, and how public behaviour is controlled via the mechanisms of mass society within communal spaces.

Bryon Darby investigates perceptions of place as mediated through technology and personal experience. His work has been featured in the International Photography Festival in Pingyao, China; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville, and the 2012 International Symposium on Electronic Art.

Calum James Crowther is 23 years old. He attended the University of Derby, where he studied Fine Art and received a First Class Honours degree. Since university, Calum has exhibited across the UK, most notably in London. He has completed commissions for established galleries.

Caroline Burraway graduated from Central Saint Martins. Her work confronts the banality of the everyday and a complex social message in which the viewer is faced with intense, challenging images of individuals on the margins of society. She was awarded an Honorary Research Fellowship by Lancaster University in 2008.

Caroline Hartley is a Welsh artist. Her work is a direct response to the current anxious ecological and economical climate. Often she paints without a tool, working with her hands, creating a bond with image, ideas, materials and self. She has exhibited throughout the UK and has won numerous awards for painting, sculpture and poetry.

Caroline Jane Harris is a British artist, born in London in 1987. Her work explores the intricacies of nature through a labour intensive paper-cutting technique. After graduating from Fine Art Printmaking at the University of Brighton, she was awarded residencies in London and Spain.

Chandra Paul is a Melbourne-based ceramic artist who has engaged in over 10 years of independent studio practice. She began her ceramic career with an interest in large, hand built sculptural forms, but now wants to extend her craft beyond the static object to areas of public art, ephemeral art and installation art.

Chika Modum was born in Nigeria in 1980 and now lives and works in Canada. She has a BFA in Painting from the University of Nigeria, and an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Calgary. She has exhibited in galleries including The Art Gallery of Alberta, Stride Gallery +15, The New Gallery and Harcourt House Arts Centre.

Chloe Lelliott graduated from Falmouth College of Arts with First Class Honours and was shortlisted for the AOP Student Photography Awards (2009). She received Judge’s Choice for the Renaissance Photography Prize in 2010, won the student East-West Art Award in 2011, and most recently was shortlisted for the Salon Art Prize (2012).

Clare Walter is an artist who has lived and worked all over the world and is now based in her birthplace of London. Her practice focuses on issues of human rights and social justice. Walter’s work makes unconventional use of subject matter, materials and methods. Predominantly self-taught, she has recently started an MA in Fine Art.

Aaron Heino was born in Pori, Finland, in 1977. He moved to Helsinki in 2001 to study at Art School Maa; in 2002 he moved to Lahti to study sculpture at the Institute of Fine Arts of the Lahti University of Applied Sciences. Living and working in Helsinki, he made his first public sculpture in 2005. His first major solo exhibition was in 2008.

Abigail Brown is an internationally recognised artist silversmith specialising in a hammer forming technique. Her metalwork is feminine, unique and gracefully sculptural. Her work has been exhibited widely across Europe and the UK, including in the V&A, the Saatchi Gallery and the National Museum Wales.

Aether & Hemera is the artistic partnership between media architect Claudio Benghi and lighting artist Gloria Ronchi; their cross-disciplinary cooperation focuses on combining the immaterial force of light with physical spaces and digital technologies. Their works have been shown across the UK and in Italy since 2006.

Alec Von Bargen captures aesthetic instances resonating with their historical, political and social contexts. Most recently Alec exhibited at the 54th Venice Biennale, the V&A and the International Festival of Photography in Arles. He has won numerous international awards and is included in private and public collections worldwide.

Ana Sladetic was born in 1985 in Vukovar, Croatia. She graduated in 2009 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb (MA). She has had many exhibitions, and has received several awards and fellowships from organisations such as Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart (2012) and Cite Internationale Des Arts, Paris (2013). www.anasladetic.com.

Andrea Spencer creates small-scale sculpture and site-specific installations that are concept driven, drawing from natural forms to create artworks that carry a personal narrative. Her work is held in public and private collections, and she exhibits in the UK, USA and China. She has shown at British Glass Biennale in 2008, 2010 and 2012.

Andrew Harrison is influenced by the urban environment. He has exhibited in a number of London galleries and currently has four paintings on show in Canary Wharf. He has completed a BA and an MA in Fine Art Painting and currently works as an art technician for an art logisitics company.

Anja de Jong works on commission and is a lecturer in Photography at the Royal Academy of Art in the Netherlands. She exhibits in the Netherlands as well as abroad, and has published books including The Borderland Project (2004) and Berlin’s Covered History (2007). Her work has received various prizes. www.anjadejong.nl.

An Yung Yau was born in Hong Kong in 1989 and attended the University for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, receiving her National Diploma in Art and Design and BA in Fine Art in 2007. Group exhibitions include First Principle (2011), Gallery in Cork Street, London, and Ch_ers :) (2009), Bargehouse Gallery, London.

Biographies

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Constantinos Taliotis is Berlin-based and Cyprus-born. His work focuses on narrative, aesthetic and architectural modalities in cinema. It has been exhibited at the 11th Venice Architecture Biennial representing Cyprus (collaborative), and shortlisted for the Arte Laguna Photography Prize and the Young Greek Photographers Award.

Daan den Houter was born in 1977 in the Netherlands. He is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Rotterdam. Before he went to art school, he studied Artificial Intelligence. In this study he found the basis for his work as an artist. His works explore the way we modify and perceive the (art) world.

Damien O’Mara studied Film Production in 2010. Since then, he has completed two series, exhibiting his Suited Man series in Melbourne, and the Trespasser series in northern New South Wales. Damien was awarded a Regional Arts Development Grant in 2012 for two video art pieces exhibited at the Swell Sculpture Festival.

Daniel Shiel trained as an archaeologist and puts his photographic work into context, though he can trace his preoccupations back to childhood holidays exploring historical and industrial landscapes. Using digital photographic collage work, he explores the textures and patterns evident in everyday objects.

Dareen Hussein is a Qatar-born American artist living in Los Angeles. She is pursuing her BFA in Photography at Otis College of Art and Design. Her work has been exhibited at the Center for Fine Art Photography and the A. Smith Gallery. She uses photography to communicate the human condition and the inevitability of isolation.

David Wightman was born in Stockport in 1980 and graduated from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Painting in 2003. His solo shows include Paramour at Halcyon Gallery (2012), Homage to Loreleia at Berwick Gymnasium Gallery (2011) and Secret Name at Sumarria Lunn / Art Work Space at the Hempel, London (2010).

Day Bowman is a London-based painter who, most recently, has been collaborating with filmmaker Ian Knox and TransGlobal Underground on The Urban Wastelands Project. Day was commissioned to produce a series of giant hoardings for Weymouth Station for the Olympic and Paralympic Sailing events in 2012. www.daybowman.com.

Elfyn Lewis graduated from the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, with an MA in Fine Art in 1998. He has won prizes for his paintings including the Gold Medal for Fine Art in the National Eisteddfod in 2009, and the prestigious Welsh Artist of the Year award in 2010. He is currently represented by Beaux Arts London.

Emel Hamlet predominantly works through glass casting and fusing techniques to create expressive pieces grounded in the natural sciences. Form is key to her sculptures and designs, as is the exploitation of glass’ properties to draw the viewer into a deeper contemplation of her subjects.

Eric Kasper was born in 1987, and his work explores the spirit of youth and the nagging reality of impending adulthood, as well as the constant push and pull between innocence and maturation. It has displayed in the Arts District galleries of Phoenix and on the album covers of highly regarded band Boys & Frogs. Esther Nienhuis was born in 1977. She studied Fine Arts at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Her painting is figurative and often follows her own photographic work. Nienhuis’ work has been exhibited in Europe, the USA, Canada, Asia and Australia. In 2011, she won the Dutch Art Prize Gasunie Kunstprijs.

Fiona McGurk completed a BSC in Chemistry at the University of Strathclyde, and then worked as a Development Chemist for 12 years. In 2012, she graduated from Edinburgh College of Art with a BA in Painting. She was awarded the RSA: New Contemporaries 2013 Award and The Andrew Grant Travel Award (2010 & 2012).

Gabriella Sonabend graduated with a First Class Honours degree from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2012. Since graduating, she curated In the Way of Being, an exhibition held in the house of her late grandfather featuring eight young artists. Her practice employs performance, documentary and narrative filmmaking.

Gracjana Rejmer completed her MFA Painting Course at the Slade School of Fine Art in 2011. Gracjana’s work has been exhibited in the UK, Germany, Poland and the USA. Her process involves the removal, as well as application, of the paint, and as such layering becomes part of the process of constructing her paintings.

Herman James presented a series of paintings depicting some of the possible consequences of global warming in Consumption/Consequence in New York. The artist has also shown with Joyce Goldstein, Monique Goldstrom, NYU, Dutch Kills Gallery in Berlin, Galerie Rothamel in Erfurt and in Paris at Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpetriere.

Hollie Mackenzie is an emerging artist who has recently been exhibited in Feral at London’s Free Range and The Affordable Art Fair at Battersea Park, London. Since her graduation from AUCB in June, she has received the Dorset Visual Arts Award 2012 and The Signature Art Prize: People’s Choice Award 2012.

Hyung-Gyu Kim is a South Korean artist based in New York City. His work employs video, sculpture, sound and electronic components to forge hybrid memories and reexamine ones thought dead. It has been exhibited in Japan, Korea and the USA, and has earned several international awards.

Iluá Hauck da Silva was born in Campinas, Brazil, and graduated from Goldsmiths College in 2002. Before establishing her practice, she worked at the Saatchi Gallery and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Varied media such as glass, velvet, leather and metal provide the palette for Hauck da Silva’s sculptures, installations and 2D pieces.

Irene Fearnside is a Welsh photographic artist. Her working practice is drawn from personal experiences, with memory and nostalgic connections being key elements. A graduate of Swansea Metropolitan University, she has had success in competitions and group exhibitions as well as having been awarded a public commission.

Jack Spencer Ashworth was born in Norfolk in 1987 and currently lives and works in London. Before completing a Masters in Fine Art at City and Guilds of London Art School in 2011, he graduated with a degree in Architecture from The Bartlett, UCL, in 2009. His current work reconciles his love of painting and the human form.

Jamie Buckley was born in Kerry, Ireland, in 1980, and he currently lives in Munich. His videos focus on ideas around memory and history. Buckley completed an MFA at the University of Ulster, Belfast, in 2012. His work was recently shown at Bloomberg New Contemporaries at the ICA and at Rencontres Internationales at Palais de Tokyo.

Jane Sampson was born in 1955. Her unique style incorporates photography, pigment, collage and textiles. In 2000, she set up Brighton’s first open access print workshop, BIP. Currently she works from inkspotpress.co.uk and exhibits regularly, showing at art fairs throughout the UK. www.janesampson.com.

Jay Battle originally moved to England from Toronto to pursue his interest in medieval architecture and sculpture. He now produces sculpture with both natural and synthetic materials, which combine to demonstrate an interaction between the built and natural worlds. He is represented by Adam Gallery. www.adamgallery.co.uk.

Jeff Pigott has returned to fine art after many years working in design and on community projects. His work is characterised by a spirit of experimentation and an exploration of materials and the processes of making art. Fragility and transience are implicit in his work. www.jeffartist.co.uk.

Jiseon Hwang is a London-based South Korean artist who has recently completed an MA in Illustration and Animation at Kingston University. As a professional artist and designer, she has expertise in various computer graphic tools. Leaning on her Fine Art undergraduate degree, she extends this area of expression with a digital tool. Jo Aylmer gained a First Class degree in Ceramics from the University of Westminster in June 2012, and was given the Caparo Award for outstanding achievement. Since graduating, she has been shortlisted for the Beers Lambert Contemporary Emerging Artist Award and exhibited at New Designers. www.joaylmer.com.

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Joon Park is a Boston and Seoul-based artist who is interested in the tensions between high and low cultures, partial and whole, centralisation and decentralisation. In his recent work, Park defies the neo-Confucian hierarchy by exploring different contextual and compositional possibilities.

Jordan Rodgers graduated from Lancaster University with a First Class Honours degree in Fine Art. Since graduating in July 2012, his work has already been exhibited in select group and solo shows, and published by national and international art magazines and websites.

Josephine Sowden graduated in 2012 from the University of Wales Newport with a BA in Photographic Art. She uses video to explore the fall of modern man and the rise of the ego. The Lilies of the Field was exhibited in February this year, and she was included in the Catlin Guide 2013. www.josephinesowden.co.uk.

Julian Voss-Andreae is a German-born sculptor based in Portland, Oregon. Starting out as a painter, he later changed course and studied Quantum Physics at the Universities of Berlin, Edinburgh and Vienna. His work has gained critical attention and is included in multiple institutional and private collections in the USA and abroad.

Juliet Ferguson is a photographer and journalist living in London, who has recently completed a postgraduate certificate in Photography at Central Saint Martins. Her current work uses images from CCTV, tying in with her work at the Centre for Investigative Journalism. She is interested in exploring issues raised by new technology.

Jurgen Winkler holds a Biology degree from the University of Amsterdam. He is also a sculpture graduate of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. His work is represented by the Suzanne Biederberg Gallery in the city. He has had several exhibitions in the Netherlands, including at the Gemeente Museum in The Hague.

Kelly Blevins is an American artist working in classical and traditional drawing practices to create large, stimulating and emotional images. Her work is known for isolated statuesque figures and political subject matter. Kelly has been honoured with awards in Illinois, Arkansas, Louisiana, Virginia and Pennsylvania. www.kblevins.com.

Kyunghee Park is a London-based Korean artist. She received her MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art and has had work exhibited in the Bargehouse Gallery and Smokehouse Gallery in London. Her works focus on childhood memories and the importance of traditions in contemporary society.

Lees Rooney is a collaborative partnership between poet/writer Janet Lees and photographer/videographer Rooney. Rooney has won acclaim for his raw, thought-provoking images; Janet is currently studying for a Masters in Creative Writing at Lancaster University.

Leszek Blyszczynski is a London-based Polish artist who gained his degree from the Academy of Fine Art in Krakow. Although he is mainly involved with painting, he was also responsible for several art installations and performances such as Sub Jowe and Konglomeart. He has exhibited at galleries and festivals worldwide.

Line Jakobsen learned the basic skills of glassblowing on Skaelskoer Folkehoejskole in 2005. She found the glass fascinating and challenging for both creativity and mind. She then moved to Sweden to learn more about glassblowing and was a student at Kosta Glass School for three years. line_jak@yahoo.dk.

Lisa Pettibone is originally from California with a background in graphic design. She is based in the UK, where she attained a second degree in Glass at UCA Farnham in 2005. In 2012, she produced two sculptures for the National Trust at Lacock Abbey Gardens relating to pioneering photographer Henry Fox Talbot.

Llewelynn Fletcher creates immersive sculptures to inhabit physically. Equal parts armour, shelter and resting place, her works utilise space to accentuate silence and activate listening. Fletcher earned her MFA degree at California College of the Arts in 2010, and her BA from Dartmouth College in 1999. www.llfletcher.com.

Lucy Knox is an artist preoccupied with notions of identity, exploring constructs of beauty and rapture, violence, desire and sexuality/gender through her practice. She uses traditional painterly understandings of colour, tone and chiaroscuro in her video work incorporating installation, photography and performance. www.lucyknox.net.

Luzena Adams is a self-professed love child. Born in the Evelyn Rainforest and raised in Australia, her childhood was filled with bare-footed adventures and a grounded sense of freedom. Taking photos from an early age, she draws her inspiration from life experiences and the complexity of human emotion. www.luzenaadams.com.

Madaleine Trigg is a performance artist and photographer. Her practice combines transient materials, movement and costume to illuminate and deconstruct the image and issues of the female body. Her work has been exhibited at the ICA, WrongWeather Gallery, Prague Quadrennial and Kinetica Art Fair. www.madaleinetrigg.com.

Marcus Jansen spent the his first years in the Bronx and Long Island, New York. He has been redefining urban landscape painting since the 1990s. His collections include The Moscow Museum of Modern Art and The PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art. He is also part of the next generation of artists for the ABSOLUT VODKA Global campaign.

Maren C Raaum Gyllenhammar studied Graphic Design at Edinburgh Napier University. Her designs often include elements of illustration, which led her onto embossing a story by hand. She is now living in Oslo, Norway, doing freelance work and continuing various projects as an artist.

Maria Mor Huertas was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and moved to the USA 12 years ago. She attends Florida Atlantic University and is exhibiting a photographic series, Souls of Our Shoes, at the FAU Wimberly Library. Often her inspiration comes from observing the little nuances within herself, people and the surroundings.

Marie Wengler was born in 1992. From an early age, she experimented with varying photographic artistic expressions and themes, often focusing on the issues the post/late modern individual has to handle in today’s society. In 2012 she participated in Copenhagen Photo Festival.

Mark Braniff is an artist/designer who uses photography, film and sound. Trained at Middlesex Polytechnic, University of Ulster and Goldsmiths University in Fine Art and Art Psychotherapy, he has exhibited in Northern Ireland and London. Currently based in East London, he finds most of the inspiration for his pieces in this location.

Martha Zmpounou is a visual artist and illustrator based in London. She holds a BA and an MA in Fine Art from Aristotle University, Greece, and an MA in Communication Design from Central Saint Martins. She has participated in several exhibitions in the UK and internationally, and works as a visiting lecturer at University of the Arts London.

Mary Humphrey is committed to pursuing her passion for education and the plight of the marginalised through the medium of social, collaborative photography. Mary recently gained a First Class Honours degree. During her studies, she produced several bodies of work focusing on Travellers and Transylvanian Roma.

Miik Green is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Perth, represented by Stella Downer Fine Art (NSW) and Linton & Kay Contemporary (WA). As the recipient of an Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship, he is a PhD candidate at Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia. www.miikgreen.com.

Mishael Lee is a Senior at Wheaton College in Illinois, where he majors in art. Born in Berkeley, California, his earlier life was spent in Korea. He returned to the USA when he was 14. Lee has received multiple awards in art competitions, which include being awarded first place in the Intermountain Opera Poster Contest.

Naomi Doran works instinctively and compulsively, creating pieces that reflect her fascination with the natural decay of the industrial landscape. In 2009, she was awarded a solo show in Redchurch Street, and she has since been selected for numerous shows, most notably The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2012.

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Nasser Ghaderi was the Associate Producer of the critically acclaimed film Vegas: Based on a True Story, which was an official selection at the Venice Film Festival. Also an action painter, he has had eight solo exhibitions in 2013. His work has been purchased locally and internationally. www.nasserghaderi.com.

Nathalie Joffre is a French artist working in photography and video. She studied Art History and Fine Art in France before gaining her MA in Photography at London College of Communication in 2012. He told me that his garden… has been awarded the Sproxton Award for Photography (2012) and is shortlisted for the Prix ICART 2013.

Nick Greenwich is a conceptual artist based in Sydney, Australia. He has lectured in Photomedia at the University of Sydney for the past five years, and has worked as a Master Printer for the past seven. He has exhibited eight times over the last three years, whilst also winning awards for sculpture, photography and digital art.

Nigel Lord is a UK photographer and artist specialising in urban landscape, architectural and industrial images. Based in Dorset, he is a partner in The Incident Room Gallery. He has had works featured in a range of publications and won several awards, including a British Institute Award from the Royal Academy of Arts in 2012.

Pär Axell lives and works in Stockholm and Gothenburg, Sweden. His practice is multidisciplinary and includes both photography and video as well as three-dimensional works and text. He is currently pursuing a BFA at Konstfack – University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm and graduates in the spring of 2013.

Petra Semerdjiev is a Finnish-Bulgarian photographer and audiovisual artist. Her main body of work talks about the relationship between the physical and spiritual identities. Inspired by her family background and history, she creates work with a very honest and direct storytelling, making it easy for the viewer to relate to.

Phoebe Salmon is an exciting young West Country artist, currently studying in Exeter. Known for her unusual and adventurous approach to art, and also a growing portfolio of sophisticated photographic work, Phoebe’s complex artworks convey intense emotions simply through the use of abstract mark and colour.

Poppy Whatmore transforms everyday objects into animated anthropomorphic and zoomorphic forms. Her methodological approach includes assemblage, a technique she employs to re-configure conventional forms into surprising and playful arrangements, portraying the flaws and failures of the human condition.

Rianna Goss is a freelance photographer and retoucher from Sheffield. After graduating with BA (Hons) in Photography & Digital Imaging from the University of West London, she started working with clients such as EMI and Turn First Artists. She has also had her work exhibited in Liberty and galleries in her adopted home of Ealing.

Rob Miller gained a Sculpture Degree from the Wimbledon School of Art in 1993, followed by an MA in Graphic Media at UAL in 2007. He has exhibited internationally, including at the WW Gallery’s exhibition Afternoon tea, and at the 54th Venice Biennale as a representative of the UK at the Venice Biennale programme.

Ron Bambridge is a freelance photographer specialising in people and places. He started his career at the London advertising agency Foote Cone & Belding. After leaving there he decided to go freelance, and has worked in the city ever since, for advertising agencies, design groups and directly with clients.

Ryota Kajita was born in Japan. His photographs have been exhibited in the Japan Professional Photographers’ Society Exhibition, Alaska’s Rarefied Light and other shows. His video documentary Losing Ground, won the Cinema Committee Choice Award at Fairbanks Film Festival. www.ryotakajita.blogspot.com.

Sara Brannan gained an MA in Contemporary Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University in 2009. Recent exhibitions and screenings include Flatout AC Institute, NYC; Outcasting: Fourth Wall Festival, Cardiff; Open12 at WW Gallery, London; Scopophilia at The ArtHouse, Wakefield, and Creekside Open, London, selected by Phyllida Barlow.

Sarah Francis is a Welsh-born photographer currently residing in Leeds after completing a Distinction MFA in Fine Art at Leeds University. Her work showcases the photograph not only as an aesthetic image but also as an object in itself, conveying expression through the interaction of concepts, narrative and meaning.

Sarah Shaw studied Fine Art at Falmouth College of Art and has since exhibited widely in the UK, her work being purchased by private collectors in both the UK and abroad. She was shortlisted for both the Saatchi and Beers-Lambert competitions and was a finalist in the National Open Art Competition. www.sarahshaw.co.uk.

Sarah Tod is an artist living and working in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. At present she has a space within Northumbria University’s Graduate Studio, where she is continuing with her large-scale photographic practice. Alongside her own work, she is looking to set up an exhibition space that supports student and emerging artists.

Sheena Graham-George is a multimedia artist based in Orkney. She received her MFA from The University of Southern Illinois in 2001. Her work on The Cilliní Project has earned her awards from The Hope Scott Trust, The Oppenheim John-Downes Memorial Trust and Hi-Arts, and residencies in Ireland.

Sonja Danowski did a Diploma with Honours in Design. Since then she has been working as an artist, illustrator and author in Berlin. She is particularly concerned with the preservation of human memory and impressions through drawn images and the creation of timeless picture books and installations. www.sonjadanowski.com.

Spencer Winnett is a documentary photographer who is passionate about the remote and subtle stories of everyday people. For Spencer, photography is about finding a way into a person or place and showing them like no-one else has. He is an alumni member of the IdeasTap Creative Network and a 2011 Editor’s Brief winner.

Stephani Martinez received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Stephani’s practice reflects her observation of the intimate patterns around her. Her work has been exhibited throughout California at Intersection for the Arts and the Berkeley Art Center. Recently, it has been at Supernatural in San Francisco and Zughaus in Berkeley.

Sumiko Eadon was born and raised in Japan. Having explored traditional media such as oil painting and woodcut printing, she has been working more recently with short ambient experimental films and video installations. Now UK-based, she is currently in the final year of a Fine Art degree course at Loughborough University.

Susan Forsyth graduated from Chelsea College of Art (2006) and completed her MA at Kingston University (2008). She was shortlisted for the prestigious Jerwood Sculpture Prize in 2009 and has exhibited widely across the UK and Europe. During 2012, she exhibited at the International Wood Sculpture Exhibition, Taiwan.

Timothy Lee is an emerging Korean-American artist born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in New York City. Having studied Neuroscience & Behaviour, Studio Art (Drawing), and Biology (Developmental) at Wesleyan University, Timothy’s artistic practices have been heavily influenced by the imagery of cytology.

Tony Girardot lives in West Somerset. His last major exhibition was in 2012 at a reunion Art-Expo exhibition of ex-students of The Somerset College of Art. Prior to Art-Expo, it was in 1968. While at college he was a closet Surrealist, unfashionable in 1960s highs of Pop Art. He still retains a Surrealist approach in creating work today.

Twinkle Troughton has a fascination with the past, current political issues and the human condition. She has had solo shows at The Pure Evil Gallery, A-Side B-Side and Steal From Work. She also stages public art stunts with fellow artist Tinsel Edwards. Other recent shows include the Hay Hill Gallery on Cork Street and Somerset House.

Vasilisa Forbes studied Illustration and Mixed Media at Camberwell College of Arts. Her work employs photography, mixed media collage and line drawing. It has previously been selected by curators from BALTIC, Barbican, Foundation Cartier pour l’art contemporain and the Saatchi Gallery.

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Index

76 Aaron Heino 77 Abigail Brown97 Aether & Hemera44 Alec Von Bargen111 Ana Sladetic93 Andrea Spencer24 Andrew Harrison53 Anja de Jong92 An Yung Yau 72 Ben Applegarth73 Benjamin Nash110 Bess Kenway51 Beverley Cornwell71 Bryon Darby56 Calum James Crowther27 Caroline Burraway26 Caroline Hartley18 Caroline Jane Harris74 Chandra Paul 75 Chika Modum54 Chloe Lelliott14 Clare Walter58 Constantinos Taliotis 101 Daan den Houter15 Damien O’Mara67 Daniel Shiel61 Dareen Hussein25 David Wightman22 Day Bowman23 Elfyn Lewis88 Emel Hamlet29 Eric Kasper40 Esther Nienhuis100 Fiona McGurk103 Gabriella Sonabend 30 Gracjana Rejmer52 Herman James 84 Hollie Mackenzie20 Hyung-Gyu Kim82 Iluá Hauck da Silva66 Irene Fearnside42 Jack Spencer Ashworth112 Jamie Buckley34 Jane Sampson83 Jay Battle33 Jeff Pigott62 Jiseon Hwang 80 Jo Aylmer95 Joon Park99 Jordan Rodgers

104 Josephine Sowden90 Julian Voss-Andreae57 Juliet Ferguson87 Jurgen Winkler32 Kelly Blevins19 Kyunghee Park105 Lees Rooney108 Leszek Blyszczynski89 Line Jakobsen91 Lisa Pettibone86 Llewelynn Fletcher106 Lucy Knox65 Luzena Adams 107 Madaleine Trigg35 Marcus Jansen85 Maren C Raaum Gyllenhammar46 Maria Mor Huertas63 Marie Wengler 69 Mark Braniff 64 Martha Zmpounou16 Mary Humphrey96 Miik Green36 Mishael Lee 79 Naomi Doran37 Nasser Ghaderi109 Nathalie Joffre59 Nick Greenwich 55 Nigel Lord 47 Pär Axell 113 Petra Semerdjiev38 Phoebe Salmon 17 Poppy Whatmore49 Rianna Goss 78 Rob Miller60 Ron Bambridge45 Ryota Kajita 21 Sara Brannan70 Sarah Francis 39 Sarah Shaw50 Sarah Tod102 Sheena Graham-George28 Sonja Danowski68 Spencer Winnett 81 Stephani Martinez98 Sumiko Eadon94 Susan Forsyth41 Timothy Lee31 Tony Girardot 43 Twinkle Troughton 48 Vasilisa Forbes

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ISSN 1758-9932 £9.95

Aesthetica Art Prize Anthology 2013

Featuring 100 new and contemporary artists, this anthology provides a unique opportunity to appreciate the international breadth and experience the range and quality of artwork that is being produced today.

Addressing modern concerns and inviting a dialogue between artist and viewer, the pieces engage on many levels. Artists from across the world are represented, from locations including the USA, South Korea, Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and across the UK. These works not only reflect the world in which we live, but also highlight current preoccupations, ranging from environmental issues, globalisation and capitalism to marginalised communities and traditional views on women.

Showcasing work in a variety of media, the collection is divided into the categories of Photographic and Digital Art; Painting and Drawing; Three Dimensional Design and Sculpture, and Video, Installation and Performance. Fresh, dynamic and visually arresting, it encourages new dialogues on the most topical issues in the world today, and highlights the constant and invigorating evolution of international artistic practice.

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