Degree Show

Dominic McIvor is a recent graduate from Edinburgh. He studied Painting at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen. Read what he’s been up to since graduating this summer.

I continue to make erasure based drawings that stem from my interest in endurance through ongoing manipulation of paper and labour intensive rule strategies. As well as continuing where I left off from my degree show, I am lucky enough to be working at Leith School of Art as a technician.

Studio

After graduating, I went traveling in Spain and Portugal. I felt the trip was beneficial as it allowed me to plan my next pieces, gave me a lot of inspiration and a good rest from the hard work of 4th year. It also gave me time to reflect on my degree show and highlighted the areas I wanted to explore more later on in the year.

Ziggurat

Diptych

The creative environment at Leith School of Art has influenced my work and is an ideal atmosphere for me to learn and share my ideas. It has given me great enthusiasm for my studio work, but also an appreciation of how art schools operate, a behind the scenes look. I was lucky enough to be awarded, from my degree show, a studio at Edinburgh Palette to make a body of work for RSA New Contemporaries. A difficulty for me at the moment is that I don’t have as much time in the studio as I did in art school and therefore have to use the time that I do have appropriately. I do this by creating small deadlines and following plans. It’s different to the way I worked at Gray’s School of Art. At the end of the studio award in the summer, I will be exhibiting at Edinburgh Palette. Ideally I would like to make two separate bodies of work for the two shows.

I am interested in endurance. I use numerical rules to compose repetitive erasure drawings. I have an oil pastel colour set pattern that dictates the drawing and use limited materials and tools to explore ways of reducing and manipulating paper. Therefore, I start with material and reduce it to a fragile state using fixed rules. Due to the scraping away of material, I reuse it to make shelves for models and frames that link with the labour intensive drawings.

Pyramid

Short and realistic goals have made me work well since leaving uni whilst holding down a job. I’m lucky enough to be working in an art school environment which has benefited me as I’m surrounded by inspiration and makes me excited about my own studio work. I am looking forward to RSA New Contemporaries, I’m so thankful for the huge opportunity and the exposure that it will create, I hope it goes well!

Read more about Dominic in this review from the Gray’s School of Art Degree Show.

Comment below or on Twitter using #LifeAfterArtSchool & mentioning @CenSta with your experience after art school.

Stay tuned for updates from art school graduates all this week. In the meantime see a preview of what to expect from the Life After Art School features here.

More: Website

//////

Looking for more blogs? Visit here.

The theme of this year’s Degree Show at Gray’s School of Art, ‘Open Your Eyes’, aims not only to showcase the emerging artistic talent of the North East, but to do so to a wider audience than ever before; challenging perceptions and promoting creative practice and engagement with the arts. What is immediately apparent is the strong sense of identity possessed by each of the graduates and their shows.

Martyna Benedyka

The paintings and photographs of Martyna Benedyka contain a poetic stillness as she encourages the viewer to pause through the act of looking. Transient moments are recorded, transformed into objects of beauty and, through their modest scale and collective display, make a powerful impression. There is a certain intimacy with work of this scale – viewers will find themselves staring for what may seem to be hours at a possible wheel of cheese or a speculative bridge. Through Benedyka’s brush and lens, the everyday becomes more alluring, more beautiful.

Dreams; incoherent, strange, unsettling, fleeting. Printmaking graduate Siobhan Scott’s work explores this impermanent landscape. Her gentle mark-making and colourful palette depicts the dream as an ephemeral encounter. Diaphanous areas of colour bleed into hazy clouds as oneiric scenarios are literally stitched together across the paper. Scott uses the terminology ‘weaver’, considering the protagonist as the creator of this dreamscape, which links thematically to the other aspects of her work. Delicate fabric creates a canopy of Scott’s show, onto which a film is projected – the viewer, in this comfortable, enveloping space, takes on the role of this protagonist waking from sleep. The wallpaper, cushion and curtain she has made merge elements of the domestic and everyday with the playfulness of the subconscious.

Siobhan Scott

Dominic McIvor

“Endurance” is the key word Dominic McIvor uses to describe his practice, the term applying not only to the subject, but to both the material and the artist too. The painting graduate and selected RSA New Contemporaries artist rigorously tests how far he can push a material; in the paper drawings, this can involve scraping away much of the actual marks. For the plaster sculptures, this aspect of endurance is openly displayed – each model sitting proudly upon a formed disc of rubble, the detritus from the carving of each model. Themes of creation and destruction appear throughout his show, as there is often an element of recycling within his practice (accepting technical mishaps, damage or unpredictability and using these factors to make something new). Of course, as I said, endurance also applies to the artist. Strict rules are set for the making of the work, and each task is time-consuming and repetitive. There is a stunning contrast between the precision and symmetry of the drawings and where the marks meet an erased void. Perfection cannot always be achieved by control. The result is an intriguing and effective play between order and the power of chance.

Ben Martin

Ben Martin of the sculpture course has created for his graduate show an installation which resists definition. Referring to the piece as a ‘drawing’, its transition from two dimensions can be seen through its intense focus on shape and line. In lieu of a pencil, black rope becomes a linear tool through which to draw through space. There is an incredible elegance and simplicity in the starkness of its presentation – nothing is superfluous, every object has a purpose which keeps the work perfectly in balance. The piece also interacts with the space, creating new compositions depending on the physical parameters in which it is installed. Martin’s work also earned him the Fred Bushe Award, presented by the Scottish Sculpture Workshop.

Among the various accolades, and the strong and varied selection for the RSA show next year, Gray’s has also managed to produce a nominee for the prestigious Woon Foundation Prize. The Foundation, which chooses only ten UK graduates a year, has prizes worth £40,000, and selected artist and painting graduate Catherine Ross, was chosen for her evocative depictions of the mysterious and remote North. A defining feature of Ross’ collection, which she shares with her fellows at Gray’s, is the integrity of her work and the individuality of her vision and practice, which makes the show a rich and diverse experience. For these young artists and designers, the years of all-nighters in the studio, constant coffee-drinking and sheer hard work have paid off – these individuals have a clear sense of direction, and they are moving forward.

The Gray’s School of Art Degree Show is on display in Aberdeen until 28 June.

Words & photos by Julie-Ann Simpson

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

Please visit here for more Degree Show reviews on Central Station.