Summer is upon us yet again and there has been a determined buzzing in the corridors and rooms of Gray’s School of Art meaning it is once more the week of the Degree Show.  20 – 27 June celebrates the magnificent 130 years of positive impact and inclusion Gray’s holds within the local community – and far beyond. Promoting and preparing the individuality of each student, the show is a rich culmination of the eccentric, the skilled, and the beautiful – not to be missed.

On entering the building we are immediately met with the works of the three dimensional design department. Stopping by the pieces created by Hannah Rachel Morrison a wave of emotions are brought to life by her sea-scape inspired vessels. As if on a beach-combing adventure, the collection of hand thrown ceramics with ethereal, shimmering pools of blue green glass collecting in their bases, alongside kiln formed glass vessels, evoke a sense of discovery and sentiment. It is incredibly difficult not to get hypnotised by a video set alongside the collection, showcasing the process of throwing on the potter’s wheel – reiterating the craftsmanship, skill and time that goes into each creation.

Hannah Morrison

As we move around each display, we embark upon the slick and well-oiled machine that is the product design department. Surrounded by innovative ideas, I was struck by an installation from Ross Marshall which focuses on upcycling and the responsibility of today’s designers. Constructed from re-purposed materials, the fun and quirky piece gently coaxes us into considering our impact on the planet as consumers and producers. With an element of art and design’s influence both present and future now at the forefront of our minds, we continue on to explore the labyrinth of the school’s corridors.

Carrying on through the building we finally come to the weird and wonderful world of sculpture. This section of the show is well worth exploring and is sure to surprise – there is even a car on display. Don’t forget to continue on across the courtyard where more students of Contemporary Art Practice display their hard work such as sculptor David Mitchell’s poetic representation of the beauty and intrigue of nature. Focusing on the nobility and strength of man, Mitchell’s work has a highly traditional feel. His busts are created using bronze, terracotta and plaster and each sculpture holds a strong presence in the room whilst revealing a vivid sense of the character it portrays.

Ross Marshall

David Mitchell

In the main hall, the Graphic Communication students serve up work that makes us laugh, cry and think twice. Work includes the charming illustrations of Holly Green. Aimed at children, Green has used her characters to beautifully tell a story and they come alive as decorative forms on a range of children’s products.

Holly Green

Be sure to save time for making your way to the top floor of the building where Painting and Fashion and Textiles can be found. I strongly recommend getting absorbed in the explosion of colour, life and narrative that fills each room and corridor. Be mind-boggled by the surrealist art and Rogue Taxidermy of Rebecca Gallacher; be intrigued by the patterns and depth of colour present in Erika Doy’s Bio:Morphology garments; lose yourself in the fluid vibrancy of Steven Tupper’s expressions where the smell of cut lino still fills the air…

Stephen Tupper

Erika Louise Doy

One of the final displays to be discovered was the work of Fine Art student Heather Macinnes. Each canvas conveys vibration, optics and a mathematical order of pattern – whilst also challenging intuition. These mesmerising sequences – created by scraping a layer of black ink away in part to reveal the colour underneath – draws the viewer in quietly. And in a similar way, this review barely scrapes the surface of what Gray’s has to offer this year. This inviting chocolate box of art and design welcomes you to come along and be inspired whilst celebrating the hard work and commitment put in by each and every student.

Heather Macinnes

Gray’s School of Art Degree Show 2015 continues until this Saturday 27 June in Aberdeen. Find out more information online here.

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

//////

See more Degree Show reviews on Central Station here.

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.

Catherine Ross is a painting graduate of this year from Gray’s School of Art. Her work is made up of paintings and models which relate to her own experiences and ideas to do with ‘North’. She tells us what’s happened since her degree show.

Earlier this year I was shortlisted for the Woon Art Prize, which was exhibited at Gallery North, Northumbria University. I applied for this opportunity during my final year online. At the installation of the exhibition in Newcastle, I met the nine other students in the show who were from schools from all over the UK and I was awarded the Judges prize of £2500.

Bound

Following this, I can now understand the value of the online exposure which can be gained from events such as this. I now maintain my own websites. At the end of the summer, I was approached by Arusha Gallery in Edinburgh, who had read about my work online. They asked me to exhibit one of my final year models as part of their Autumn exhibition.

For the Washing or the Waves

Some friends and I also put on a small exhibition together following our degree shows. Since graduating, I have continued to sell existing work to those I met at my degree show as well as new acquaintances. This has included selling work to clients in both France and Italy.

It Snowed in my Garden

Found Land

At the degree show, I was given the opportunity, as an invited graduate to take part in The Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour Winter Exhibition and Graduate Competition, January 2015. I was also selected to make work for the Royal Scottish Academy’s New Contemporaries Exhibition. I have been concentrating my efforts on my studio practice and on making this new body of work, which will be shown at the RSA in March 2015.

Sketchbook

For more about Catherine’s work, see this review of 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 | Twitter

//////

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.

The Gray’s School of Art Degree Show will run from 21 to 28 June featuring work from this year’s talented graduates on the theme of ‘Open Your Eyes’. See fashion design, painting, photographic and electronic media, printmaking, product design, sculpture, visual communication and more. Works will also be available for purchase.

The Gray’s School of Art Fashion Show will take place on the 21 and 22 June. Find more information here and get your tickets here.

For a sneak peek see some of the photos from the degree show build here or watch the teaser trailer below:

More: Website | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter

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

1. Pram salesman
My first paid job when still at school in Dundee. Huge monsters they were in the days before ergonomic designer buggies.

2. Black Squad Labourer
At art school I worked summers in a jute-mill. By the time I left art school on a scholarship to Italy the jute industry was all but dead  (the City too). It’s been interesting to see how culture has been enlisted to transform Dundee’s fortunes.

3. Art Teacher/Adviser
First real job. My career spanned working in schools but I also got involved in national curriculum development and helped shape Standard Grade Art & Design; innovative in the Eighties it’s now way past its sell-by date. Then I became an Education Adviser with Strathclyde Region and got drawn into major initiatives like the Garden Festival, 1990 European Year of Culture and was part of the bid team that won Glasgow 1999 City of Architecture and Design. Joining the 1999 team as Education Director seemed a natural progression.

4. Lighthouse Keeper
Building the Lighthouse and team from the beginning was a fantastic experience. Education in its widest sense was central to the Lighthouse but we also grew an international reputation for cutting-edge exhibitions, high profile events and creative architecture and design networks, all of which are very much missed.

5. Art School Head
Going to Gray’s, my former art school, might seem to complete the cycle but in reality it was part of the ongoing customising of my career. Now I mix academic work with creative consultancy.

//////////

We’ve asked professionals in creative industries what jobs they have had in the past to get their foot through the door (or at least pay the rent). For more in the “My First 5 Jobs” series look here.

Origins of Molecular Synergy [Carbon] by Jennifer Argo. See more work here.

New work by Seila.

I thought the spaces were well considered and professional; more gallery, less Art School. The graduates were all there, happy to talk about their work. Most importantly, there was a dedication to their craft, a sense of hundreds of hours spent passionately creating work which was both beautiful and technically outstanding. Right across the board from Graphics, to Textiles, Ceramics and Fine Art, I felt the Grays graduates weren’t trying to pull any stunts or cocky art tricks, they had put in the hours and made some truly outstanding work.

Call me old school, but I like that.

Some things that caught my eye:

Alex Gordon’s Thin K Gallery – a show within the show. 3 Graduates (a printer, a painter and a sculptor) got together and curated their own exhibition. Clever concept.

You couldn’t miss Tessa Androutsopoulos’ space. A colour explosion of Pandas in rockets and quirky monoprints, eccentricity and bravery combine to make a truly memorable show.

Having followed her final year endeavors on Twitter this year, I was delighted to see the fruits of Jo Dodd’s labour. Graphics graduate with the beautiful ability to move seamlessly from slick digital to tactile screen print.

The textile designer in me loved these huge painted canvases by Jason Murray. Precise, graphic works with painstaking attention to detail. A beautiful, coherent collection of work which I’ll be doing my very best to get into a show at Musa Aberdeen…