Ellis O’Connor is a visual artist specialising in printmaking, photography and drawing. She is currently based in Dundee completing her MFA at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. Since graduating from her undergrad in 2014 at DJCAD she has exhibited extensively whilst travelling to make new work and has been selected for a number of artist in residency programmes.

Traces, A series of prints

Since graduating with a BA Hons Degree in Fine Art from Duncan of Jordanstone in June this year, I have been involved in many projects including two artist residencies. As my work is based on the idea of ‘place’ and our connection to remote landscapes, I am constantly travelling to capture new remote lands. Straight after graduating I travelled around the islands of Scotland for three weeks. This was a way of getting as much inspiration as possible and making new work on site. It also refreshed my mind as I was able to take some time away from the studio.

Close-up detail: Elements of the Shore

Ellis O’Connor – Edges

In July, I was chosen to be artist in residence on board an expedition around the Northern Isles of Scotland with the Clipperton Project. We travelled around the Isles of Shetland on a boat for four weeks and I collaborated with other artists whilst teaching artist workshops to communities on remote islands. I then travelled out to Florence for the months of August and September as I was selected amongst nine other Scotland based artists to receive the RSA John Kinross Scholarship. This was an incredible opportunity and really gave me the support to make new work whilst being inspired from a new setting.

Since the amazing residency and scholarship, I have returned to university to undertake my MA in Art and Humanities at Duncan of Jordanstone. I feel that it is completely different from being an undergrad, as it is more focused on your practice and working as an artist on your own. I wanted to undertake this course to develop more of the written part of my work and give me a chance to delve more into the ideas within my practice. Since returning to education, I have also just come back from Iceland where I was artist in residence at the Fljotstunga Eco farm in collaboration with Geo Park Iceland. I have taken part in two exhibitions: The Black Cube Collective’s Annual show in Edinburgh and ‘Waypoints’, an exhibition in collaboration with the Clipperton Project on the Isle of Eigg.

Series of Prints Framed

I am currently making new work based on my time spent around the remote islands of Scotland and working to large scale size for the RSA New Contemporaries 2015. I have also been selected to take part in artist residence programmes next year in The Bothy Project Sweeney’s Bothy Scotland, Cill Rialaig Ireland, and Norway’s Agder Art Centre. I intend to keep making work based on the atmosphere of remote places whilst documenting my travels out there to put across to the viewer. The only way I can keep making work is by travelling and so being selected for the opportunity to make work in organisations around the world is perfect for me!

Tidal Flow

My advice to graduates would be to apply for things and just go for it. There are funding and scholarships out there if you look for them. Central Station and Creative Scotland are particularly great. If you are truly confident in your practice and what your ideas and purpose of your work are as an artist, you will be fine. Don’t be scared of knock backs. The worst thing someone can tell you is no. You’re not going to lose out on anything by simply applying. I have purposely applied to awards and residencies that are going to better me as an artist and that I will gain something from, so just keep going and believe in your work!

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

Stay tuned for more 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.

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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.

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Richard Phillips-Kerr considers himself a digital native, rather than an immigrant. Driven by a passion for technology in his creative practice, this carries over to his professional life as co-chief of sales/marketing/social/merchants/growth/partnerships/ambassadors/support for Droplet, the mobile payment app. He graduated with a degree in sculpture from Edinburgh College of Art earlier this year.

I sit in a small, dark, cupboard-like room all day, every day. Once an hour, I turn on my laptop’s webcam and talk into it, narrating the end of The Sims Online. Next door, my pale webcam-face is projected live onto my even paler life cast. On day 6 of my degree show, while staring at people prodding my plaster cock through 3 CCTV monitors, a young man messages me. He used to DJ at club night I ran and asks if I know anyone in Edinburgh looking for a job.

Apollo, RIP The Sims Online

I wanted to work in video games. My creative practice served as a means for me to repackage and relive significant ‘virtual’ events. Events which take place in gaming worlds: the death of players, digital apocalypses, social unrest etc.. Pre-degree show I was rejected by 4 video game companies for progressively lower-skilled industry roles, so I said yes to the young man – I was looking for a job.

The Reincarnation of DJ Spike

Avatar. hardened, hollowed, dehydrated

The company I now work for is a tech startup that develops a mobile payment app allowing you to send money to anyone, instantly, securely and for free. In the end, it was all the time at art school I spent not ‘doing art’ that got me a job. Through running club nights and other nefarious extra-curricular activities I knew a lot of business owners in Edinburgh. I was recruited to get the app some traction with these business owners and their customers.

 Droplet (the app) is innovative and the team behind it brilliant. Ideologically, we’re made of the same stuff – support independents, mobilise grassroots movements and disrupt big banks’ financial control. When you become emotionally invested in an ambitious project, it is exciting, rewarding and totally exhausting. So far I have been hired, fired, rehired, relocated, promoted, fired, and finally rehired. I currently work for Droplet in Birmingham.

Since relocating from Edinburgh, I haven’t engaged with my creative practice in any real capacity. I think that’s OK for now. Whereas I was once thinking about how to convey the significance of The Sims Online’s extinction, I now think about how to make our underdog app outplay competitors like Paypal and Barclays. The most recent fired/rehired/promoted cycle has galvanised me to start thinking about art and video games again.

In January, I leave for Sri Lanka and India for 9 months. Whilst away, my degree show piece (Avatar. Hardened, hollowed, dehydrated) will be shown as part of the RSA New Contemporaries 2015.

For more from Richard, see his showcased work here.

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.

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