Preview: Friday 3rd December 7pm
Exhibition continues until 22nd December
Gallery open Weds – Sat 11am-6pm
Artists:
Laura Dunlop | Abigail Fraser | Belinda Golding | Elisha Hughes | Christina Logan | Jess Parry | Connor Tudor
Another Year, another” brings together seven artists who studied and recently ‘graduated’ from the BA(Hons) Fine Art: Studio, Site & Context course at Swansea College of Art in 2020. This show is testament to the end of year exhibition that they were denied as the result of Covid 19. These artists have now finally come together to show you what went right during a time where a lot of things went wrong.
About the Artists
Laura Dunlop
‘My work explores the diverse collaboration we obtain with our world and the plants that inhabit it with us.
The work in this exhibition entitled ‘The Mother’ was created using experimental photography. With influences from both Ana Mendieta and Frida Kahlo, my intent was to create a dreamlike visual with a sinister context linking with the current climate crisis’.
Graduating from the Bachelor`s class of 2020, Laura currently studies for her Master`s degree with Trinity saint David`s school of art. Her work has been featured in the 2016 Eisteddfod and has most recently had her poetry published with slice of the moon books.
Abigail Fraser
Fraser’s artwork is a dreamy, psychedelic exploration of memories appertaining to previous events. Projecting a sense of self and an inquisition of reality. Often examining themes of faith and human experience. Her work contains simple drawings of universally recognized forms and symbols of familiarity to challenge the notion of comfort and conformity, whilst investigating the spatial and temporal possibilities of drawing as sculpture. Fraser’s drawings act as a procedure of self-confession, the use of bright colours attracting the viewer, demanding attention whilst also acting as warning against the artist and her work. Her drawings are often humorous, generating a connection between sense and non-sense, in a documentation of the artist’s questioning her own identity and sense of belonging. During the current Corona Virus pandemic Fraser is using her practice as a vehicle of understanding. Generating ideological drawings and animations of contemporary comforts, in a response to her own loss of faith in the reality of life. Through making these durational animations solely available online Fraser hopes to create an alternative space to frame our experiences. Forcing a juxtaposition between the world of simulation and nervous simulation. Whilst also documenting and memorializing our shared experience of our current existence.
Gs Artist and BA graduate Abigail Fraser is a Welsh artist from the Rhondda. Following her studies in Swansea, Ohio and Beijing, Fraser went on to Design the 2020 ‘Selar’ awards and become winner of the 2020 Joseph Herman foundation prize. Fraser spent the previous year working as Welsh artist in residence at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Swansea, and is currently studying her PGCE in the applied arts.
Belinda Golding
My practice is performance based and explores the healing potential of art. It has an intuitive and instinctive approach. I am curious to the notion that trauma gets trapped inside the body and can be released through movement. Spending time out in the South Wales landscape particularly by the sea I collect the rich abundance of natural materials that hold geological time, history, and the ability to heal. Inspired by the imagery of Celtic mythologies, with an underlying political sensibility the works seek to transcend.
Belinda Golding graduated from Swansea College of Art in 2021 with a BA(Hons) Fine Art, Studio, Site & Context. Belinda works as a Peer Group Leader at Adeferiad Recovery in Swansea, helping people with their mental health and will be studying for a MA Art Psychotherapy. Belinda has recently been selected to exhibit work at the Swansea Open 2021, showing at the Glyn Vivian in Swansea.
Elisha Hughes
My practice investigates a place that is forever changing and the remain. Since a young age, I have used photography as a tool for me to document and capture everything around me. Not only to grasp something that may disappear, but to capture something from a different perspective, perhaps the things that seem insignificant. Using materials such as photography, drawing, installation enables me to ask questions, to create conversations and to be curious. I want my work to be a place of reflection, a place that I capture and a place that discovers.
Elisha Hughes (b. 1998) from Swansea, South Wales graduated from Fine Art with a First-Class Honours in 2020. After graduating she was awarded a fellowship from the Artist Benevolent Fund and Swansea College of Art. In November, Elisha’s work will feature in the exhibition, Young Welsh Artists in MOMA Machynlleth. Elisha is also an outreach art tutor for Swansea College of Art and has lately successfully secured funding to work with disadvantaged communities.
Christina Logan
“Logan’s work explores a childlike exploration into the theory of escapism. Collecting influence from live streams of jellyfish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium whilst making work, they were fascinated with the ever-changing colours floating around on screen. The goal is to immerse the viewer in an abstract concept of the deep sea while leaving fragments of reality scattered around the room, letting them catch glimpses so they never truly escape the burden of life.”
Logan graduated from UWTSD in 2020 with a BA in Fine Art and is currently studying for their MA.
Jess Parry
Jess is fascinated by the filth that makes us human. She is concerned with the monstrous femme and confronts ideological womanly bodily parts in a seductively sinister fashion. She explores this through sculpture, performance, video/photography, drawing and arrives at a painting. Jess’ new body of work explores the uncanny parts of the human condition, and the psychological relationships we have with abject objects. The bathroom is the site of excess, but the kitchen is the site of ingest.
“I pay more attention to the side of all things human that you wouldn’t really pay attention to, or if you do, you will deem it ugly. I seek to find the beauty within disgust, that can’t be ignored and is no longer overlooked.”
Jess Parry (b.1999) is a Welsh young artist who has won awards for her drawing and painting practice. She graduated in 2020 with a first-class honours degree in Fine Art from Swansea College of Art. In July 2021, she had her first ever solo exhibition titled ‘EXCESS’ at Queen Street Gallery in Neath, South Wales, UK. Jess is currently working towards her second solo exhibition that will be held in early 2023 at elysium gallery in Swansea. Currently Jess is part of the Youth Advisory Panel at Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre, Cwmbran and is excited to be working with them and, is an affiliated artist with the Welsh Arts Collective – NoNaffArt
Connor Tudor
Employing the Pub as his main subject matter Tudor explores the often comical, antithetical and problematic issues we all experience as part of a larger culture, through painting. With a heavy focus on composition and colour Tudor veers away from the realm of realism instead exaggerating colours and shapes to almost caricature his subjects. With a particular focus on British culture he creates narratives using pub ephemera like pool tables, pint and whiskey glasses. Honing in on particular stereotypes to start a dialogue on the value of the pub and the ideals enforced within them. His paintings, often only showing part of a scene, act as a sort of comic strip allowing the viewer to stitch together their own narrative based on their own experiences in these familiar spaces ultimately asking them to come to their own decisions on inherent cultural issues.
Main image: Belina Golding