Each student has developed their own particular language, set of skills and methodologies in order to explore ideas and articulate thoughts, concerns and impressions of the world around them. Whilst the degree show may seem like a final point, the end of something, we hope that for all our students it is just the beginning, a public pause before they move into the world outside university and onto a myriad of new challenges and opportunities.

We congratulate them on their achievements, wish them all good luck for the future and hope that you find the work here engaging, thought provoking and inspiring.

Ruth Claxton, on behalf of the BA Visual Arts Staff team.

BA Visual Arts (by Negotiated Study) Degree Show 2009
Open Saturday 13th June 10-6, Monday 15th – Saturday 20th June 10-5
Launch Event Monday 15th June 6-8

School of Art Bournville, Birmingham City University, Maple Road, B30 2AA
tel : 0121 3315775
www.schoolofartbournville.com
www.biad.bcu.ac.uk
http://thirty-eight-degrees.blogspot.com/

My work for the degree show is based around the idea of interaction with the viewer. I’m interested in involving people in my work, making work that makes the audience interact with it. As I’m from a street art background I have always made work that craves the audiences interaction, whether it be a positive or negative one, the work almost doesn’t exist without the audience’s interaction.

More recently I have been working with performance art, creating art that the audience automatically are a part of without there permission, much like the concept of street art.

Robin Rhode - one of the main influences for my performance pieces worked his earlier performances in a similar vein, turning up in the gallery space and making the art there and then on the launch event of the show, completely baffling and confusing people as to what’s going on.

I feel there’s some political undertones in this idea which I find very interesting, I think anything done without permission is a political gesture. Challenging what the gallery space is and how work should look / act in the space is something I always try to do, I like to go against traditional gallery concepts, But when it becomes too obviously political I think it looses some of its power.

As I’m working with a large space for the show I’ve decided to work to small scale, taking a more minimal approach and positioning the works unethically on the wall – again challenging the gallery space. Within the piece I am breaking down text simply into ‘mark making’, translating text into imagery.

My work looks into exaggerated styles and fashions and using still photography explores how one person can depict themselves through different make-up and hair designs.

From being inspired by the life, work and play of a drag queen, I decided to focus on their facial appearance itself and highlight the features that best brought out their personality and style. By using black and white images and just highlighting the exaggerated and bold make-up designs in colour it shows the beauty being captured and gives the image more emotional power.

My work is based around the concepts of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) wherein people are obliged to perform rituals, such as wash the hands and make checks. Being an OCD myself, I have produced work around my personal understanding of the illness.

My work began with the intention of discovering alternative ways to assist the OCD sufferer to cope with obsessions. This may have involved changing something significant in life, in the light that they would be able to adapt to an easier living. With the influence of ‘change’ along with interests in gadgetry, I have been able to design/appropriate graphical products for the use of OCD sufferers.

In using a light-hearted tone and mocking text, I have created an array of two- dimensional objects, some of which are possible to construct. Presented in a catalogue in an installation, my intention is to introduce a new ‘brand’ of unique products. Unlike Betterware and Innovations catalogues, the products exist only on paper to question whether they should exist; parallel to questioning whether OCD exists. I have also questioned whether these products will actually aid the OCD sufferer or simply work as contraptions, becoming obsessions themselves, as though tangibles form of OCD.

Light is elemental, linked to the ability to see.

Within the genre of photography, my work is about the inter-relationship between vision, light, interpretation and recognition. This series of photographs represent the final stages of a continuing project.
In this body of work, the original subject has become almost incidental, but the light has been used to create a variety (or range) of images, that have been left for the viewer to interpret in their own way.

The photographs were mostly taken in an urban interior or an exterior space using extended exposure, whose after-effects rendered images that were ethereal in their quality and became removed from the original identification of the subject. They also produced colours that varied between the bold and dramatic as well as those that were more subdued and calming. These images now allow the viewer to apply their own interpretations of the forms, colours and space to make their own associations and identify the subjects in their own way.

My works have been both deliberate and accidental in their design, created with the intention of resembling a real environment.