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T WAS just a year ago that Mimi Connell-Lay and
Nickie Carlyon, directors of Badcock's Gallery, Newlyn, came up with
the novel idea of offering a number of art students about to graduate
from University College Falmouth, an exhibition at their gallery "12
months on".
A
gallery which has long had a reputation for promoting artists who have
recently graduated from establishments such as University College
Falmouth, the 12 months have passed and it is now showing the works of
the four fortunate young artists its directors selected a year ago.
Recycler
George Morgan, who in November of last year won the Midas Award,
creates spaces in the surfaces he constructs from materials salvaged
from skips and building sites and then within them, as he says: "I
place human figures, aircraft, trees, which in context might suggest
that something – be it foreboding, absurd ethereal – is happening or is
about to happen. I like the idea that this remains ambiguous,
intangible."
From his picture of a passenger-carrying balloon in a big empty sky entitled What would you do if I never come back? to one with a solitary figure in a huge landscape Daddy's Girl,
the strong narrative content of his compositions certainly intrigues
and lends credence to his statement: "Though a precise sequence of
events might prove to some immediately perceptible... who am I to blow
against the wind?"
Charlotte
Williams, who was one of the finalists for the Midas Award, firmly
believes that "less is more", and proves it with such oils on canvas as
A moment of revelatory ecstasy and Flattering an ascending mood, in which the longer you look the more you see.
Sally Dod, whose degree show a year ago was a sell out, comes up with a number of works, acrylic on board or canvas, from Beehives to Overpass, that are based on structures and locations in, and the surrounding countryside of, her home city of Oxford.
Far
from its dreaming spires, as she says: "I've been drawn to striking
buildings that overpower their surroundings yet are often overlooked
and left to fall into disuse. I've always been interested in people's
memories of specific places and how they are easily manipulated and
idealised over time. The locations I decided to paint and photograph
are ones that I've been familiar with for quite a while, or have known
in the past. However, by using strong lines and quite harsh contrasts
in their depiction, I aim to crate a stark here and now quality,
avoiding any sentiment."
Finally, Remon Jephcott's Fruits of Evil
that may at first seem mouth-watering are as deceptive as they are
delightful. A specialist in ceramics who gained her degree in
contemporary crafts, while her main medium is clay she often introduces
other materials that afford her work another quality and expression.
She says: "This current body of work has been created from a response
to the situation of women in the sex trade. I've related the women to
fruit desserts which are displayed and served on cake stands."
Appetising at first first perhaps, but look closer and you will see
where the rot – the mould and the maggots – lie. Thought-provoking
works to say the least from an award winning artist.
A young fabulous four whose works are well worth seeing,
One Year On
is on view in Badcock's Gallery, The Strand, Newlyn, 10am-5pm Monday-Friday, Saturday, 11am-5pm, until the end of June.
article copyright THE CORNISHMAN
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