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As our 15th academic year draws to a close, I am once again impressed by the commitment, energy and diversity of work as students reach the end of our three year diploma. The course goes from strength to strength and every day my inbox is filled with news of alumni’s stories - residencies in Rome, high profile public commissions and exhibition success in the UK and around the world. The special chemistry of the course offers our artists the skills needed to negotiate the paths ahead as professional artists.
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G R A D
U A T E S H O W
2 0 1 4
CATALOGUE SPONSORS
OLivER ChAN
LUCy DU SAUTOy
SASkiA GALL
BREChT GOvAERTS
JASON hERiTAGE
RhiANNON SALiSBURy
iRENE TSyNBAL
FOREWORD
As our 15th academic year draws to a close, I am once again impressed by the commitment, energy and diversity of work as students reach the end of our three year diploma. The course goes from strength to strength and every day my inbox is filled with news of alumni’s stories - residencies in Rome, high profile public commissions and exhibition success in the UK and around the world. The special chemistry of the course offers our artists the skills needed to negotiate the paths ahead as professional artists.
With an increasing appetite for skills training to return to art education, we are lucky at the Academy to have a group of truly gifted and skilled tutors who have passed on their knowledge and worked with these third year students to challenge, nurture and inspire, shaping a group of artists that have been an integral part of our community. But it’s always a two-way street and we count ourselves lucky to spend time teaching, learning, discussing and exploring the place of art in a wider context. This show reflects the passion, talent and enjoyment of a unique group of artists.
On behalf of the Academy I wish the graduating students all the very best for their futures beyond London Bridge, and I look forward to my inbox filling up with news of their great achievements in the years ahead.
Tanya Russell - Principal
OLivER ChAN
I am Oliver Chan. I was born on 8th December 1986 in London. I have a disability called Autism. When I was younger I had no language until when I was 5 years old and I used to be all over the places. Mum gave me a little piece to draw in 1998 which was a hedgehog and that was the beginning of my wonderful journey in art. I did a foundation course in Byam Shaw (Central St Martins) in fine art and then came to The Art Academy. Doing painting got me away from my obsessions.
I like painting local landscapes and enjoy finding unusual angles and perspectives. I also like painting about relationships and people who are part of my life. I paint relationships because it is a way to express love which I find difficult in the real world. I did a few paintings of hands and feet because I find it romantic and fascinating. When I see it the texture looks soft with vibrant colours with flowers. I feel calmer when I do art.
I have explored colours and shapes of exotic food. I have done a cou-ple of paintings with split faces as if they were having a conversation, inspired by Picasso.
www.oliveryuchan.tumblr.com [email protected]
Shard from art studio in Borough High Street Acrylic on canvas paper, 42 x 59 cm, 2014
View of Belsize Village from Oliver’s Village Café Acrylic on canvas paper, 42 x 59 cm, 2014
Judi Dench on top of Mona LisaAcrylic on canvas paper, 51 x 35 cm, 2014
LUCy DU SAUTOy
Lucy has been studying at the Art Academy part-time since 2009. She returned to painting having had a career in marketing, and now juggles her art with being a busy mum of four. She has a BA (Hons) in History of Art from Manchester University. This is Lucy’s interim show, with a view to graduating next year.
While absorbed in painting my attention hovers between an appreciation of the subject and a fascination with the craft itself. I move both towards and away from the picture surface – suspended between the grander intention of the work and the physical application of paint. It is this movement - between moments of clarity and perplexity, knowledge and expectation - which allows the conscious mind to recede, akin to meditation. I aim to share this sensation with those who view my work. I am most interested in capturing transitory episodes of beauty, such as the absent-minded observation of raindrops on a window pane or the motion of landscape glimpsed from a speeding train. These moments are often found in the ordinary and the mundane and may otherwise pass quickly or go unnoticed. My work is representative and I maintain a keen interest in composition and the formal elements – in particular colour, form and space. I often use photographs and video stills to research and inform my work. Currently I prefer to work in oils.
www.lucydusautoy.co.uk [email protected]
Train Window 1 Oil on canvas 100 x 75 cm 2013
Let’s stay in the car Oil on canvas, 55 x 65 cm, 2013
Rainy WindowOil on canvas 100 x 150 cm 2014
SASkiA GALL
Saskia is a London based artist who has exhibited in the UK and New York, had work selected for The Royal Society of Portrait Painters and been commissioned both publicly and privately. Saskia has recently been awarded the Wolfendale, Mixed Media and Drawing prizes, and Rome Art Program and Edwin Russell Sculpture scholarships.
My work is driven by the desire to explore and define my own existence and through it I seek dialogue with age-old concerns of the psyche. How do we formulate an image of self and what is our relationship to that self and to the world around us? Each time I confront a work in the studio, I am confronting myself and sucked into the dark and subterranean worlds of the psyche. I aim to create psychological spaces of tension and isolation where abstracted figures simultaneously dissolve, decay, grow and find form. Ambiguous spaces and shifting frameworks form a visual allusion to the constructs of contemporary society and our own egos that try to shape and fix our sense of self. I see my current work as being connected to the early stages of the alchemical process and its parallels with Jungian ideas of individuation.
Working across two and three dimensions, my use of materials reflects the violence and fragility of the human condition, as I build up and scrape back, destroy and reconstruct, in a restless search for image, search for self and identity, search for meaning, search for elusive solid ground. The dance of Eros and Thanatos.
www.saskiagall.com [email protected]
Nigredo (iii)Charcoal on Khadi paper, 76 x 55 cm, 2013
Attempted fixations of the volatile (i) Oil on canvas, steel, thread, 190 x 110 x 30 cm
Attempted fixations of the volatile (ii)Oil on canvas, hessian, wood, steel, aluminium, 200 x 130 x 30 cm, 2014
BREChT GOvAERTS
Brecht Govaerts (1991) has studied Latin-Mathematics at secondary school and came to the Art Academy to study the art of painting. He uses scientific research as a starting point for an artistic project. Brecht had his first solo exhibition “E=mc2” in Basel (February 2014). Brecht’s graduation show is based on the concept “Prehistory of Matter”. In his dissertation he has investigated how the concept of art relates to prehistory. The interest in prehistory lies particularly in the connection between the prehistoric works and their environment. For example, Stonehenge gives meaning to the landscape in a conceptual way, it transforms the landscape, it turns a space into a place.
In his work, Brecht is investigating how painting can engage with the exhibition space so that the work literally gets a spatial quality similar to installation art. The connection between painting and its environment has been informed by his research on prehistory. The transient quality and site specificity of installation art is something that intrigues him. Brecht is exploring how these qualities can be conveyed through painting.
“Prehistory of Matter” also refers to science; the idea of the origin of matter, how matter is made up of particles and the interchange between matter and energy. Prehistoric art was a way to embody the ideas and understandings of prehistoric Homo sapiens in a material form; the awareness of their position to the universe and the relation to their environment.
Brecht Govaerts (1991) has studied Latin-Mathematics at secondary school and came to the Art Academy to study the art of painting. He uses scientific research as a starting point for an artistic project. Brecht had his first solo exhibition “E=mc2” in Basel (February 2014). Brecht’s graduation show is based on the concept “Prehistory of Matter”. In his dissertation he has investigated how the concept of art relates to prehistory. The interest in prehistory lies particularly in the connection between the prehistoric works and their environment. For example, Stonehenge gives meaning to the landscape in a conceptual way, it transforms the landscape, it turns a space into a place.
In his work, Brecht is investigating how painting can engage with the exhibition space so that the work literally gets a spatial quality similar to installation art. The connection between painting and its environment has been informed by his research on prehistory. The transient quality and site specificity of installation art is something that intrigues him. Brecht is exploring how these qualities can be conveyed through painting.
“Prehistory of Matter” also refers to science; the idea of the origin of matter, how matter is made up of particles and the interchange between matter and energy. Prehistoric art was a way to embody the ideas and understandings of prehistoric Homo sapiens in a material form; the awareness of their position to the universe and the relation to their environment.
Birth of a Star Wall based installation, ink and acrylic on paper, 250 x 150 cm, 2014
Higgs field Floor installation, relief ink on board, 140 pieces, 550 x 250 cm, 2014
Black EnergyAcrylic on board, 30 x 20 cm, 2013
JASON hERiTAGE
Jason is a South African born, London based, artist, whose work is based primarily in oils and watercolours. His focus is on portraiture and urban landscapes.
As an artist I try to capture the spaces and objects we take for granted in an unusual light by capturing them at times most people don’t see them, transferring a measure of humanity to almost inhuman spaces and objects.
Most of my scenes are either late at night or early in the morning when the majority of the spaces are uninhabited and have their own personality. Using artificial lighting, both influenced and uninfluenced, I try to bring a bit more wonder into these images.
I also concentrate on what I consider human interest subjects, usually using current media for reference and trying to record the oddities of the media’s useage of human interest stories. My subjects are usually people who are either not what they appear or have suffered a tragic event. I try to capture the space between the stark normality of appearance and the contrasting true nature of their story. Ranging from the innocence of young women who have taken their lives to the frailty of war criminals at the end of their lives.
Portrait of man in red shirtOil on canvas, 58 x 40 cm, 2014
West Acton at night Oil on canvas, 40 x 58 cm, 2014
Work SpaceOil on canvas, 100 x 150 cm, 2014
RhiANNON SALiSBURy
Rhiannon Rebecca Salisbury is a painter and printmaker. She has studied at Chelsea School of Art, Leeds University and The Art Academy, all the while exhibiting her work in Europe and the US (London, New York, Los Angeles). The artist was awarded The Rome Art Program Scholarship 2012, has received the Art Academy Mixed Media Prize 2013, and the “Picture the Heath” 2013 painting prize.
“‘I conceive of the art of painting as the science of juxtaposing colours in such a way that their actual appearance disappears and lets a poetic image emerge… It is a matter of imagining images whose poetry restores to what is known that which is absolutely unknown and unknowable.” (Magritte)
As an artist I am investigating the spaces between figuration and abstraction to produce images where forms are suggested but not apparent. My work is a space of visceral paint and Jungian shadows that trigger the imagination. My intention is to create images that are uncanny, “unheimlich”, at once both familiar and unfamiliar. Lautreamont describes how, “Metaphor is natural to the human imagination, but this potential can only be realized by allowing the unconscious full play. Then the most striking images occur spontaneously.”
I am currently using the cave as a metaphorical starting point to represent my ideas about the unconscious.
www.rhiannonrebecca.net [email protected]
The Allegory of a CaveCollagraph print, 30 x 40 cm, 2014
The Sea of the Mind Oil on canvas, 137 x 137 cm, 2014
Tokyion CaveOil on canvas, 126 x 154 cm, 2014
iRENE TSyNBAL
Irene Tsynbal was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, where she got her MA in Art History. After moving to London, Irene is continuing her creative journey as an artist, specialising in drawing and oil painting.
Studying early 20th century Soviet Sculpture in St. Petersburg laid the foundation for my artisitic development. In my paintings I am inspired by monumental structure and anguar form, the distinctive features of Rus-sian sculpture at that time. I believe that capturing the inherent structure and characteristic geometrical shapes of the objects is key to conveying their true nature. In seacrh of unique rhythym in each of my works, I seek to build a multi-faceted system of geomentrical shapes and colour combinations.
In my portraits, which are at the centre of my artwork, I am highly commit-ed to depicting the actual person and their character, and hence balance the decorative effects of form and structure with objective and careful observation. Beyond portraits, I recently turned to my grandfather’s sculpture, classical examples of Soviet era plastic art, as the subject of my work. In many cases the originals were destroyed by turbulent histo-ry, and a few old black and white photos are the only remaining memory. Using electrical tape on paper, I am trying to bring a new artisitic life into powerful momuments of the the Soviet Union era.
I am continually experimenting with structure and geometry to add an ever-widening diversity to my artwork.
www.tsynbal.com [email protected]
PortraitOil on canvas, 101 x 76 cm, 2014
Mendeleev Electrical tape and acrylic on paper, ,59 x 84 cm, 2013
Heavy industry,Electrical tape on paper, 59 x 84 cm, 2014
CATALOGUE :Designed and edited by Saskia GallCover design by James Jarrett
G R A D
U A T E S H O W
2 0 1 4
w w w . a r t a c a d e m y . o r g . u k
OLIVER CHAN
LUCY DU SAUTOY
SASKIA GALL
BRECHT GOVAERTS
JASON HERITAGE
RHIANNON SALISBURY
IRENE TSYNBAL
