BxNU MFA | Graduate Exhibition at BALTIC 39: You Kept Me Vaguely Sane

It is always difficult to create a title for an exhibition of this kind where the exhibiting artists are brought together simply because they are studying the same course, at the same time, at the same institution. You Kept Me Vaguely Sane refers to the thing that kept the students vaguely sane in these unpredictable times, namely creativity.



"In 2016, in his speech before meeting the Queen to relinquish political office, David Cameron thanked his wife Samantha for keeping him vaguely sane. As a group of young artists working together in the two-year period following this event, we find ourselves in a state of flux, living, reacting and adjusting within this aftermath. Responding to this Brexit limbo and the ever-moving political landscape, the thing that has kept us all vaguely sane is the sanctuary of our creativity."




Artists:

KAT BEVAN

ROBERT BOWMAN

ANTHONY CRAMMEN

SIMONE GANDHI

RICARDO LOPES

KITTY MCMURRAY

ALEXANDER NICHOLAS

MURRAY THOMPSON

I remember most what never happened - BxNU MFA Graduate Exhibition, Baltic 39

"I Remember Most What Never Happened is currently on display at BALTIC 39 and brings together work by 10 artists graduating from Northumbria this summer. The BxNU MFA is a unique two-year course, run by Northumbria in partnership with BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and based in the vibrant studio culture at BALTIC 39 on High Bridge, Newcastle.





This year, the graduating artists have made work that ranges and shifts across performance, video, photography, sculpture, installation and intervention. The exhibition utilises the project space on the top floor of BALTIC 39, which provides an ideal platform for their ideas to unfold, with artwork also spilling out into the public spaces of the building.

Northumbria Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, Sandra Johnston, who teaches on the BxNU MFA, said: “Throughout the programme, the artists are encouraged to self-direct a rich spectrum of experimentation, guided by their own curiosity and interests. A distinctive feature of the course is how these individual trajectories then also coalesce into collective exhibition making – a process that is simultaneously demanding, enlivening and revealing.



“I Remember Most What Never Happened, conceived by the third graduating cohort of the BxNU MFA, proposes a zeitgeist born of indulgence, suggestion, and invention.”

Meanwhile on the first floor at BALTIC 39, the mid-point exhibition by the first year BxNU MFA students is also on display. In Games We Create Worlds highlights the choreography of objects, and the ways in which control is suggested through the construction of space."



The exhibition featured a performance by Sister Shrill, who spent an ambitious 5.5 hours attempting to converse with each other while their mouths were full of water. Their struggle, perseverance and determinism perhaps comments on their experience of completing the 2 year MFA programme.

The installation of the work is, as ever, professional, and the exhibition seems rather coherent given that the work has originated from a collection of students who share the experience of being on the MFA programme as opposed to a thematic connection.

http://www.baltic39.com/i-remember-most-what-never-happened/

Kayt Hughes - My Five Year Old Could Have Done That - Gallery North, Newcastle

The Woon Foundation Painting and Sculpture Art Prize is open to all UK final year undergraduate Fine Art students via an open submission process.

The first prize is a year long £20,000 Fellowship, based in the Woon Tai Jee, studio located at BALTIC 39 in Newcastle’s city centre. It includes mentoring from staff from Northumbria University and the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and a one person exhibition with catalogue at the end of the Fellowship.

My Five Year Old Could Have Done That is an exhibition of all new work by Kayt Hughes, the 2015-2016 Woon Tei Jee Fellow.


My Five Year Old Could Have Done That is an exhibition of new work by 2015-2016 Woon Tei Jee Fellow, Kayt Hughes. The work has been made as part of her year-long Fellowship.

"The building block is an object designed to take on a narrative; it can become many things and can perform many functions. The gallery evidences an interaction with the objects, using simple directions to instigate an action of chance, with consideration to the properties of the objects and their materials."

Downstairs, four different coloured blobs of plastercine sit on a table, each positioned in one quarter of a table. A long wooden plinth spans the back wall on which a selection of sculptures are placed. Each sculpture consists of a number of smaller wooden blocks, some with painted surfaces. Each sculpture takes a different shape, even though that are made from the same number of blocks.

Two sets of instructions for Gallery Assistants are written opposite the tables, one for the plastercine and one for the building blocks. The Gallery Assistants are asked to follow one instruction per shift. These include things such as "roll the plastercine to a thread as long as possible."

Upstairs, there are lots of wooden boxes in different arrangements. Again, some faces of the blocks and boxes are painted in cheerful, pleasant and complementary colours.

It's very simple, not that there is anything wrong with that, but the questions and statements on the wall in vinyl that accompany the different works seem patronising. I don't want to be told what to think in such a direct way, particularly because the work is so basic. 

At first glance, the forms were aesthetically pleasing, but on closer inspection, I was disappointed to see that they were not particularly well made. When work is so minimal, one can hardly fail to notice the defects.

I must admit that I took pleasure from the colours and shapes, but I'm afraid that the work was lacking originality and risk. It was all very safe, very polite. There was not much to dislike (apart from the lack of polish in the way the boxes have been made), but for me, it was rather underwhelming.

http://gn.northumbria.ac.uk/exhibitions/kayt-hughes-my-five-year-old-could-have-done-that/

MILKILLING BxNU MFA Graduate Exhibition at BALTIC’s project space at BALTIC 39

My congratulations go to the first cohort of students to graduate from the BxNU Master of Fine Art, developed by Northumbria University and BALTIC, for producing a stunningly slick exhibition.

MILKILLING

BxNU MFA | Graduate Exhibition
BALTIC’s project space at BALTIC 39
Wed-Sun 12.00-18.00 / Thursdays 12.00-20.00

Private View: Monday 15 June 2015 / 18.00-20.00



David Bilbrough / Tim Croft / Rachel Errington / Joanna Hutton / Ricky James / Gethin Wyn Jones / Lily Mellor

MILKILLING | PERFORMANCE EVENT
BALTIC’s project space on Level 4,
Level 1 & Ground Floor / 

Thursday 18 June 2015 / 18.00-20.00


I am looking forward to the evening of performance and live intervention within the exhibitions Milkilling and Freddie on Thursday 18th June, 6-8pm.

Participating artists: Tim Croft, Rachel Errington, Joanna Hutton, Ricky James, Lily Mellor and James Watts.

Critique of SEMI at BALTIC 39

This morning we met up with the Northumbria University MFA students at BALTIC 39. 

On Thursday evening I had attended the preview of their exhibition; SEMI, and today we participated in a group critique of the work in the exhibition. 

The work is varied in form and content, including sound work, performance, video work and painting by the following students

David Bilbrough / Alex Brunt / Jamie Ellis-Clark / Tim Croft / Rachel Errington / Alex Harmon / Alexandra Hughes / Joanna Hutton / Ricky James / Gethin Wyn Jones / Phil Larry / David Longwill / Dan May / Lily Mellor / Markos Sotiriou / James Watts

I look forward to meeting the group again, this time at Newcastle University, for a critique of our forthcoming exhibition in February.