Sculpture: A Home Away
Artist Statement
my practice is based on the exploration of an alternate world called Tenzing. The piece I am proposing will be a large building typical of the built-up coastal areas of eastern Soupstate, the smallest, but most densely populated continent on Tenzing. The building will be dotted with many windows, suggesting a large number of inhabitants, and be clad with a variety of materials. I aim to reflect the melange of creatures and architectural styles present in our earthly modern-day cities as well as in theirs. The structure will be 3.5 metres high with a passage through the centre which will allow the viewer to be momentarily enveloped in the work of Tenzing. It will have a skeleton of square steel tubing which will be screwed together and have plywood, corrugated metals and other weather proof materials cladding every side. The cladding will have small windows cut into it, some of which can be looked through to reveal the residents within. The paler materials and woods covering the building will reflect the woodland and the natural colours surrounding it, a striking contrast to the darker and metallic components.
Biography
Lotte Fisher graduated in 2015 with a 1st class Honours in Art and Philosophy from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. She was awarded the Graduate Residency Prize from the Scottish Sculpture workshop where she took part in a month long residency in September 2015. She has shown work in various group and solo exhibitions across Scotland. She is also a member of the Bakery collective who have shown work internationally and have an upcoming exhibition in Edinburgh in September 2016.
Sue McDougall
Sculpture: Flight Paths
Artist Statement
Flight Paths combines two thoughts. It invites people to consider our place in time by thinking of all the creatures that have flown in the air above Broomhill, from the present back into geological time when this part of Devon was a shallow sea. It portrays a few of these interlocking flight paths as imaginary fossils in the air. It is also a metaphor for our own lives, the options we have and the different outcomes that arise from our choices. It comprises 18 acrylic rods bent in a random fashion and bunched together using stainless steel hose fastenings to create a single length of approximately 3 metres. It is supported at an angle on a clear acrylic or stainless steel stand so that the bundle appears self-supporting. The angle will be steep enough to ensure that the ends of the upper rods are high enough or curved upwards so as not to present a hazard to the public. Acrylic rods, particular of the thicker diameters react extremely well to light, so that in sunlight the sculpture will appear to glow if the sun is shining and the clear rods will pick up reflections of the surroundings.
Biography
Sue McDougall studied art at the University of Brighton, gaining an FDA in Fine Art Contemporary Practice in 2013 and an MA in Fine Art in 2015. She previously had a varied career as a journalist, civil servant and business consultant. She decided to change direction after a chance conversation in 2010 when she complained to a family friend, an art lecturer, that she had been made to give up art at school in favour of Latin. She was told, ‘it is not too late’. Sue’s practice includes sculptures, paintings and works which are a combination of the two; she has exhibited regularly in London and the south of England. She won the Hackney Road Sculpture Prize, and her sculpture will be at the centre of a regeneration project by Regal Homes. Her design has also been shortlisted in a competition for a sculpture to commemorate the fire on Eastbourne Pier.
Giles Miller
Sculpture: Untitled
Artist Statement
We propose to install a spherical mass of controlled components, which will manipulate and reflect back to the viewer abstract impressions of the surrounding landscape. The piece will contrast with its environment in form, whilst nonetheless interacting with it by way of a dialogue of light and shadow which considers the viewer’s perspective, surrounding movements and sunlight.
Biography
Louis Okwedy
Sculpture: Untitled
Artist Statement
A geometric abstract form suggesting volume through negative space. The sculpture, constructed in mild steel is referential of both the organic world and the human industrial intervention upon it. Aided by human touch and natural interactions this historical process will be reversed. The sculpture will elicit responses from the intrigued as it evolves through time and is claimed by its environment.
Biography
As an inherent problem solver, influenced by organic forms and geometric shapes, my intrigue with material manipulation has led to the development of work emphasising the connections and contradictions between the soft and organic and the precise and industrial. The production of the work, the challenges thrown up by the original idea, means that technical skills are always developing and that process led formulae are constantly being modified. This combination is integral to the creative process, allowing for the further evolution of the work.
Laura Porter
Sculpture: This Grey Shadow, Once A Man
Artist Statement
My practice derives from the physical play with materials, irreversibly manipulating them to give them a new character and form. By reclaiming materials that once had an intimate relationship with the body, and often combining them with industrial substances, I instill a new sense of being and purpose into them. Through the simultaneous absence and presence of the figurative form, my work explores the notion the anonymous, incorporating juxtaposing ideas of the comforting and the uncomfortable, the familiar and the strange. Themes of life and death are paralleled by surreal, dream-like or nightmarish environments, whilst the beauty of the everyday creates a sense of both uncertainty and discovery. ‘This Grey Shadow, Once A Man’ is inspired by the myth of Tithonus, and the title is taken from Tennyson’s poem of the same name. It is a story in which Tithonus, at Aurora’s request, is granted immortality by Zeus, however in forgetting to ask for his eternal youth, she remained young and Tithonus continued to age past the point of death. Whilst some stories describe Aurora leaving his decrepit body in a room and locking the door, others describe Aurora turning him into a cicada, in a potential act of kindness. The work imagines the body ‘reducing’ into a cicada-like form, laying down in an eternal rest.
Biography
Upon graduating from Middlesex University with a 1st class BA (Hons) in Fine Art, in 2014, Porter was selected for the Collyer Bristow Graduate Award, and invited to have a solo exhibition at Curious Project’s gallery space in Eastbourne. She has continued her interest in site-specific installation working in unusual exhibition spaces such as Bristol’s Control Room and Edwardian Cloakroom, as well as being part of a residency in a Grade II* listed building in Tottenham. Porter works between Kent and Devon, and is taking part in a number of residencies throughout the summer, in the UK and abroad. www.lauraporterart.com
Paul Tuppeny
Sculpture: Pinned Limb
Artist Statement
The weathered bronze remains of a mummified branch are propped by a series of metal rods. The branch itself, and the tree from which it grew, are absent, but the imprint of a transient life is held in the metal cloth windings. What appears at first glance to be a representation of a natural form is shown, on closer inspection, to be a representation of a desperate human act. Were those responsible seeking to atone for their mistakes (in allowing the tree to die perhaps) or were they simply trying to hold back time? The piece derives from my interest in the presentation of historical narrative. This is often the preserve of museums and similar heritage bodies and the artworks correspondingly borrow from the palette of these institutions to give the sense of a future looking back toward the present.
Biography
Paul Tuppeny is currently studying Fine Art at The University of Brighton. He is interested in the presentation of historical narrative, particularly with reference to museums and other participants in the heritage industry. Works draw upon the visual language and symbols associated with these institutions, often employing similar formats to convey the sense of authority that these institutions usually project. Works are predominantly three dimensional but often incorporate painted images. Pinned Limb comes from a series of works which present a ‘future past’, an imprint of our current epoch presented as an historical artefact, questioning the legacies of our own time.
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