MMU foundation show 2011

As ever ... a wonderful eclectic mix of work .....

bicycle handles
Rhiannon Leedam

Lucy Petts

Hannah Blackwater

Rebecca Cartwright

William De Costa

Natalie Collins

Jessica Beardsmore

Stephanie Coathupe

Charlotte Yates

Ruth Daniels

CLARE KNOX BENTHAM

I came across Clare last year when she graduated from MMU on the BA Design course. Her work is colourful, exuberant, intriguing and original.  Her work is large panels of abstract drawings made from heated extruded EVA.  When hung they initially appear delicate with lovely cast shadows ... but as you get closer you can see the quality of the EVA and its inherent strength.


She currently has an exhibition at Manchester Craft Centre based on the Mexican tradition of celebrating the dead.  Their website states:

Clare Knox-Bentham is fascinated with the Mexican tradition of celebrating the dead. Each large-scale plastic drawing she creates celebrates someones life, as is done during the El Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead festival.

The new installation at Manchester Craft and Design Centre is full of these drawings, with each individual drawing linking together, completing stories and developing tales.

Clare uses the industrial process of heat-extruding liquid Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate to hand draw her works. The large glue-gun like extrusion tool heats EVA plastic to a very high temperature and allows it to flow through a nozzle, which she can then control and draw with. The method forces the artist to draw with a continual line, creating the unique style of the work.

mmu art foundation 2010

Some great work from last year .... just to whet the appetite ready for this year's upcoming degree shows.

Karen Shapley

I have been a longtime fan of Karen Shapley's work, ever since i saw her graduation show at MMU Alsager on the Contemporary Craft Degree (sadly now disbanded).  I am also lucky enough to own a piece of her work which was given to me by a very wonderful friend.Unfortunately, Karen does not appear to have a website of her own, so you can only see her work when galleries advertise it.  The images shown are all part of an upcoming exhibition to be shown at the Form Gallery in Blaenavon from 9 April.  Her work is an eclectic mix of hand built ceramics and textiles, with many vintage references.  On the site Karen explains her work :

"I am a ceramic/textile artist creating a range of ceramic objects resembling domestic tea ephemera. My pieces are playful and a contemporary reflection of a bygone age when tea parties and domestic decadence were everyday occurrences.

Inspiration comes from an era when time was taken to enjoy the social niceties of afternoon tea. The sourcing of found objects such as textiles and cutlery from junk shops and markets enable me to add layers of comfort, colour and nostalgic memories. Grandma's linens, stripes and spots help create a range of embellished, decorative tea pottery.

Ceramics are handbuilt from slabs of clay, decorated with a range of coloured slips and text. Textiles are dyed stitched and printed before being padded and buttoned. Found objects are included to add a further dimension and to develop subtle recognition. These recycled items include vintage textiles, patterns, embroidery transfers and metal objects. Spoons are sometimes pierced before the addition of enamel paint and lazertran decals. Development of these often neglected items allows them a new lease of life and by adding them to my ceramics helps facilitate Engaging Domestics.

my teacup

Eileen O'Rourke

I have discovered Eileen O'Rourke as she has recently graduated from the MMU MA Course.  Originally an Embroidery graduate her practice is mainly drawing ... they shine with sensitivity and delicacy.  Some of her drawings were made from hair and stitched on to stretched bedsheets.  Others were painstakingly pinpricked ... an art form that reflects her interest in embroidery.
Her artist's statement reads ...

"My work investigates the fundamentals of the process of drawing.

For over thirty years, the style of my drawings has been introspective mad doodles, which sometimes were refined but lacked evidence of any intellectual input or questioning.

During the course, the process of fundamentally investigating drawing exposed me to a whole array of questions: What am I doing? Whom am I doing it for? Why am I doing it? What audience is it aimed at?

My examination of 'Who am I'... 'Who are we'…turned into... 'What am I'; albeit a subtle change, I wanted to centre on something real, unquestionable, in fact an un-doubtable truth.

Answering the question of identity can be a hard road; a journey that passes many dead-ends in the form of philosophical thoughts that, by reasoning, have no resolution for an artist interested in identity.

As a twin, I have always had a vague interest for biological make-up of the human body but whilst struggling with this identity question, the biological aspect of self, or rather myself, became foremost and I researched twins and genetics. The ‘physical’ self seemed to be the only un-doubtable truth."