- Venue
- Nottingham Trent University
- Location
- East Midlands
Nottingham Trent University once again host a wide variety of work by their graduating year of fine artists, & having viewed the previous year's show I was eager to see what, if any, progression of the course was reflected here.
One work worthy of particular mention was the visual art & performance piece by Fiona Lewis. A canvas is fixed above a pile of abandoned pens & pencils, whilst on an adjacent wall a neatly typed schedule and set of rules indicate a scene waiting to happen, whereby the artist 'Must draw architectural drawings only', & 'Speak to no-one'. Entitled 'Panopticon', her pen-drawn, pseudo-architectural drawings sprawl across the canvas in dizzying variations of perspective, embodying the title in as much as everything is indeed visible, from the process of creation to the pauses in its progress when the artist is absent. Unnerving however, is 'Panopticon's reminder of the idealised prison design of Jeremy Bentham, within which all prisoners are visible to the inspector in a circular building. Who is the spectator, and what are we witnessing the creation of?
Other work was less successful in its translation to the viewer. The video work of Ellie Russell left a void in the place where understanding should be, doing little to convince me of its validity. In a darkened room four screens on plinths surrounded me, with a confusing mismatch of image and sound that seemed to vaguely document a holiday of sorts. Young women gesticulate under the gaze of an infra-red recording, whilst on another screen careful hands grip the neck of a goose as someone hurriedly attempts to empty its bill of weeds. Any discordant speech occasionally emanating from the speakers was hard to make out, and did nothing to illuminate the ambiguous content of the footage. If this was nostalgia, I felt excluded rather than welcomed.
Luckily, the inspiring if bizarre work of Adam Berriman hit all the right notes, with his somewhat humorous floor piece. Bringing to mind the sandy geographical creations of artist Joe Doldon, here a neatly sculpted layer of earth makes up an island-like form, covered with carefully constructed miniature huts. Each has a simple doorway cut into the slats of cardboard from which they are constructed, and is roofed with what appears to be a layer of straw-like strands. Alarming then, is the real, bright orange basketball that is sat right in the middle of this tightly knit neighbourhood of Borrowers-scale. Having apparently bounced its way in, it has left a devastating trail of impact-craters, and a path of crushed houses in its wake. It is this seemingly colossal destruction that the title 'Epicentre' refers to, and I am left simultaneously amused and pondering Berriman's intriguing play on scale.
Although of assorted quality, the majority of this years pieces are engaging and individual, often thrusting us into a world of ideas entirely foreign, but elucidated to varying degrees through the considered creation undertaken by each artist. All is not what it seems in the university building this June, as visitors are faced with an atmosphere of the mysterious – mirrors, vandalism, 'closed' exhibits and the unseen are around every corner, and make for an altogether memorable and exciting body of work.
