- Venue
- Hover Gallery
- Location
- East Midlands
What does it mean for university students to display their art in a cube of fresh white gallery space accessible by the public?
Within Nottingham’s flying horse mall resides a new gallery called 'hover', curated by photography and fine art students from Nottingham Trent university, ‘Beneath the Veneer part 1’, is ultimately an effort to engage the public with the five curators’ own practice. I recently toured the gallery space, which opened to the public on the 17th April 2009 featuring work by Reuben Brown, Alma Haser, Adam Woodfield, Jennifer Ross and Sophie Merriman. Together, they create their own bodies of work hosting themes of reality, process and time.
I was overjoyed to see the space catering to a wide audience with colourful and lively themes, which also explore the use of a variety of mediums. The interactive installation which was of particular interest; where the concept of a british citizenship test is contextualised to the extent of mockery with an exam, which can be sat and awarded with a certificate. The installation, which sits candidly in the gallery main space, looks inviting and intriguing from the window, but it is something, which is approached with fear as we walk into the gallery space. It seems to be expected that people feel this way towards interactive art, but never the less successfully enticing.
In addition photography students, who make up the bulk of the curate, seem to dominate the space with bold colour gestures and experiments with contexts of the reality we live in. While the moving image work seems to sit ardently in the background; producing a whirl of light engaging with the public on a different level.
The gallery space compliments artists nature of work and breaks the mould in particular for students at the university who are used to showing in the studio. Furthermore the fact that this is only temporal space for the curators makes it more demanding; allowing little time for an exhibition to be held, and little time for changeover in addition- Nevertheless work in this first exhibition proves vibrant and fluently delivered, well worth a viewing!
