The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Stars of the future on show
THERE is a definite “back to nature” thread in the work of the 39 graduating students emerging this autumn from the Master of Letters (MLitt) in Fine Art Practice Programme at The Glasgow School of Art. Take Claire Kidd. She had not long returned from a trip to Pakistan when lockdown happened and she headed for the hills. In her case, to a friend’s seawater farm in Glen Shiel in the north west. The sense of “discombobulation” she felt informed the work which she went on to create for her degree show. “I have spent much of this year lost and I quite like where I have found myself,” she says in her statement on the digital showcase which takes the place of a physical show for graduating students. Kidd’s painting, Times of Entanglement, presents figures in a Highland landscape hard at work trying to untangle a complex web of hose pipes. It could be a metaphor for all our lives.
Similarly, Shetlander Vivian RossSmith retreated to her island home and began to made work informed by her surroundings. At the same time, Ross led a vocal media campaign against what she describes in her statement as “GSA mismanagement and the lack of support and care they have shown toward their students”. Her work, however, speaks for itself. Shetland is renowned for its textiles and Ross created a series of “wearable paintings” which she then knitted into a performance video piece called BROADCAST. In July, she travelled to various sites which are part of the Shetland Webcam network and in an almost Dada-ist intervention, she’d appear in all weathers wearing her outsize paintings.
Many of the students on the MLitt courses are international and Alexander Anderson went back to the US to take refuge in his late mother’s childhood home in Phoenix, Arizona. There, he engaged with the landscape of the Sonora Desert and frequented an art sanctuary, The Land With No Name, located in the high desert grasslands of occupied Tohono O’odham ancestral lands. The photographs of his assemblages; kinetic sculptures made from found objects remind us we are but blips in infinity.
Every day In lockdown, Gabriela Lesniewska uploaded a video showing a five hour long time-lapse of plants growing inside a creamy wax sculpture she had made. It’s mesmerising. Many of the students give their own websites as a further stopping-off point and Lesniewska’s website is a much better platform from which to view her work.
Her oddly beautiful and highly textured photographs of dead birds in her Birds of Paradise series burn their way into the synapses and remind you of the fragility of all things.
Like everyone else, the MLitt fine art students found their lives upended in March. They were six months into their year-long course and, for most, there was no time to grab their work-inprogress from their studios in the old Stowe college and take it home. Clearly the lack of a studio to make work, not to mention the lack of support from staff (also under lockdown pressure), has been a challenge to the artists, many of whom are international and paying eye-watering sums in tuition fees.
The postgraduate digital platform uses the same format as the GSA Graduate Showcase, which launched in June. While it’s a functional enough setting, I urge anyone who is surfing the site to take a detour into the students’ own social media and websites. Most of the artists are on Instagram and most have posted samples of their degree show work. I found the informality of Instagram gave me a clearer sense of the person behind the work.
There are some star turns in the mix. Clean lines and vivid patches of colour are the hallmark of James Pfaff, who works across various mediums, including photography, painting and sculpture. Clearly influenced by Japanese culture, there is a mature and confident hand here.
Alanna Blake’s take on early Renaissance painting mashed up with her personal memories fairly leaped off the screen and I found myself longing to see her big figurative paintings in an actual room, especially CARRY OUT, FIRST BUS, which is both poignant and en-pointe. It’s for sale too if you happen to have a spare £950.
Georgie Mac’s cosmic drawing came alive in his Instagram @hellogeorgiemac, especially posted on August 15 with the pertinent description “Casual levitation”. He is a featured artist at the top of the Fine Art Practice showcase page with his excellent Charcoal Claw video. Strapping on bird-like claws, he creates an ink drawing augmented by terrific scratchy sound.
Chenchen Yang’s fascination with Britain’s class system has led her to