Cardiff School of Art & Design Masters Exhibition 2012

Masters Exhibition 2012 | Cardiff School of Art & Design | 7th – 14th September 2012


Master of Fine Art (MFA) Master of Design (MDES) MA Art & Design MA Ceramics MSc Advanced Product Design 7th – 14th September Cardiff School of Art & Design Howard Gardens Cardiff CF24 0SP www.csad.me cover image: Donnalee Downe

Alaa Abdullah | Saudi Arabia | Ceramics

My work focuses on the exploration of systematic structures and their importance in our lives, the relationship of parts to the whole, of the individual person to the family. I am interested in analyzing these types of construction after my recent experiences of being far away from my family and friends to study, and noting importance of social ties in my life and work. Islamic art has contributed greatly to the production of my work, its contents, contexts, colours, and forms, all of

which have impacted on my work. I primarily work with ceramics, an intimate and tactile medium. I am challenging myself by researching different methods of construction, as well as different types of structures and testing the strength of different form and the impact on form of restructuring. My current work utilizes different methods of structuring and linkages and the importance of solidarity and the aesthetics of individualism despite its perceived weakness, as opposed to strength of combined forms – like the family. I have recruited Arabic Language metaphors wherever possible to illustrate the stages of construction using parallels in texts consisting of Arabic language. These linguistic relations echo those of the Islamic civilization.. I employ geometric patterns and porcelain is as symbols which emphasize the link between the past and contemporary. This project added new dimensions of experience for me and refined many of the skills and ideas that I developed during previous projects. I feel I now have the theoretical substance and practical expertise to ensure that my work with ceramics continues both an Arabic tradition, and adds new dimensions to that tradition. e: [email protected] t: 00447857551164 / 009966503663660

Ehab Alkady | Egypt | Design

The aim of my work is to investigate the effects of nostalgia on the game-play experience. In this project, the same video game is published twice utilizing two different visual styles. The first visual style (assumed to comprise a nostalgia element) is 80's style pixel art graphics, while the second visual style used is a modern HD graphics style. To conclude the study, both versions of the game are distributed among video game players and

information is collected around the gamers' opinion of which game-play experience is more satisfactory. e: [email protected] t: +447514528799

left: Pixel Art Version - Arcade Level

Paul Appleby | Wales | Photography

During a summer clear out of the storage spaces at work, at the bottom of one of the many junk filled cupboards, I discovered three boxes of old glass negatives. As I searched through the images, there was a dawning sense of discovery, like I had found not just negatives and materials but also a place; somewhere where the myths were born, a place that existed in books and films, a place that filled my mind with a thousand twisting stories.

The work sits in three parts. The first is a recognition of the act of creation and the birth of a new world. The second part is the archive itself, the body of the new world. It’s people and places that set the scene and play out the narratives we imagine taking place before our eyes. The final part is a world that is a distorted reflection of my own eye in the mirror. The space that exists in between the present and the archival world of the past, a world that has grown up around the photos, that has encroached in on their space while they lay dormant at the back of a store room. The archive is available to download in its entirety from the website listed below. e: [email protected] w: http://www.halloweenorangeandchimneyred.com

Steven Coleman | Wales | Creativity Studies

Pablo Picasso once said, “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once they grow up.” The Hour of Play is a research study that looks at ways to address that problem. Research in the field of child development suggests a possible solution to Picasso’s question; that certain kinds of play can successfully promote creative thinking in children by facilitating wider associations and encouraging a state of affect that is beneficial

to creativity. My research looked at ways of encouraging controlled play within adults and to measure whether this would benefit creative thinking. My approach was to hold a series of workshops investigating methods of generating a child-like enquiry within adults. Visual exercises were designed to facilitate Primary Process Thinking; a cognitive process that is linked to both child development and theories of artistic inspiration. Stories were told, characters created, masks were made, songs were sung and fun was had. The exhibition is designed to give an idea of the key concepts involved in the workshops, the environment in which they were held as well as results and conclusions that were reached. A more detailed overview of the research can also be found on the website. e: [email protected] w: https://thehourofplay.wordpress.com

Images depict participants engaging in a variety of activities during a research workshop entitled

“They Rose in Clouds.”

Shalini Dam | India | Ceramics

Deceptive Dichotomies Through my work I’m exploring the contradictions, the dualities that lie hidden under the surface. The body of work created for this show questions the construct of war and peace. I use easily recognizable signs, symbols and forms and juxtapose them in a dichotomous

manner to raise these questions. How the surface and form are treated play an important role in this investigation. Cutting the surface and form is not just a physical manifestation of the urge to look beyond but also a means to subvert the sign, symbol or form. This surface manipulation creates an optical illusion by making only part of the image visible from a particular angle. Thus challenging the way we see things and events in our world. e: [email protected]

Donnalee Downe | Canada | Digital Photography

ADX-7010 Room ADX-7010 houses an archive under construction. It is a room where visitors are asked to generate archival material. You are encouraged to handle the filed works. Perhaps you will be drawn to the colour of a single line, the words or images on a page, the way a particular section looks when compressed.

Following the exhibition, your contributions will be banded and refiled at which point the MFA archive will be complete. Donnalee Downe Archive Librarian My current work explores the archive and the interplay between virtual and material worlds. A series of on-line image dialogues with artists active on social networking sites informs my practice-led research and acts as a catalyst for thought and exploration. e: [email protected] w: http://imagesinformingthought.carbonmade.com http://www.a-n.co.uk/link/gone_postal

Image: Paper Stack (2006) detail from digital photograph '35 weeks on facebook'

Shaun Featherstone | Wales | Fine Art

6500 PRINTED NEWSPAPERS 116 ARTICLES AND FEATURES 66 ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS 25 VISUAL ARTISTS 1054 POUNDS TO PRINT 427 POUNDS TO DISTRIBUTE 226 LIKES ON FACEBOOK 1182 POUNDS RECIEVED IN DONATIONS 104 DAYS 63 UK VENUES (STOCKED IN) 1783 EMAILS EXCHANGED

6500 FROCK YOU’S BIG THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE WHO TOOK PART, WE SCRATCHED AN ITCH TOGETHER. e: [email protected] w: shaunfeatherstone.blogspot.com www.frocknrobe.com www.facebook.com/pages/The-greatfrock-n-robe-swindle

left: : ’the great frock n robe swindle’ (front cover), 2012

Zoe Felix | UK | MA Ceramics

Definition: A vessel - a vase or ship, a person, or a slip of paper one eighth the size of a sheet of foolscap. Vesselful - as much or as many as a vessel will hold. These are the metaphors I use for the containment and transportation of my visual memories, between my minds eye and my hand as I paint or print the clay surface. The different visual components of line,

colour, texture and form are not brought to mind equally. Colour memory seems permanent and easy to recall at any time. More complex lines in the architecture of buildings or the lines of a face are very difficult to visualise completely or accurately. My work is an investigation of this discrepancy in perception. The fragmented nature of memory is represented by the way in which I have collaged the clay in layers, as I often do with images and ephemera in my travel sketchbooks. Memories are stored in the layers of my mind. There is a sliding scale between very vague and vivid memories. I capture these in varying degrees of register on the textured clay surface. Once again in layers of clay like slips of paper or postcards. Poems, words or phrases I have written as notations about my feelings or experiences, appear alongside to enhance the visual context and meaning. e: [email protected] t: 05831162131

Martin Harman | UK | Ceramics

My latest work is a response to the built environment around me. My experience of this leads me to realise that this reality is not solid, it is constantly changing through space and time and it has the ability to shape the way I understand the world but it also makes me question it. I translate my experience by constructing work that responds to inside and outside space that is enhanced by the application of

colour and quality. I would like to give people clues as to what the work could be, but it is up to the viewer to experience and make decisions about what they are seeing. e: [email protected] w: martinharman.weebly.com t: 07805 623048

Images: top - Construction 2: 2012, stoneware 1230c.

bottom - Construction 1: 2012, stoneware 1230c.

Rowland Hughes | Wales | MA Art & Design (Creative Communication)

Many will suffer culture shock when they arrive, which has a huge affect on their enjoyment of life in the UK as well as their academic performance. Providing suitable information as soon as their arrive in the UK, in a form that is easily understood and accessible, can dramatically reduce the intensity and duration of this transition.

My project analysed, through a series of Focus Groups and Interviews with international students and staff, the information that international students found most helpful during their stay in the UK, as well as how best to communicate it i.e. cross-cultural design. e: [email protected]

Image: Final prototype of booklet

Shaun James | UK | Printmaking

‘An architect, at least in the traditional sense, is somebody who has an in-detail concept of the final result in their head, and their task is to control the rest of nature sufficiently to get that built. Nature, being things like bricks and sites and builders and so on. Everything outside has to be subject to an effort of control. A gardener doesn't really work like that. What one is doing is working in collaboration with the complex and unpredictable processes of nature. And trying

to insert into that some inputs that will take advantage of those processes, and as Stafford Beers said, take you in the direction that you wanted to go. So for me, this was really a new paradigm of composing. Changing the idea of the composer from somebody who stood at the top of a process and dictated precisely how it was carried out, to somebody who stood at the bottom of a process who carefully planted some rather well selected seeds, and watched them turn into something.’ Brian Eno ‘Composers as Gardeners’, 2011 Serpentine Gallery – Edge.org e: [email protected] w: www.shaunjames.net

left: studio, 2012

Emily Jenkins | UK | Ceramics

My ceramic practice is concerned with social and political narrative. Inspiration for this body of work has been the practice of lapidation or stoning, whereby a group throws stones at a person until they die. Stoning stands apart from other forms of capital punishment in that the entire community participates in the killing. No individual is identifiable as being the killer, yet each member of the group bears some moral

culpability. The removal or absence of an individual from their family and community has become a major theme in my work. I have used ceramic plates as a metaphor for the home that the victim has been removed from. The plates have been altered, removing sections to destroy the function of the tableware and signify the absence of an individual from the dinner table. e: [email protected] t: 07904 310 560

Image: Absence (2012) Slipcast Earthenware

Sian Leung | Wales | Ceramics

“I want to start where language ends…re-linking art with human survival.” Antony Gormley “…the important thing can seem like an afterthought: art. The art of living and wanting, needing to feel whole.” Tracey Emin

In the production of my work I am engaged and concerned with the expression and process of autoethnography. Autoethnography is the activity of writing about the self and how it is related to a cultural and social experience, communicating that story to others whilst also coming to terms with and understanding that story for oneself. Often words are inadequate to express sensations and emotions and I believe that the visual language of art is able to transcend these limitations thereby allowing for greater autoethnographic expression that would otherwise be unachievable by written and verbal words alone. I explore the fine line and tension between the fragility and strength of the human condition and its survival under duress. As a Community Nurse I regularly witnessed and supported people as they went through adversity that made them vulnerable and fragile whilst also finding the inner strength that enabled them to hold themselves together and pull through. Something I too have experienced first- hand when my professional life became my personal life. e: [email protected] t: 07525787232

Image: Burnt Out, h33 x w19 x d19 cm

Laura Lillie | England | Ceramics and Printmaking

Taking mould making, slip casting and printmaking as points of departure, this body of work examines the application and conventions of ‘process’ in relation to art making and object status. The nature of transferral, multiplicity and variation are explored, whilst material and process remain at all times fundamental. Self-referential to the extent that the work reveals its own making and transformation, the

identity and function of the objects and materials remains unstable. It is my intention that the work occupying the space should be understood as something fluid and unfixed, and that the objects are seen to be ‘still in the making’: on their way to somewhere else. Revealing an evolving continuum, where there appears to be neither beginning nor end, the work seeks to blur and dissolve some of the distinctions and categories which separate ends and means within conventional studio and gallery contexts. ‘The notion that work is an irreversible process ending in a static icon-object no longer has much relevance.’ Robert Morris, 1970 ‘To say that art is a provocation does not necessarily mean that it has to shock, but that it can be a provocation to think.’ Briony Fer, 2009 e: [email protected] t: 07969 647007

Image: Untitled , 2012, Earthenware 16x9x8cm

Conor Maguire | Ireland | Ceramics

Entasy – Awake – Balloon drip rain – Huge steel phallic crane – Building bending on my brain – Wrecking ball pound building – Orchids – Turn to face – Pink lusting birds on fire – Floatly falling ash to brier – Another smothered flame – Gasp – Grasp – Despair – Darkness – Usurped above the concrete plains – Bilious defiled lambent brain – Senses quench – Float – No caress – Coldness – Claustrophobic oldness – Concentrate – Scowling crow legs wont break – Wrote my

teeth on the slate – Awake – In the tomb – Ignite – Frying Brain – Piercing Pain – Ache – Yearn – Sizzle – Burn – Moist tender barb dire – Wrapped taught lacey mire – Turpentine rain Change A treacle – The ceiling bleeds – Creamy words – Soothing – Withered flowers now conspire – Singing angels quench the fire – Cool – Tempered plains – Dripping light – Touch – Bred – Fed – Led – Healing - Rhythm – Friction – Breath – Deep – Feel – Warm – Effuse – Repeating Open Crowded rooms – Shrouded tales of a light once seen by sight – Purpose now is free of sin – Stormy whirling thinking wind – Fierce and forced – Universes spin – Souls seek a clue of heat – Suck the weak – Leave the end – Then all at once – Instantly – Itself to glow – In this time when there is none – The end will stay to be with – One – To give affection – It will shake – From the cradle – You awake – Sight will emanate – All that is – Is your fate e: [email protected] t: 00353656825960

Chris Moebus | Australia | Design

In 1798 The Reverend Thomas Malthus theorised that humanity’s growth would one day be constrained by a scarcity of food. That this has not happened, that the global human population has consistently increased on the back of a sufficiency of food since Malthus’ time, is as much due to our antecedent’s ability to innovate agriculturally and technologically as to the Earth’s capacity to provide. Many of the agricultural innovations which

have fed humanity and fuelled its growth these past two centuries have not been without their adverse effects however. Indeed, our forebears have, if unknowingly and inadvertently, despoiled and fundamentally altered vast swathes of land; they have polluted our inland waterways and our planet’s oceans, and have done the same to the atmosphere. As the human population grows still further into the 21st century, environmental degradation poses a very real threat to our future food security. To counter probable declines in worldwide agricultural yields attributable to environmental and climate changes, whilst simultaneously increasing production to meet a forecasted doubling in global food demand, new technologies will be needed. Vertical farming is one such new technology that could deliver us from a Malthusian catastrophe, and it is this radical and exciting concept that I explore in this exhibition. e: [email protected] t: 07580 424 375

Image: Vertical farming concept drawing

Mohammed Mubarak | Egypt | Design

I am an enthusiastic architect interested in anything design related. I believe that design is about sensory needs of people as well as their material needs. My works focus on the effect of design on social interactions, and the relation between people and the built environment. My motivation for design stems from my believe that people shouldn’t be seen as single individuals inhabiting spaces, people are members in a wider entity of social crowd, and their interactions between each other is

with great importance. In that regard, I always seek to apply people-centered design approach. The 3D See-Saw Bench is designed to stimulate social interaction between people. Sitting is re-imagined as a surprising experience, that brings a smile to your face. When sitting with others you may work together to balance it, or you can find other ways of enjoying it rather than just sitting. The sitting environment is more fun, and social interactions happen naturally. This public seating, designed for up to 8 people, is great for catalyzing human interactions in REAL spaces. e: [email protected] t: +44 (0) 7597352023 +2 01000788702

Sharon Richards | Wales | Ceramics

Knowledge gained through being immersed in making with clay combined with 3D CAD technology has enabled the development of a system to use for creating new work. Focusing on the computer generated model led to developing new ways of working, involving utilizing the virtual systems and transferring these into a workable device which forms the basis of a flexible yet somewhat defined formula.

The investigation of new concepts that have their foundation in the imagination and communicating concepts through the medium of clay defining a synthesis between the digital process of designing forms and the more immediate and reactive process of hand- building, construction and the experiential and tacit knowledge gained over time. With this process there is a symbiotic relationship with how the forms created with the software and how the constructions of new forms within the studio are produced. e: [email protected] w: sharonrichardsceramics.moonfruit.com

Laura Stevenson | England | Ceramics

"Displayed out of reach of our prying hands, we rely on our sight alone to interpret work; to tell us how surface relates to form." (Bevis, 2003) My objects are interruptions of preconceived notions of an object their aim is to identify the way display forces us to experience work. By exploring how we interact with ceramic artworks through surface design and form I attempt to question the expectations we have of an object.

My forms alter the relationship between the domestic plate and its pattern creating an interruption in the characteristics typically associated with a plate. Using distorted pattern it invites the viewer to seek the familiar form of the plate whist discovering new object. e: [email protected] w: www.laurastevensonceramics.co.uk

Image: Plate interrupted (2012), Ceramic

Jan Williams | Wales | Fine Art - Painting

This site responsive project comprises a selection of work exploring my perceptions and relationship to the gallery space. An empty room has no defined purpose, challenging us to think through its space in a different way to a conventionally occupied room. Similarly, a work of art leaves the question of its function indeterminate. My purpose is to explore and illustrate how these concepts can be integrated through my artistic practice.

I use the medium of paint to lay down my immediate visual relationship and sensations of the space, the materiality of paint and the physical act of painting engendering a necessary contemplative process. Harnessing the resulting flow of creativity I explore my sense of identity, identity firmly rooted in personal history. This develops a symbiotic evolution building on my relationship and artistic interpretation to the immediate environment. Questions arise: What is the nature of this complex sensory and cognitive relationship with architectural space? What is the link between space, architecture, memory and identity and how are these connections represented in art? Can artworks immerse the viewer to such an extent that their conscious or even subconscious reaction triggers a response that questions their own inter- relative presence? e: [email protected] w: www.janwilliamsart.com

Sarah Younan | Germany | Ceramics

'Whats the matter?' 'Je ne suis plus votre bonbonniere.' giving head on a silver platter ball and chain I work with 3D scanning and printing technology and have used these technologies to investigate the ceramics collection at the National Museum Wales. The piece I chose from the collection is a bonbonniere in the

shape of a ladies head. Made about 1780-90, probably by the Leeds pottery, it is creamware, slip-cast and enamelled. Dimensions are recorded as 8 x 5.8 x 5.5 cm. It was purchased by the Museum in 1904 from a dealer in Nottingham called S Richards. I found this artefact in the museum's storage facilities in Nantgarw and decided to bring it back into the public arena. The bonbonniere has been scanned, 3D printed in different dimensions and materials and subsequently reproduced using traditional ceramic processes. I am interested in the shift of meaning that takes place between the historical museum object, the scans and identical or altered copies. My final piece deals with identity, I invite the viewer to form a rapport with the bonbonniere; to experience the artefact outside its historical context, on a irrational and intimate level of experience. e: [email protected] w: http://sarahyounan.tumblr.com t: 075549570846

Image: bonbonniére, slip, earthenware, lustre


Exhibition coordinator: Peter Castle | e: [email protected] | t: +44 29 20 41 6615

Cardiff School of Art & Design Masters Exhibition 2012

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