When Degree Show time of year rolls around, a peculiar mix of emotions seem to linger within the walls of University art buildings. The sense of release is almost palpable; an enormous bubble of built-up tension and stress over the last few months having finally burst, leaving the products of true inspiration, hard graft, creative Read More
Tucked away in a corner of the Matthew building, the Final Year sculpture was worth the long walk from the main entrance. Behind unassuming doors, imposing pieces lie silently waiting to be discovered. All of the above pieces of work share common themes: they are all monochrome; they all make us think about life and Read More
Sheri Benning’s first full poetry collection consists of previous publications with several new pieces. Her new title, The Season’s Vagrant Light, is a beautiful and sensuous collection, addressing interpersonal relationships, place and memory and showcases Benning’s growth as a poet. Benning’s ability to conjure vivid and beautiful images from the seemingly ordinary or mundane infuses Read More
The Anatomist’s Dream comes with impressive recommendations. It was long listed for the Bailey’s Prize for Fiction earlier this year, and nominated for the Man Booker prize in 2015, when it lost out to A Brief History of Seven Killings. Clio Gray, the novelist and short story writer, is known to create worlds set in Read More
As a purveyor of art-house cinema, films with long poetic titles become something to be wary of. Generally these are examples of films that are either overwhelmingly didactic or gratingly obsessed with the (self-assessed) brilliance of their style or ideas. The Sky Trembles… teeters at the edge of the cliff of pretension, but manages for Read More
Peter Greenaway was one of the great European arthouse directors, lighting up the British film scene of the 1980s. His talents then faded, creating disjointed films more interested in using formalistic gimmicks than telling a good old-fashioned story. Or so the story goes. The general British critical scene has little time for Greenaway these days; Read More
Delivered in response to their cultural exchange in Shanghai last summer, Poster Club’s latest exhibition, “NEW Wheat NEW Mud NEW Machine”, curiously explores the realms of collaboration through the medium of printmaking and playful typography. The artists involved with Poster Club have come and gone throughout the years, but the aim has always been the Read More
As an avid movie goer, I was not disappointed when I recently watched Kung Fu Panda 3 for the first time. The movie itself may be more of a child centric film, but it appeals to the child within all of us no matter how old we are. The lead voice actor, Jack Black, reprises Read More
In the endnotes of New York Drawings, Adrian Tomine asserts that he is a cartoonist, “not just an illustrator.” However, it is precisely that tension between those two artistic identities that define Tomine’s work. Indeed, his two most recent publications, New York Drawings and Killing and Dying, emphasise his versatility, demonstrating that, in spite of Read More
If you like post-apocalyptic novels, then this is the book for you. If you like them very gory and brutal, then this is not the book for you. Even the deaths are gentle. Russell himself said that, although he had a ‘‘fascination with Armageddon,’’ he ‘’wanted to devise one…based on human technology rather than something Read More