Starcrossing; Kitchen Madness; Phantasmagoria; A Pangolin’s Tale; Fridge and Chaos are some of the most varied I personally can remember seeing at the Degree Show. No two are alike in style or tone, spanning a refreshing mix of genres from the comedic to the mystical to the horrific. What they do have in common is the fact that they all successfully continue to uphold the high bar of quality that can be expected from the showcase.
Jaeden Cargill makes large gestural paintings and installations which incorporate collage, montage
and video overlaid to create dynamic moving images. The paintings suggest a succession of
splintered images, events and concepts that recall the thinking of Deleuze and Bergmann.
Graduates using bold, graphic styles include Zofia Chamienia’s use of flat, contrasting colours
creates a collage-like effect, with bold colourways such as hot pink, orange and white on a black
background. Her simplified figures are full of lively movement and energy. Tia Fox has created a
beautiful set of large, wooden 2-d images of dinosaurs, to complement her informative children’s
book. Her use of intense, dark greens and browns creates a sense of weight for the reptiles and gives
the illusion of a natural environment for them.
In a dimmed corner of the fine artworks on display on the fifth floor, Maria Touloupa’s Divine Femininity enlightens contemporary female divinity through dreamy saints superimposed upon their reflection on clear acrylic. Touloupa, who is concerned with evanescing traditions and a world which is ‘but a surreal imitation of normality’, accentuates religious iconography with manipulated photography to create an ‘almost illusionary world’ which reflects upon the absurdity of our own world, which is occupied by almost fanatical societal developments such as Artificial Intelligence.
The latest exhibition at Dundee Contemporary Arts combines striking photography, film, and sound to form a reflection on how landscapes and bodies act as conduits for memory. As Williams explores the physicality of record-keeping and the act of self-portraiture, we see the tenuous strings that bind us to physical spaces and moments in time. Every act of recollection is in itself the creation of a memory, a new connection that has ties to both the past and the present….
The latest Turner Prize Exhibition is a medley of emotional connection. Heather Phillipson Ingrid Pollard, Veronica Ryan, and Sin Wai Kin explore the bonds we form with ideas and how these incorporeal acts are made manifest. History, gender, memory, and experience are pulled into the gallery space. Thematically, they harmonise, but each artist presents such a distinctive visual style that every sequence in the exhibition feels fresh.
Mimi explores personal discomfort, the distortion of one’s perception, a reflection on unreachable and filtered contemporary beauty standards. ‘I wish to love Mi but I don’t’, is one of the perpetual thoughts playing in the mind, screaming for help as it axes through one’s ego. Overall, with such an aesthetically compelling installation, Rachel Mclean’s explicit visual metaphor successfully provides insight into the narrative of physical obsession, existential dread, duality, self-absorption, and poisonous societal expectation.
Manuel SolanoDCA until 20 November The DCA publicity for Manuel Solano’s exhibition announces that their work ‘recalls and celebrates childhood moments impacted by formative influences like family, friendships, cinema, television and pop music’. The gallery space utilises the contemporary white cube concept of display, (sanitized white walls, a spacious plan and a minimal bench allocation), Read More
Rosaline Nashasibi & Lucy Skaer Cooper Gallery Dundee, 30th September – 10th December For the next three months the Cooper Gallery will be displaying the collaborative work of Rosalind Nashashibi and Lucy Skaer, who have been working and exhibiting together since 2005. The exhibition, Chimera, is an enigmatic manifestation of new and familiar work by Read More
Based on a thirteen-poem series, The Wilds is a powerful poetry comic – written by Russell Jones and illustrated by Aimee Lockwood – connects the themes of grief, the natural world, and survival. It explores the experience of a teenage girl coming to terms with the death of her mother, understanding that loss is never easy but can be survived.
