UWE Bristol is back at Spike Island for its annual MA Showcase.
About 50 graduates across a range of creative programmes (Fine Art, Graphic Arts and Multi-Disciplinary Printmaking) will be exhibiting their artwork.
The focus of the showcase is on themes exploring “nature, sustainability, motherhood, cultural identity and family”.
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The event will begin with an open evening on Thursday September 5, between 5-8pm, and carry on between Friday 6 to Wednesday 11 September from 12-5pm.
One of the artists featured in the showcase is Woon Bing Chang, an MA Graphic Arts student from Malaysia.
Chang is an experienced visual effects artist, having worked in the studio responsible for animating films like Life of Pi.
A series of six unconventional warning signs – photo: Woon Bing Chang
“I’m interested in using pictures to tell stories, particularly stories involving animals and nature, and how they help us make sense of our place in the universe,” Chang said.
Forest Planters is a free-standing 2.5D display which visitors can walk around to discover some of the seeds that sun bears help spread – photo: Woon Bing Chang
His final project, made in collaboration with the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC), plays with interactive education to spread awareness about Sun Bears, and his passion for wildlife and nature.
Another MA Graphic Arts student featured in the showcase is Akshu Patel, whose art focusses on the experiences of second-generation immigrants in London.
Akshu Patel, his sister-in law Larhysa Saddul and his brother Bhavik Patel. All are wearing Akshu’s designs – photo: Akshu Patel
Patel said: “I have a great passion for graphic design, illustration, model making, and clothing design.
“At the MA Showcase visitors will be able to see clothing I have designed featuring quotes from myself, my brother, and my sister in-law obtained from interviews conveying our second-generation immigrant experiences”
The front of one of Askhu’s designs featuring quotes about second-generation immigrant experiences – photo: Askhu Patel
His work will feature “past, present, and future narratives” about first-generation immigrant parents and the cultural identities, challenges and positive opportunities associated with their children.
Brie Barnacle, a MA Multi-Disciplinary Printmaking student, approaches her art by repurposing “old etching plates using a plasma cutter and welding machine” to make them into new works.
There is light at the end of the tunnel – photo: Brie Barnacle
Her pieces explore nurture, care and sustainability.
She was recently awarded the Greener Future Green Leader of the Year award at UWE’s Students’ Union Society Awards.
“My practice starts with a love of the landscape expressed through walking with my family,” Brie said.
A family’s view – photo: Brie Barnacle
She added: “My desire to foster and preserve memories with my children is also mirrored in my desire to memorialise our diminishing natural world.
“Through my work, I draw parallels between my experiences of mothering and the landscape as a space of fragility, complexity and flux”.
Another featured artist is Dili Pitt, an MA Fine Art graduate, whose work ‘I Used to be a Prince’ culminates in an ever-changing installation of sculptures, found objects and text.
‘I used to be a Prince’ installation view – photo: Dili Pitt
Pitt said: “The individual pieces come together and transform into performers, props, weapons, artefacts, villains, and heroes enacting a battle scene in a barren landscape.
“The finished installation is a surreal, dreamlike battle tableau that utilises fragments of mythology to delve into the impact of biased within stories and their connection to politics and conflicts.
This dramatic scene is overlaid with the mundane, the broken pavement, the building site debris, woven in and around the story with its own message of private ownership, hereditary land rights, the laws of trespass and the right to a home”.
As part of the showcase, prospective students will also have a chance to meet some of the university’s lecturers at a drop-in session on Saturday 7 September from 1-3pm, to discuss and find out more about postgraduate programmes.
Dr Will Grant, associate director of postgraduate taught studies at UWE Bristol’s School of Arts, said: “We are incredibly proud of our students’ achievements this year.
“The MA Showcase features a diverse range of work that highlights the exceptional talent and creativity of those emerging artists. We are thrilled to welcome the wider Bristol community to celebrate their successes”.
Main photo: Spike Island
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