Exit Velocity: LJMU Fine Art Graduates 2012
We talk to some of the most promising LJMU Fine Art graduates, exhibiting their final shows tonight at the Art & Design Academy…
MATTHEW WEIR (pictured, above)
Letters from Berlin, a multi-media installation on the fourth floor, including sound, text and typewriter, started as a series of letters written by Matthew’s American Grandmother. Whilst attending high school in 1955 in Charlotte, North Carolina, she went on an exchange program with A.F.S to Berlin. Whilst there she regularly updated her family with letters home detailing her experiences, people she met, places she saw and lectures she attended.
An interactive exercise bike installation on the ground floor, Rachel’s work challenges the idea of perceived limit, both physical and mental. She is interested in the human ability to exceed physical limit due to the power of the mind, with focus on the euphoric state achieved through physical exercise.
The Morphology of Dinner, a film and publication on the fourth floor, originated as a method of better understanding Phillippa’s domestic situation. Looking at the routines played out between her and her boyfriend within their relationship, a series of records were kept over several months, resulting in reams of info graphics tracking their behaviour and actions.
Emily is a community artist currently working with refugee and asylum seeker groups in Liverpool with Sola Arts. Also to be found on the fourth floor, she has installed a mobile greenhouse where immigrant and UK citizens have been making and debating on topics such as immigration, and the depiction of immigrants in the media. Listen out for her recorded conversation between a Ghanaian radio broadcaster and a British journalist.
Co-winner of the first fellowship award at The Royal Standard, along with fellow painter and curator Rose Parish, Lucy’s installation is heavy with muti-media including paintings, abstract forms and carpet. She examines how we place ourselves in-amongst domestic objects, our casual acquaintance with chairs, tables and lamps. ‘The pieces are all investigations into different ways of understanding space, however none of them are spacious; they are hot, heavy, densely-packed minute volumes, pockets caught in between objects.”
A photographer born and raised on a British Military Garrison on the island of Cyprus, Lucy frequently returns to record the landscapes. In this series of digital Cypriot images, Lucy explores the theme of ‘inside outside’, photographing “the absurdity and perhaps the mystery” of chairs and settees placed on beaches or by the side of a cliff.
The LJMU Grad Shows preview tonight from 4pm, and continue 25 May-1 June, 12-6pm
