Situated in the HPO building in Sheffield this exhibition was organised by recent graduate artists some I know quite well and have spoken to them or just seen their work progressing in the studios.
These graduates had a difficult situation of exhibiting their work due to the pandemic so this exhibition is a chance to redress that balance in a physical setting.
The HPO canteen is a nice space where students eat and drink and there is a space allocated for exhibitions such as these.
I was excited to see this work and I wasn’t disappointed, I picked up a flyer, took some photos and took time to look at all the exhibits.
The first name mentioned in the flyer that accompanies the exhibition is Emily Kempster whose work Description Automatically Generated (with Low Confidence) is an installation work which from the images supplied needs to be in a darkened room.
I went on their website to dig further into the work to find this:
These images give you a feeling of what the artists intent behind how they would exhibit this work.
The artwork is very intriguing and makes the viewer want to ascertain the meaning behind the piece.
There is a literal transcript of the audio provided projected onto one side of the space and images flitting from one image to another with one thing in common there is a facemask present which never gets mentioned in the audio description which creates a disparity.
Confidence is mentioned in the title of this work, can we as viewers be confident of the information we are described to when images contradict.
Are the chains that are draped over the coat rail our own mental connections that can trap us in our associations?
I’m not too sure but that’s what makes this installation fun for me that level of ambiguity and creating your own version of events (not unlike the audio presenting).
the artist may be rolling their eyes at this analysis and I can only apologise if that is the case.
The site for Emily Kempster is excellent with a good mix of traditional and contemporary art. https://emkempster.wixsite.com/artist
Natassja Drobinski
Taken from the flyer:
“This work is a visual exploration of the surreal world in which glamorous billionaires exist and the artist’s own relationship to class, utilising visceral and playful sculptural shapes to explore issues surrounding the wealth gap and food poverty, through looking at greed and gluttony with a sense of the absurd.”
The installation is named A pretty shit dinner party and is a short video with narration accompanied by a sculpture, 160x80x72cm
The sculpture as you can see is really well made I have no idea how it is constructed but the materiality of the sculpture has to be seen in real life.
This is a video that accompanies the piece and has the artist eating the lobster with vulgarity including the use of a hammer.
Eating lobsters are a sign of high dining and there are rules on how to eat a lobster and culinary rules that seem to be discarded.
The narration depicts a surrealist dining experience that compliments the imagery and the notion of what eating means throughout the strata of class and poverty.
Katia Greenwood
Katia greenwood is an interdisciplinary artist form the North East of England. Greenwood’s work generates an archive to create dialogue around social housing and the working class.
“Where Homes would kiss the clouds and the sky” are screenprints and “Making Homes” is a video piece clocking in at 2 minutes and 44 seconds showing Katia constructing cotton Gardens from card commenting on the destruction of these buildings.
I went on Katia’s site which goes into more detail about the archival process and the restoration of either tower blocks or their memories.
https://kg_archive.monopiny.com/
I really like these pieces of work and being a Sheffielder I have an affiliation with brutalist architecture as Park Hill flats is visible on our skyline.
I also like the idea of utopian style housing etc. that maybe anything but from the likes of J G Ballard’s writings.
All these elements strike a chord in me when viewing these artworks and I also admire the practice of screen-printing which isn’t an easy medium but tactile in its approach.
Overall I enjoyed looking at the stark beauty of these images under a modernist gaze and even though nostalgic has a futuristic nod to the future.
Thomas John Mills
Oil and acrylic on canvas, 61cm by 81cm
Picture taken by Russell Jones in the venue
Lovely painting of two beings who have this celestial glow about them watching almost in anticipation at some colossal event with balloons up almost rejoicing.
An asteroid hitting Earth reminds me of the film Melancholia and that willingness to go back to nature and letting the animals take over the planet.
Steven Woods
Steven Woods is an artists who works with sculpture which as you can see from the photos provided by me he is a very talented individual.
The artwork is called chariots of oxidised memories which is made from mixed mediums, steel, foam, acrylic paint and found objects.
I have met Steven numerous times and he is a very smart and pleasant person and his work is really good.
He is gaining recognition and has won awards etc. (I checked on his Instagram)
I honestly don’t know how he creates these sculptures but they are impressive to say the least.
Molly Pemberton
A collection of bus tickets sewn together over a three year period which incorporates the pandemic; a tapestry portraying not just events and news but documenting the albums listened to etc.
I was really impressed when I saw this I loved the idea of patiently collating all these tickets to make art out of them and also I have a need to list all the albums I have listened to.
I think it is a great visual idea to document these turbulent times by using something so mundane but a part of our everyday lives which is the commute and the daily bus ticket.
Jack Hinson
custom T-shirts on a rail
As you can see from the bio used alongside this work Jack has Asperger’s and is creating awareness of the absolutism that Autism enables.
These T-shirts are well designed and a lot of thought has gone into their execution.
Courtenay Bes-Green
Painting, 140 cm x 140 cm
Really nice, big painting with so much detail and visual imagery where the more you stare at it you notice different things.
This is one of the exhibits that benefit mostly by seeing it in person.
Thomas Marriot
Oil on canvas, 60 x 80 x 3.8cm deep
Thomas has a really good painting technique and his pencil work is extraordinary and he manages to capture the everyday moments in life.
This painting is a beautiful moment encapsulated in time of a woman on her phone.
Overall the gallery was excellent and there some artists that aren’t on here Ellie Goodwin photography is excellent but I couldn’t get an angle to take a picture without reflection.
Luke Walsh and Gabrielle Holmes were showing work too.
There was a mixture of traditional, contemporary, photography, sculpture etc.
Rusty'sArtWerk 