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6th May-14th May 2005
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N.W.I.F.H.E HND Fine Art Final Year Exhibition
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Gallery one
Artists and works


Sandra Smyth “A in Junior Cert biology” Installation
One particular interrogation technique amused him. They started playing different music to see how I would react. They started with country singer Kris Kristofferson which I said I quite liked. Then some Fleetwood Mac songs. They watched my reactions on camera. I just said the music's great and even started singing along. They didn't play it again.

Amanda Mc Phillips “Community Neglect”
Paintings

My paintings are based on community neglect, which, I feel, is on the increase all the time. I took a number of photographs of my community, which highlight people neglecting their responsibilities and rot and decay taking place. During my travels and through research I came across a burned- out car in my home town of Omagh. The car looked as if joy-riders had taken it for a spin and then left it to burn in a field. I took lots of photographs, from a distance and from up close, as I felt the overall situation was intriguing. As I found the shapes great to work with, I decided to produce some abstract paintings in oils, referencing the texture and colours in the photographs for a contemporary approach.

Jane Morrow “Jane Doe” Photographs

I have thirty- one, of a possible thirty- six, teeth. I have one wisdom tooth. I have recently, within the last six months, had two teeth extracted, one premolar- which I lost to decay- and one molar, which was disturbed by the aforementioned wisdom tooth. They are a bit yellow, but their shape is not too bad. I have never worn a brace. I have one quite pointy incisor that I notice in photographs of myself. My teeth are ever so slightly ground down on my right side, where I bite my nails. I realised that the tooth fairy wasn’t real when I found two pound coins underneath my pillow, where there should have been just one. I still have a number of my baby teeth, but in a jewellery box, not my mouth. They will still be here when I am gone and yours will still be here when you are gone. I don’t know what will happen to the jewellery box.

Christine Cadman “Death By Chocolate” Installation

We as a society often lack tolerance in this modern world in which we live; addictions in our city are ever increasing and a lack of resources to combat this situation enables it to continue. ‘Let’s isolate it and deem it anti-social!’ Addressing this judgmental stigma was the intention within this piece.
I’m trying to question the negativity which people attach themselves to, in their desperate fight to participate in an everyday existence.
The use of chocolate is symbolic in dealing with a personal struggle associated around food. Melting the chocolate is to actively simulate the dispersion of the experience of addiction. The drowning; death of oneself; is often the liberation to your life-a new, different life.

Susan Gilligan Untitled Paintings
Bed Frames with Alder Sticks


Whether you relate to nature in a romantic or anti- romantic way, nature remains itself, relentless, regardless.

Adam Loughlin “Idea”
Installation

I was lying down and I drew two circles and joined them with a line,
It wasn’t much that was a fact it happens all the time,
In the first I drew an ‘A’ and the other I wrote a ‘B’,
Not the most complex system,
Point ‘A’ to ‘B’ you see.
And in the others that are more complex,
Come from day to day thoughts and more than average events,
They link together and plot out the day,
With bits that never happened, (they didn’t happen anyway),
Each point is explained with a key to squash any doubts,
It’s not what it looks like it’s the thought that counts.


Marcus Kavanagh Untitled Paintings

My paintings portray my feelings during the last few months showing a mixture of emotions, ranging from confusion to depression, rage to frustration, and sadness. The theme starts with a painting that portrays my home town imbued with colours that start to creep into the normality of my thought processes. In piece two, I try to capture the images of my mind, getting bogged down by too much weight on the mind; can’t cope, stressed beyond my limits. The third piece shows my mind on overload. The emotional build-up is too great. I need a release. Frustration and anger. Screaming out loud inside my fucking head. Piece four sums up my feelings:
I want what is lost.
I want what is no more.
I want yesterday back.

Gallery Two
Artists and works

Kathy May “Laragh”
Video and installation

“Laragh” is first of all a video portrait of my mother, talking about an unmarked famine graveyard in the vicinity of her home on the Laragh Road, Culkey, just outside Enniskillen in County Fermanagh. She also describes the Laragh Road which was originally a famine road. The video is an attempt to uncover a hidden past, to cut through the denial which surrounds the history of the famine in this country, even on a small scale. On the Laragh Road, a helicopter flies overhead at regular intervals throughout the day, reminding us that we are under continuous state surveillance. I suppose the video is about insidious violence past and present, viewed through the eyes of my mother and myself.

Simon Howell “Little Pig Little Pig let Me In.”
Installation


Consisting of timber Perspex and slip cast ceramic pieces, “Little pig little pig let me in” questions the institutionalisation of art in a satirical fashion.
It seems often that filling the boxes precedes the art causing the end product to feel overworked and lacking.
Mostly process based, this piece combines the obvious, personal and comical symbolism and reflects the feelings of a young artist in an ever expanding art world.

Gordon Bell “People live in an uncanny representation of what is ‘real’”
Video and installation

As the philosopher Martin Heidegger said when dealing with the topic of existentialism- “We are born then we die, we are thrown into this world without even being asked”. This awareness of death causes anxiety, and this anxiety gives rise to the need to measure time and to find something to call our own. In relation to this, and our attempt to find the ‘real’, or some meaning in life, we associate ourselves with objects. Within this need to know what is ‘in’ and what is ‘out’, and which side is right and which side is wrong, we find ourselves alienated. This ideal is apparent in my home town Derry/ Londonderry, and in the art that reflects its political life. So with these associations and side- taking, are we just running away from the idea of our own mortality? Or just trying to fit in somehow?

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