NCAS and Norwich University of the Arts graduate prizes 2024

 

Every year, ncas awards two prizes to Norwich University of the Arts Fine Art students, a Fine Art and New Makers prize, plus two commendations in each category. On 18 June members of the ncas committee were guided around ‘Gradfest’ the undergraduate degree show, in order to select these prizes.

 

Craig Barber, Head of Fine Art, took us around and his enthusiasm for the cohort of students and their dedication to producing an excellent degree show was infectious. It was incredibly difficult to select one winner for each of the prizes but we did come to a consensus with Harriet Atkinson winning the Fine Art Prize for her atmospheric paintings of guard dogs, with commendations in this category going to Brad Rumbl for his installation using AI to explore Yungian stereotypes and Yanni Ho for her installation of watercolour paintings.

 

The New Makers prize encompasses making in its broadest form and was won by Ewan Ormond with his sculpture, video and poetry exploring pagan belief and ritual and commendations went to Rollo Timothy George for his exploration of everyday signage in print, ceramic and timber and to Lauren Marie Wells for her tea table installation that included embroidery and bronze casting.

 
 
 

Sir Antony Gormley and Dame Magdalene Odundo at Houghton Hall

Event date: 13 and 17 June 2024
Review by Danusia Wurm

 

Time Horizon, Houghton Hall 2024 (detail) , Anthony Gormley

Expertly hosted by Amanda Geitner and Caroline Fisher, ncas members were given a fascinating insight into Sir Anthony Gormley’s Time Horizon installation and Dame Magdalene Odundo’s anthropomorphic ceramic and glass artwork, set in the Palladian splendour of Houghton Hall and its extensive grounds.

 
 
“Time Horizon is not a picture. It is a field and you are in it”
— Sir Antony Gormley
 
 

In one of his largest installations, Antony Gormley has literally seeded the Hall and grounds with 100 life sized sculptures each carefully placed within the landscape and to the same datum level.

Gormley says “ My ambition for this show is that people should roam far and wide. Art has recently privileged the object rather than the experience that objects can initiate. Time Horizon is not a picture. It is a field and you are in it”

 
 

By contrast, Dame Magdalene Odundo’s work sits quietly within Houghton Hall challenging the lavish, ornamental grandeur of the interior with an exquisite simplicity of form. Odundo says “It’s all about the human form. We have this internal side of us that makes us who we are, and the external bit that is the embellishment of who we are. And humanity comes from the hidden inside you”.

 
“It’s all about the human form”
— Magdalene Odundo
 

Her centre piece is a monumental ceramic sculpture, created using Wedgewood moulds, which poignantly addresses the themes of slavery and contemporary activism.

 

Vessel, Magdalene Odundo

Odundo’s show runs until 29 September and Gormley’s Time Horizon until 31 October 2024.

 
 

Review by ncas trustee Danusia Wurm

 
 

Talk by Mali Morris: Painting Colour and All that Jazz

Event date: 15 May 2024
Review by Carl Rowe

 

Mali Morris and Carl Rowe

 
 
 

The first slide lit up the screen with squares of vibrant pinks, reds and blues, all circulating around the centre of a colourful grid. A warm ripple of pleasure spread through the seated audience. Mali’s gentle voice accompanied the image of her painting, and then she steamed into an hour of vivid recollections and tantalising explanations. Just like the jazz drummer John Stevens of whom Mali talked so warmly, she revealed through her talk the improvisations, risks, tricks and freedom with which she makes paintings. The results are points at which a process of excavation have been halted. Paintings run into trouble, don’t work, but then through an enjoyable process of determination, come to a point of conclusion.

Mali Morris studied Fine Art at University of Newcastle upon Tyne, graduating in 1968, and two years later received a Master of Fine Art from the University of Reading. Her early career combined studio practice with teaching, visiting art schools around the country forming impromptu associations with fellow artists as they too travelled back and forth to teach and earn their studio rent. There is a powerful sense of community and sociability running through her practice. Mali is a founding member of A.P.T Studios and Gallery (Art in Perpetuity Trust) in Deptford, an organisation that offers crucial support to emerging artists. Mali is now established as one of the country’s most influential painters with artworks in internationally important collections and exhibitions.

 

Painting in this century has been haunted by Robert Morris’s notion of its historically weighed down and ‘antique mode’. But Mali’s paintings fit into a new modality, one that acknowledges the past and rebirths it with a contemporary vigour. Her spirited approach to colour and formalism offers much to inspire a new generation of artists. It is quite revelaing to compare Mali’s paintings with her Instagram feed, where in the latter we find impetus, social concerns, and humanism. She showed some incidental photographs in her talk, fragments, and insights into a thought process, but this is just the surface. Mali is driven by memories of family, of nurturing, of friends, of partners, of classical painting, of music. This comes through her use of colour and form. But there is always obfuscation, be it a sideways glance at a shape that might be something, or a wiping away of something to reveal something else, or a system imposed upon a freedom or vice versa. There is generosity, but also something held back.

 
 

Mali talked carefully and meaningfully for just over an hour, and then answered questions for another thirty minutes. I think she could have continued had we not run out of time. The eagerness with which members of the audience took the opportunity to continue conversations at the conclusion of the talk demonstrated Mali’s appeal. The eagerness with which Mali happily engaged with everyone mirrored the energy and convivial nature of her paintings.

 
 
 

Review by former ncas trustee Carl Rowe

 

Talk by Cornelia Parker CBE, RA

Event date: 23 April 2024

 

Cold Dark Matter, Cornelia Parker

 
 
““Art allows me to explore my imagination””
— Cornelia Parker
 

Welcomed by Professor Richard Sawdon Smith, Head of Fine Art, NUA and Dr Rosie Gray, Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at the Norwich Castle & Art Gallery, Cornelia Parker wowed a sell-out audience at the NUA Lecture Theatre with a witty, richly illustrated and insightful talk on her practice and the wider world.

 
 

From humble beginnings as a child in rural Cheshire helping her father on their small holding, Cornelia saw escape and play as something rare and secretive and rapidly developed an ability to “play in her imagination”. Her search for escapism might account for her early love of Tom and Jerry cartoons and Charlie Chaplin films. These influences, combined with her natural curiosity (she was known as “nosey Parker” at school), subversive mischief-making and sense of justice, have underpinned her practice ever since.

 
“I’m not going to show you my art. I’m going to share it with you”
— Cornelia Parker
 

Parker was lucky to have two sympathetic art teachers at school, but a school visit to London art galleries as a 15 year old had a hugely profound effect on her. Perhaps tellingly, she admits she was drawn to the works of Salvador Dali and Richard Dadd. She recalls “the whole world of art opened up: I'd never even been to a museum before. Having spent my childhood working hard, the idea that I might spend my adulthood playing began to seem quite attractive." From there, she chose to pursue the creative arts as a career - much to the consternation of her parents.

From her earliest days as an artist, Parker has used visual metaphors and storytelling to investigate the nature of many things. She says “I’m not going to show you my art. I’m going to share it with you”. She is naturally drawn to “things with a past” and their secret histories, even their “subconscious” undersides. Enter her chief protagonists, the many, often banal, “found objects” such as sheds, brass band instruments, teapots - even dust.

One can argue that Parker’s need to alter, manipulate, crush or explode these objects is a subconscious kick against her repressive upbringing. Their magical transformation into exquisitely re-created artworks such as Cold Dark Matter: An exploded view or Thirty Pieces of Silver offer a fairy-tale happy ending. Often suspended, the recreated works have a sense of delicate gravity which pulls them safely back to earth. Her witty artwork titles are arguably as thought-provoking as the work itself.

Landscape with Gun and Tree, Cornelia Parker

 
 
“I like it very much when worlds collide”
— Cornelia Parker

Her exploration of more controversial subjects such as guns in Embryo Firearms and Landscape with Gun and Tree (after Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Parker) or pornography Pornographic Drawings, using ink solvent used to dissolve pornographic video tape, are designed to “test prejudice”.

In the same vein, Mass (Colder Dark Matter) suspending the charred remains of a church that had been struck by lightning in Texas and companion piece Anti Mass, using charcoal from a black congregation church in Kentucky destroyed by arson, court controversy but also send a powerful message of metamorphosis and resurrection.

She says “I like it very much when worlds collide”. In Parker’s case of course, this is often literally true.

 

Mass Colder, Darker Matter, Cornelia Parker

While Parker is highly collaborative in the realisation of her artworks, she generally prefers to work on her own without assistants. She acknowledges her “grasshopper” enquiring mind which can turn in many directions requiring an almost forensic ability to acquire new techniques (and specialist experts) to help her realise her work. It is apparent that she relishes the meticulous planning and realisation. For Parker, the process and the materials are as important as the finished object.

A perfect example of this is her work Magna Carta (An Embroidery) where Parker created a hand-embroidered version of the Wikipedia article Magna Carta, as it appeared on 15 June 2014, to celebrate its 800th anniversary. Embroiderers included members of the Embroiderers Guild, HM prisoners, Peers, MPs, judges, human rights lawyers, a US ambassador and his staff, and various public figures including Julian Assange, Jarvis Cocker and Doreen Lawrence.

 
 

Parker is unashamedly political. She has said “There’s such a freedom about being an artist.. You’re not accountable – you’re this renegade thing”. It affords her her the privilege, almost responsibility, to amplify voices that are often overlooked. She is passionate about the future, particularly global environmental challenges and issues of social justice and has joined the recently formed creatives’ think tank, Hard Act, spearheaded by Brian Eno.

Still from THE FUTURE (Sixes and Sevens) video, Cornelia Parker


Her recent work, a short film The Future (Sixes and Sevens) is a funny yet poignant examination of the future through the eyes of British primary school children. In an interview with the FT about the work, she says “I’m hoping people watching will realise that we are the adults. We can do something. The children can’t. We can’t wait for them to grow up. We have to act in every way we can”.

Going forward, Parker promises to “keep pushing the envelope”. No surprise from an artist who, according to Bloomberg, has established a reputation as “one of the most inventive and quietly provocative artist of her generation.

Our thanks go to NUA for kindly hosting this talk which is part of ncas’ ongoing talks programme.

Small Grants - Awards Announced

We are pleased to let you know that the ncas Trustees have agreed two awards of £500 in this round of Small Grants funding for members’ projects:

1.      Will Teather for production of new paintings at his Tombland studio and an exhibition of this work at Mana Art in Aylsham in summer 2024.

2.      Malca Schotten and Barbara Laws for an exhibition entitled ‘Engaging Images’ at Cromer Artspace, Diss Corn Hall and the Minories, Colchester, on the theme of public participation in the arts.

The next round of applications will open for applications at the end of July and close on 30 September 2024. Further details will be posted on the ncas website and by email in due course.

These grants aim to support small projects such as exhibitions, that might not otherwise achieve funding and the programme is open to members only.

Read all guidance and apply here.

Secrets of Soil – NCAS award-winner Henry Driver at the Sainsbury Centre

Secrets of Soil – ncas award-winner Henry Driver at the Sainsbury Centre

By Carl Rowe, ncas trustee and artist

 

Let us establish something from the outset, I don’t play video games. That said, I do remember playing Asteroids and Space Invaders back in the 1970s, both games defined by restrictions of movement and the anxiety-inducing onslaught of salvos. I expected vestiges of this unease along with the awkwardness of a sixty-something when, this February, I sat down to play Henry Driver’s game Secrets of Soil at the Sainsbury Centre’s exhibition Sediment Spirit: The Activation of Art in the Anthropocene. After one minute playing (or engaging) I was transported into an enthralling world of microscopic architecture and microbial communities. No anxiety, just a sense of wonder. The inspiration for this game came from the work that Henry’s family have done to make their farming methods carbon negative. When you enter his interactive journey, you are made aware of the complexity of soil and the symbiosis of the organisms that inhabit it. He does this through vivid and enthralling imagery. It is a game, but more so it is an artistic reimagining of the cosmic world beneath our feet and a cautionary reminder of the damage that we are doing to the balance of nature.

Henry Driver graduated with distinction from Norwich University of the Arts with an M.A. Fine Art in 2016. He also studied for his B.A. (Honours) at Norwich University of the Arts, receiving first-class honours. His progress as an artist is marked by notable achievements, and he has accumulated an international reputation for research and creativity within the field of climate change and impact. His inclusion in Sediment Spirit: The Activation of Art in the Anthropocene aligns his practice with internationally recognised artists, all pursuing facets of a geo-political critique. Perhaps it was obvious that Henry would be successful as a professional practising artist whilst he was still studying at undergraduate level. His focus, ambition and creative capability came across powerfully in his degree show work, which won him the Norfolk Contemporary Art Society Award for a graduating student in 2015. Henry reflects on this by saying,

“Receiving the Norfolk Contemporary Arts Society award provided a combination of both confidence and financial support which is so critical at the start of your career. My degree show piece was quite a development and departure on previous work with a focus on filmed imagery instead of abstraction.”

On a practical level, Henry used the prize money to assist with a 2-month residency at Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge in 2015, and then for a Leverhulme Scholar Residency that same summer. What was left over he invested in making new artwork. But Henry also notes that “the ability to put on your CV that you’d won an award really was incredible and helped my career progress”. He is in no doubt that receiving the Norfolk Contemporary Arts Society award galvanised his direction as an artist and validated the importance of what he was setting out to do.

ncas continues to award the annual £500 Fine Art Prize to a student graduating from BA (Honours) Fine Art at Norwich University of the Arts, as well as the recently introduced ncas £500 New Makers Prize. In addition, ncas also offers support to Norfolk-based artists and groups through its Small Grants programme. The encouragement that all of this gives to graduates can’t be underestimated and is an endowment for our future artists. 

Discover more about the artist Henry Driver http://www.henrydriverartist.com/

Sediment Spirit: The Activation of Art in the Anthropocene is showing at Sainsbury Centre until 14th April 2024. https://www.sainsburycentre.ac.uk/whats-on/sediment-spirit/

Will Teather: Seeing the World Differently

Event date: 7 March 2024

 

Will Teather in his studio

 
 

“Art should offer us extraordinary spectacles; art should be alchemy; art should make us see the world differently; art should open conversations.”

Will Teather, Manifesto (excerpt)

Artist, magician, showman, musician. It’s hard to define an artist such as Will Teather, whose intriguing manifesto is a must-read for anyone interested in the creative process.

In a hugely entertaining, whistle stop tour of his career to date, Teather described his early days of art taught at Reepham School to the somewhat unstructured but formative years at Central St Martins and Chelsea College of Art & Design, after which he fully embraced his fascination for magical realism or “ontological ambiguity”, where it is not immediately obvious what is real or unreal.

Teather’s inspiration is firmly anchored in Norfolk’s tradition of carnival, performance and artistic illusion, and its ability to joyfully subvert authority. He combines this with traditional historical subjects and painting techniques, often using motifs from historical sources.

Perspective is key and used as a narrative tool. He says “A lot of my work deals with the carnival-esque and a sense of the uncanny. It’s about creating extraordinary visual spectacles through painting”. The resulting body of work is solely figurative - “I don’t do landscapes” - where Teather uses models often from a performance art background, with whom he builds the pictoral narrative. Here, Paula Rego and Lucien Freud have been sources of inspiration.

“I’ve always enjoyed visual games with artworks, plays upon form, repetition and pattern that are very hard to write about. But they are easy to enjoy”.

Will Teather in his studio


Teather has recently opened a studio in the heart of Tombland which is open to the public each Saturday in March and by appointment after that.

For further information visit www.willteather.com

ncas are grateful to The Norwich School for kindly hosting this event as part of ncas’ talks programme at their excellent Blake Studio.

 
 

Bridget Bailey: Art in the Making

Event date: 31 January 2024
Review by Danusia Wurm

 

Bridget Bailey. Image courtesy of bridgetbailey.co.uk

 

‘‘I’d love to be thought of as a sort of textile Darwin, exploring nature and recording and translating what I learn into materials and making”

Bridget Bailey

“Wow” is a very small word to sum up the enthusiastic reaction to Bridget Bailey’s talk, organised jointly by ncas and the Norwich School, to a full house at the Blake Studio.

Brought up in North Yorkshire with an inherent passion for the natural landscape, Bridget’s career has evolved from textiles, through millinery, and into artworks over the 40 years she has been “making”. 

Her fragile artworks and sculptures combine intense observation and intricate making, with the down-to-earth approach to life and death of an allotment gardener.

From the fragile rolled edge of a tiny pea pod to the sleek plumpness of the humble worm, Bridget creates work of breathtaking delicacy and beauty.

ncas are grateful to The Norwich School for kindly hosting this event as part of ncas’ talks programme at their excellent Blake Studio.


 

Interrupt

Interrupt art exhibition, a central element of Queerfest Norwich 2024, is to be held at the Undercroft from 9th - 24th February. ncas is pleased to have helped to support this event with one of our small grants.

Rachel Collier-Wilson worked with guest curator, Sakib Khan, to produce this show and she explained the concept behind the exhibition:

“As LGBTQIA+ people, we operate within the matrix of a cis-heteronormative society. We are often unseen. When we are noticed, we are often ‘othered’. Interrupt aims to challenge and disrupt the system and the cis-heteronormative gaze. Interrupt is to be curated to foreground varied stories of Queer experience. The exhibition aims to validate and affirm marginalised identities, potentially sparking new ideas in individual practice and supporting emerging artists. Artists may wish to share art that addresses topics of gender, sexuality, gender dysphoria, mental health, combating stigma, masculine- and feminine-presenting folk and, of course, some fun and playfulness.”

The Undercroft can be found at the top side of Norwich Market, close to Norwich City Hall and the Guildhall. Open 11-5 Tuesday - Saturday; 12-4 Sunday, 9 - 24 February.