Now on: West Dean Visual Arts Graduation Show - June 28 to July 5
Eight visual artists at West Dean College present their studio work at their end-of-year show, from Saturday 28th June to Saturday 5th July 2008. This exhibition comprises the work of eight artists at various stages of their careers. There is one undergraduate painter, three postgraduate painters, two mid-career artists studying for the Professional Development Diploma, one research associate and one sculptor who is West Dean’s first Xilitla Scholar.
The Edward James Museum, The Xilitla Foundation (both in Mexico) and West Dean College are working together on an exchange scheme for artists, craftspeople and conservators from Europe and Mexico. The first Xilitla Scholarship was awarded to Antonio Rodriguez Rivera, a sculptor from Mexico. Another of the students, Catharine Somerville, spent a number of weeks in Edward James's 'Surrealist Eden' in Las Posas, Xilitla - developing her work in light of James's vision of artistic freedom. She says:
“My experience in Xiltla was extremely rewarding. Kako, the son and heir of Plutarcho, Edward James’s friend and collaborator, expressed how important it was to have an artist living and working here. He told me that he had a similar feeling of an artist’s presence
growing up when Edward James was creating his magical wonderland of entrances and exits coming and going nowhere. Mexico had strong elements of West Dean and Surrealism. The gardens at Las Posas revealed a childlike wonderment to me. I hope to return to this magical place”.
Edward James was a patron of the arts in Britain and Mexico and he supported many artists at a formative stage in their careers including Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Kati Horna. His love of Mexico and his vision for the arts continues to be nurtured through this scheme.
The Visual Arts programmes at West Dean College are validated by the University of Sussex. Dr Edward Winters leads the Painting and Drawing and Sculpture programmes, teaching alongside visiting lecturers and professional artists.
The graduating artists are:
Keith Hope-Lang; graduate diploma visual arts
Keith’s work prompts some thought; it is not to be dismissible at a glance. He is economical with the style, removing the noise of the unnecessary detail. Just a few strokes should be enough to hint at the meaning.
Šárka Darton; postgraduate painting and drawing
Šárka Darton is an internationally recognised artist whose work is in several private and corporate collections in England, Germany and the U.S.A. Šárka is always looking for new ways in which her art will create a space, rather than simply occupy it. The viewer has a sense of being within the work and not just standing in front of it.
Jayne Sandys-Renton; postgraduate painting and drawing
Jayne is a painter, working on a large-scale in acrylic and/or oils using figurative themes, working towards her MA in Visual Arts. Currently she makes large-scale expressive paintings based on photographs by other artists, appropriating their images and reworking them in a new manner so they become hers, but with an echo of their origin. She graduated in 2003 from the University of Chichester and has since been working as a painter and a teacher. She has exhibited widely, including Fresh Art, Business Design Centre, Islington, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester and National Oceanographic Centre, Southampton.
Shelagh Williams; postgraduate painting and drawing
Shelagh graduated from Winchester School of Art in 1997. Since graduating, she has shown work in galleries in Scotland, London, Oxfordshire, Dorset, Hampshire, three times in the Chichester Open, and the Artsway Open. She is currently half way through her MA in Visual Arts at West Dean College and looks forward to continuing her painting career.
Antonio Rodriguez-Rivera; postgraduate diploma in sculpture
Antonio was born in Mazatlan, Mexico. He has worked as an ethnographer, arts teacher, artist and designer in his homeland and in many other countries where he has lived, including Switzerland, Zimkbabwe, Trinidad and Tobago. His most recent installation, Tree of Life was shown at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. He is the first Xilitla scholar at West Dean College and currently works in mixed media with a preference for sculpture.
Catharine Somerville; professional development diploma in painting and drawing
Catharine studied Fine art at York University and printmaking at Georgian College in Canada. She was awarded the Gryphon prize in Canada and Chariman's prize from the Edward James Foundation in the UK. After moving to England, she set up Herringbroom Studio in 1992 as an artists-based teaching studio. Catharine’s current work explores themes of transformation through the process of layering. Layers of paint describe the layers and erosions of the human condition.
Kaoru Tsunoda; research associate
Kaoru studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and is a former artist-in-residence
(2005) at West Dean College. In 2006 she held an exhibition at the College, Kinetic Cabaret, with Kang-Hyun Ahn. Kaoru works with everyday objects/mixed media materials and combines them with simple kinetic mechanisms to drive an installation/object into the state of ‘living’.
Meg Shirayama; development diploma in painting and drawing
Meg graduated with an MFA in Fine Art Painting at Slade School of Fine Art in 2007. Whilst on her Professional Development Diploma at West Dean College, she is collaborating with the furniture department. She is interested in the conceptual function of a painting as a three-dimensional object. The ‘useful look’ of the object can be created by the construction of basic forms. The simpler the form, the more open to utilitarian possibilities it becomes.