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New Blood Art

Review of the Falmouth Degree Show

Falmouth, lovely by the sea, had a very different atmosphere - and the show was wonderfully rich, accomplished and engaging. We really enjoyed the inclusion of dissertation titles in the catalogue, and have reproduced some of them here - divorced from their bodies they are necessarily obscure but inviting, and sometimes make for surreal reading(s). We really enjoyed the mixed media pieces by Paris Blanche Magenta Foot (Does Painting Reflect My Reality, Or Provide an Escape From It?). They were brilliant, tactile and engaging- and quite touching. The faces of the pieces -which are caught somewhere between figuration, puppetry and debris - were reminiscent of the luminous faces of the films of the silent era, despite being based, we think, on personal source material culled and elevated possibly from family photographs. Stylistically incongruent, the expressions of the figures seemed sweetly unaware of what the rest of them was made up of.

Sylwia Podlaska (Ugliness in Fine Art) channelling Diane Arbus and Paula Rego into oils and canvas, created some enigmatic and economic paintings which seemed to investigate integrity, in their use of the thematic of bubbles, doubleness and hybridity. They invite us to form strange narratives despite their almost graphic boldness.

Extremely economic and striking too, and so effectively memorable as to be haunting despite their calm palette and restraint, were the graphic collages of Helen Davies (The Influence of the Poster during the Spanish Civil War in Relation to Posters Today.)

Bendict Slater's work is a good example of why, sometimes, a little commentary can aid the appreciation of art. His clever and funny dissertation title 'Cognitive Pest Control:- A Contemplation of Thought Process through Automatism and Oneiric Painting' changes the experience of viewing his paintings, shifting them from the graffitiesque to really immersive paintings of sensation.

We particularly enjoyed the accomplished and confident paintings of Katie Sims, who engages with painting tradition in a really fresh way. They seem to investigate the ways in which we can often look at masterful paintings, intimidated by their completeness, by loosening them up and bringing them to life, while respecting their structure and depth.
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