Northbrook Met student, Kathryn Best returns to Colonnade House with her latest series of works alongside fellow students Rhianna Wass and Victoria Waldron, as they prepare for their final year.
BA (Hons) Fine Art student Kathryn Best is inspired by her visits to Nymans Garden in late spring, summer and early autumn last year.
Her paintings are all on canvas and capture the essence of this garden and include the colours of the flowers and foliage on display. For this exhibition, she abandoned the pastel shades inspired by Cissbury Ring and has used Magenta, Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Orange and Cobalt Blue, with a certain amount of Titanium White.
Her early experimental work is inspired by the late Gillian Ayres and Damien Hirst, (his Veil series in particular) and lead on from her paintings based on my visits to Cissbury Ring.
Kathryn began by attending evening classes before starting her BA (Hons) Fine Art Degree course in 2016. She is a mature student at Northbrook Met having studied part-time for the last three years. This year she will be studying full time so that she completes her degree by the end of the academic year.
Rhianna Wass is also a third year BA (Hons) Fine Art student at Northbrook MET. Rhianna is primarily a figurative sculptor but also enjoys drawing as part of her practise.
Themes mostly covered in Rhianna’s work are focused on death. Since her father’s death in 2018, Rhianna has used my art as a form of therapy, this led to many investigations into death and dying.
Investigations have either stemmed from a very personal point of view into what it’s like to watch someone die, or a more generalised approach, which is evidenced in her recent body of work observing figures in burials and mass graves.
Rhianna uses liquid latex as her preferred medium. The skin-like texture and colour lends itself very well to my themes. Rhianna is currently working towards the end of year degree show at University, in which she intends to make more work of a similar style and theme.
Victoria lives in Bognor Regis and is also currently studying BA (Hons) Fine Art at Northbrook Met.
Material selection is the most important part of Victoria’s practice. Although her work will begin by writing, sketching and taking photographs, her work will often change slightly once she has selected her mediums. Having a fascination for textures, she loves to use materials that convey a feeling of comfort and pain. Victoria’s work features materials that are low and high-tech, this is down to the artists interest in pairing robust and fragile elements, such as man-made materials mixed with things found naturally.
Victoria finds her inspiration from her childhood memories; she also uses writing from her journal as a framework in some of her pieces. Working mainly in 3D Installation and Sculpture, Victoria is interested in creating physical forms for things that would not normally have a physical body, such as human emotion. She also creates short films to accompany her 3D work, occasionally merging the two, making wearable sculptures for performance and film. More recently she has been exploring her own relationship with humour a coping mechanism for depression. This can be seen in her most recent work “Jeste” a series of small porcelain sculptures and rope installations that exploit her own mental struggle through cathartic techniques.
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