Wilson Gallery
An exhibition selected from the recent degree show of nine students from University of Chichester. Concluding their three year degree in 2022 following two of the most tumultuous years faced by the world with the onset of Covid 19 and subsequent lockdowns, the nine artists represented in this exhibition have seemingly flourished in the adversity that the pandemic must have wrought on their studies. In what was a strong year for Fine Art at the University, the nine artists here have produced distinctive and bold bodies of work. Selecting one or two works (in most cases) from each artist, the overall affect is to show the strength of new graduates as they emerge as artists. Each artist bears further investigation and deserves to excel in their chosen field.
Participating Artists:
AMANDA BERRIDGE
Starting with inherited bed linen, I use dyeing and printing processes to leave traces evoking order and disorder, unravelling and repair, stains and networks. I am inspired by my German Jewish great-grandmother’s heritage of migration and hoarding domestic textiles. Whilst my tools and language are domestic, my work looks at the fabric of our society.
ANGELIKA BILLER
With my work I want to create affective and emotional images. I have chosen watercolours for their delicacy and translucency. In order to achieve an element of randomness, surprise and unpredictability, I have experimented with monoprint techniques. My work is a play between control and chance, pigment/colour and water flow.
BAILEY BISHOP
My themes are memory, time and movement. I have had an interest in these ideas since the second year, and continue to push and develop them. My practice is photographic printmaking; more specifically laser-cut engraving – I have created an installation with the intention of building a reality for the viewer to experience.
MIKE CROUCH
I am an abstract artist using various processes with paint, working the surface until a coherent pattern emerges. Chance images appear for the viewer to explore and interpret. My work is influenced by the Abstract Expressionists and Gerhard Richter.
MICHELLE DEACON
My work is based on personal experience and influenced by painters George Shaw and Lisa Brice. It is, I hope, a sensitive response to challenging aspects of life. I seek a sense of déjà vu. Through traces left by the absence of people, I render familiar choices we all face.
WENDY HODGES
My work centres around the notions of boundaries, power and control. Using my own photographic images, I investigate how these concepts exist physically in buildings, the spaces contained within and the areas outside; how these dynamics are used to shape our behaviour and control us through force, coercion and authority.
CHLOE MCARTHUR
In my work I explore the spiritual and ritualistic connection between the weave and the body in my sacred place, the beach. My inspiration comes from Cecilia Vicuna, Ann Sutton, and theorist Mircea Eliade. I use various methods such as Tablet weaving and Quipu’s to create a chaotic structure of the many connections in life.
HARRY PAYNE
My work plays with a referential material language; a language of my material informing my research and my research informing my material. My work plays with historical/anthropological objects with key interests in Middle Age Europe, Ancient Rome and Early Christianity. I want my viewer to be immersed in a space to create full engagement with the work.
ELLE SAMMONS
I explore and depict the dense wilderness of nature through immersive, melancholic charcoal drawings. I then further explore landscape in more depth, leading to abstracts reflecting my own nature.