Degree Show Season is Upon Us

The degree show season is upon us. I would hope that, at the very least, all OCA level 3 students will be taking time to visit or look on line at degree shows across the UK.
Most degree shows have a dedicated website. Degree shows are often only open for a short amount of time and are easy to miss, so you may need to plan carefully if you are visiting more than one. www.a-n.co.uk have a degree show guide online which is packed with information and images.
I visited the Edinburgh College of Art degree show today, and will go back again before the end of the week as it is a massive and overwhelming affair, where quieter work struggles to gain purchase on attention first time around.  Last year I felt that the Sculpture department stole the show, but this year it was painting that showed the strongest field with several really powerful and inventive submissions.

My personal favourite was Yolanda McKean who graduates with a BA (Hons) in painting.  She had three walls of chalky, milky, wall eyed paintings. There was evidence of drawing, sanding, palette knife wielding and squeezing from the tube. The work was so muddy that it had an Auerbach / Kossoff post war sludge – daring me to hope for depth, but leaving me scared to look too deep.
The motifs were very simple interior scenes, a kitchen sink, a dining room table – another  reminder of the fifties and kitchen sink realism, but also reminiscent of Sickert – again a London feel.
Another stand out for me was Alice Chandler, a sculpture graduate. Her work used draped fabric and paper. With this kind of work attention to detail is everything. The piece illustrated here looked as if it had been casually draped on the floor but was in fact carefully supported to achieve this shape which was very satisfying and operated beautifully in the space.

When you are going round the degree shows; if you see artists you like that are local to you then make a note of their names and email them to request that they put you on their mailing list. This will mean that you will get invited to any future shows. This has the added benefit that you will be able to get a feel for what spaces are available for you to exhibit at yourself post graduation or for your professional practice exhibition.
OCA are running a study visit to Manchester School of Art on the 14 June, if you cannot make this why not make contact with fellow students who live locally via the forum and go as a group?