BA art students make the grade
EIGHT BA students have graduated from art college in Todmorden with a strong performance in their end of year show.
Pat Stansfield took a journey of exploration through identity and social norms with her piece I Do, featuring a shopping trolley piled high with everyday objects precariously towering above the audience and the delicate wedding dress positioned as if to continue pushing it through life.
"This piece is autobiographical from the moment I got married," explained Pat, who had sewn her wedding certificate into the folds of her own wedding dress and placed pictures of her three children in the trolley along with children's games and household items.
"It's basically 35 years of consumerism and domesticity. When you say 'I do' this is what you get; this is the reality. Life is not all hunky-dorey; it's not Mills and Boon; it's hard work."
Along with her fellow students Pat created the work for her final exhibition as a student on the BA (Hons) Visual Arts Degree, which is taught at Todmorden Community College, Calderdale College's Todmorden campus, in partnership with Leeds Metropolitan University.
Progression through the traumas of eating disorders and anorexia was examined by Beccy Patterson through seven wax and plaster sculptures modelled on Beccy's own stomach.
Entitled Stuck, Churn, Acid, Bleed, Ferment, Burst and Peace the 3-D pieces, some containing food, chart the evolving relationship the artist has had with food.
Birds and cages featured in Sheila Woodhead's display, which started with a bird cage discovered in a shop in Todmorden.
"I work with found objects many of which I found close to here; in Todmorden market and the little shop round the corner," said Sheila.
Dot Ellis examined the isolation felt by older women as they became increasingly less visible in the public sphere. Torn pictures of famous older women, alongside ordinary women, interspersed with women's thoughts on the aging process.
The first time Harry Ward's fellow students and tutors saw many of his angular steel sculptures was on the opening night of the exhibition as he'd constructed many of them in his garden shed.
Milltown memories, in the form of old photographs, are used as the basis of Ruth Beazley's exploration of her own identity. In her final project for this course Ruth has superimposed her own features onto the portraits of female mill workers from Ripponden: shown alongside the original photographs the lines of distinction are blurred as the concept of identity is itself questioned.
Debra Moorhead explored paint and stitch in an attempt to pacify both the viewer and the artist herself.
And Linise Lisi Crompton created a work entitled Suppress, in which the central pieces, a number of stacked sculptures, gave the impression they were just about to burst.
Part-time students, who will complete the course next year, also exhibited their work, including Sarah Stone and Christina MacRae.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Halifax
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 13 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 11 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: North east
