Core members
David Ryan, Reader in Fine Art
Ryan's practice incorporates painting, video, music and critical texts. He likes them to be seen as autonomous practices that share commonalities. Notions of abstraction and indeterminacy are central to his practice both in the visual arts and the music. His critical texts explore these issues as dominant subject matter. These texts have historical and theoretical dimensions and provide the context for his multi-faceted practice.
Benet Spencer, Course Leader, BA Hons Fine Art
Benet Spencer's current practice concerns architecture as an emblematic form. Located at the intersection of real and imaginary worlds, his paintings collage found images into fictitious environments. The paintings are layered and evolve through an investigation of the possibilities for both imagery and language as means of pictorial expression. Currently, his practice breaks down into two distinct groups: paintings of singular architectural constructions, and collaged paintings of panoramic vistas. His research interests include the representation of utopia in early modernist painting, the relationship between Eastern and Western Art, and the history of 20th Century architecture.
Benet Spencer's current practice concerns architecture as an emblematic form. Located at the intersection of real and imaginary worlds, his paintings collage found images into fictitious environments. The paintings are layered and evolve through an investigation of the possibilities for both imagery and language as means of pictorial expression. Currently, his practice breaks down into two distinct groups: paintings of singular architectural constructions, and collaged paintings of panoramic vistas. His research interests include the representation of utopia in early modernist painting, the relationship between Eastern and Western Art, and the history of 20th Century architecture.
Simon Payne's most recent experimental video work has involved an intense exploration of digital colour fields, graphic forms and digital tone rows, with colour and sound in clashing and complementary combinations. The work that he has made spans single-screen, multi-projector and installation work, and has been shown in various contexts from experimental film festivals through to gallery spaces. The common investigation across these pieces concerns ways in which the viewer engages with colour mixing in three-dimensional space over time, complex time-based structures and the ways in which video fosters illusions of movement and depth. In addition to making video art works, he has also sought to develop and discuss ideas in articles for journals and publications concerning artists' film and video, new media art and animation. Simon is also the editor of the publication Sequence, devoted to artists' film and video and its links with other contemporary arts practices.
Robert Holyhead, 0.4 Lecturer in Fine Art
Robert Holyhead makes abstract paintings (oil on canvas) in relation to small watercolour studies that initiate possibilities or act as starting points for new works. His work attempts to gather and to clear; gather in the sense of bringing things into view, then clearing through a process of reducing and refining the surface. This method allows each painting to suggest an autonomous centre, ultimately resisting the tradition of compositional outcome (each new work being informed by the previous) and hopefully allowing the activity and language to remain precarious and the surface convincing.
Robert Holyhead makes abstract paintings (oil on canvas) in relation to small watercolour studies that initiate possibilities or act as starting points for new works. His work attempts to gather and to clear; gather in the sense of bringing things into view, then clearing through a process of reducing and refining the surface. This method allows each painting to suggest an autonomous centre, ultimately resisting the tradition of compositional outcome (each new work being informed by the previous) and hopefully allowing the activity and language to remain precarious and the surface convincing.
Tom Dale, PhD Research Student
Tom's research has developed from a concern with sculpture, having then broadened out into various concerns with installation/object and moving image. He is particularly interested in how the object increasingly operates as a 'portal' - whereby sculptural objects become shifting signifiers, screen-like and virtual rather than physically grounded and univocal. Not only are objects and images subverted in some way, but they also examine the potential for a frictional relationship to their origins in the everyday and popular culture.
Tom's research has developed from a concern with sculpture, having then broadened out into various concerns with installation/object and moving image. He is particularly interested in how the object increasingly operates as a 'portal' - whereby sculptural objects become shifting signifiers, screen-like and virtual rather than physically grounded and univocal. Not only are objects and images subverted in some way, but they also examine the potential for a frictional relationship to their origins in the everyday and popular culture.
Jamie George, PhD Research Student
Jamie's investigation is around memory, loss and what Maurice Blanchot referred to as 'forgetful memory'. His research looks at how constructed objects and structures can become vessels for this kind of saturation in particular in relation to the experiential conditions of their location and site. His work plays with both familiarity and estrangement, but also examines the contemporary conditions (and problematic) of what we might find locatable as a particular 'englishness' in relation to their physical context, content and situation.
Jamie's investigation is around memory, loss and what Maurice Blanchot referred to as 'forgetful memory'. His research looks at how constructed objects and structures can become vessels for this kind of saturation in particular in relation to the experiential conditions of their location and site. His work plays with both familiarity and estrangement, but also examines the contemporary conditions (and problematic) of what we might find locatable as a particular 'englishness' in relation to their physical context, content and situation.
Andrea Medjesi-Jones, PhD Research Student
Andrea's research looks at the relationship between painting, drawing and processes of thought. She is interested in Deleuze's notion of a 'shock to thought' whereby the experience of the work can momentarily unravel preconceptions and defamiliarize what, and how, form holds. She is very concerned with the act of making, but also its contextualization and, as revealed in Adorno's late writings, the potential sedimentation of content and its various histories within the work itself.
Andrea's research looks at the relationship between painting, drawing and processes of thought. She is interested in Deleuze's notion of a 'shock to thought' whereby the experience of the work can momentarily unravel preconceptions and defamiliarize what, and how, form holds. She is very concerned with the act of making, but also its contextualization and, as revealed in Adorno's late writings, the potential sedimentation of content and its various histories within the work itself.
David Pushkin, PhD Research Student
David's work explores the issue of time consciousness as it relates to the formation of narrative structure. He works with video and film, editing these works as one would compose a painting; he is, however, not exploring 'painterly' issues in such works. The relationship of his video art to painting is the shared concept of 'passage' - that one enters and goes through the work and that the process of making the object requires a movement through time. Current interests engage with narrative structure as a poetic language. Rather than utilizing narrative conventions, the present research explores the subjectivity of formal relationships that construct possibilities for narrative interpretation.
David's work explores the issue of time consciousness as it relates to the formation of narrative structure. He works with video and film, editing these works as one would compose a painting; he is, however, not exploring 'painterly' issues in such works. The relationship of his video art to painting is the shared concept of 'passage' - that one enters and goes through the work and that the process of making the object requires a movement through time. Current interests engage with narrative structure as a poetic language. Rather than utilizing narrative conventions, the present research explores the subjectivity of formal relationships that construct possibilities for narrative interpretation.
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