BA (hons) Fine Art…
Fine Art is at the forefront of cultural production, exploring new terrain and challenging existing ideas. Our course will allow you to become part of this momentum by entering into a community of artists, supported and encouraged to extend your creative work and ideas into new areas.
During the course, you will create a substantial portfolio of work to showcase your technical and creative talents, culminating in your final show.
EXHIBITING
AMELIA LEWIS / AMY CARTER / ASHLEY M GREGORY / CHARLOTTE NUTTALL / EVE WHITBY / FERN DUNNE / KACEY READING / KATE PHILLIPS / KATIE FIDLER / KEIRA THORNTON / LEAH RUSH / LUCY ROSE / MALAKAI HEWITT / NELLY LEDGER / NICK BAYLISS / PIPPA CURLEY / SCARLETT HOADLEY / SOPHIA MACEDO
AMELIA LEWIS
Frostbite
Using acrylic paint, I explore mood through colour, composition, weather, and light in my landscape paintings. Frostbite expresses melancholy with chaotic undertones, using colder tones and loose brushstrokes to evoke a sense of emotional tension within the frozen landscape.
Emerald solitude
Emerald Solitude features a tranquil pond with lily pads in a peaceful, lonely spot. The painting expresses quiet reflection and the subtle beauty of solitude through the landscape using soft greens, warms browns and soft brushstrokes to evoke a peaceful atmosphere.
AMY CARTER
Ethereal Greens
A mixed-media piece which explores the relationship between the self and nature, highlighting the interconnectedness of nature, touch and history within lived experience. This piece is tactile which adds an element of physicality to the viewers experience.
Delicate Ruin
A piece which explores identity as both constructed and fragile, with glass shards symbolising distortion and emotional barriers. The steady gaze suggests resilience; however, the fragmentation reflects vulnerability, introspection and the coexistence of beauty and brokenness within the personal experience.
ASHLEY M GREGORY
The Paper Waste Portrait Project (PWPP)
The PWPP is an institutional critique exploring the byproducts of individual artists’ creativity, and how these can be made into art works, by examining the systems we have in place within our practices to reduce our waste.
Papermaking workshop
To accompany the PWPP, I facilitated a Papermaking workshop within the University. To teach artists how to turn their creative waste into either a final artwork or a material that can be used again within their individual practice.
CHARLOTTE NUTTALL
Longing for Light
This oil painting features in a collection of melancholy, chiaroscuro portraits: Portraits in the Dark exhibited together to create one. A French parlour style hang to mimic a classic renaissance exhibition style.
Trace of Crimson
Inspired by a scene from Peaky Blinders, this oil painting captures a moment of loss. As a crimson tone of blood contrasts, the dark, chiaroscuro lighting, a sense of unease arises within this scene.
Xh-ae Alien Head
Inspired by the works of Wayne Barlowe, C.M. Kosemen, and others, I created this sculpture depicting my own alien species – a female xh-ae. The sapient beings from a planet dangerously useful to furthering the dying human race.
Hildegard of Bingen
One of three coloured linocut prints depicting influential medieval women who were attempted to be erased by man-led history. Hildegard of Bingen was a 12th century nun, visionary, author, herbalist, and the closest thing to a medieval celebrity.
Corrigendum of Errors
Corrigendum refers to the correction of text, and I have applied it to how women are corrected throughout the centuries. From Eve, Lilith, and Medusa correction is unfair and brutal.
Spider
Beaded jumping spider, created with brooch and polymer clay. Many creations myths from Mesopotamia to Lakota Native Americas feature female spiders weaving destinies.
KACEY READING
Buttercups and Daisy Chains
A perception of the things we leave once school is over. The boards clean, only the remnants of chairs are not fully tucked. Left to reminisce by a newer version of your person. Oil on canvas 30cm x 40cm
Lost and Found
A dreamscape of a normal street, so normal even you’re in it. Look! Behind the pillar! I wonder what you’re doing here? Oil on canvas 60cm x 100cm
KATE PHILLIPS
Welsh Landscape #1
In response to a life-altering diagnosis, I turned to the Welsh Landscape for solace and reflection. This body of work, created with Welsh yarn, explores the relationship between material and subject, grounded in place and expressed through a contemporary practice.
Welsh Landscape #2
Also made from Welsh yarn, this work examines the colours of the landscape. It’s soft material presence aims to evoke calm and clarity, situating material and place in a connected, reciprocal relationship.
KATIE FIDLER
Nourished By Love
This elegant continuous line drawing captures the intimate bond between mother and child. A single, unbroken stroke flows seamlessly to form the gentle curves, perfectly embodying the unbroken connection, warmth, and tender closeness shared in this precious moment.
The First Link
Rendered in a graceful continuous line, this artwork depicts the profound connection between mother and child. The single unbroken stroke mirrors the umbilical bond, symbolising how life and love flow seamlessly together, forming an inseparable link from the very beginning.
KEIRA THORNTON
The Bench of Reflection
It’s made with off cuts of wood; I left it in its original organic state instead of painting it. The words in greens and blues are the focal point. The bench deliberately transforms the viewing experience from a passive glance into a profound “slow looking” engagement. It fosters deeper emotional connections, mental health well-being, and a better understanding of the work.
Flower, Butterfly Garland
A section from my large garland consisting of pipe cleaner flowers and embroidered butterflies. This piece is suspended on wooden poles creating a winding design, using a range of flowers including tulips, daisies, lilies, camellias and dahlias. The butterflies are cut out individually and assembled.
LEAH RUSH
Blue Series No.8
A monochromatic study of the lily. Flooded in Prussian Blue, a bold depiction of a need to create for oneself.
Blue Series No.6
A succulent still life. A representation of a new found passion, the spark to start the fire of creativity.
Inhale Exhale
My exhibition explores the human condition and the fragility of life with a surrealist flair, intertwining visceral organ imagery with domestic objects. Inhale Exhale is an interactive sculpture, allowing you to see and ‘wear’ the physical effects of smoking.
Vanitas
A deathly still life painting that features a variety of my sculptures to further comment on our fragile lives and our mortality. Containing an eerie essence within it with a sense of familiarity which is ongoing within my work.
MALAKAI HEWITT
Home Telephone
In bright red, shown here is a cardboard sculpture of a typical, classic telephone, as the artist’s work explores themes of human connection and how we’re less communicative now that we have text messages.
Slot Machine-for-Brains
And here is a sculpture of a slot machine inspired by the look of the digestive system, exploring how the artist generates ideas, and the emotions that come with it.
NELLY LEDGER
Deep Consciousness
Using my fears of deep water against the sublimity of nature, my oil painting depicts a diver escaping the encroaching marine life having entered an unfamiliar territory. This work highlights both marine conservation and escapism through fear of responsibility.
Ocean Ridge
My seascapes capture the oceans shifting moods through colour gradients and interconnecting shapes. I use the ocean as a way to reflect on my ‘Blue Mind’ headspace during my open water swimming and scuba diving experiences.
NICK BAYLISS
The shapes of war
The materials used to create this piece were fragmented off cut pieces of wood, which were put together to create a shelf. This shelf acts as a backdrop and a secure way to display and advertise the main attraction which are the ceramics.
Ceramics of war
These three abstract ceramics have been created from school buff clay and have been coated and fired in two different types of glazes. These three pieces put together will act as a triptych which will reference war and conflict.
PIPPA CURLEY
Glass of Red
This painting is drawn from a photographic reference taken during my research, depicting a woman pouring red wine with quiet focus. The use of vivid pink tones and gestural brushwork emphasise the strength of the source image, merging observation, experimentation and personal visual language.
Harvey
This painting depicts my friend, from a picture I personally captured, drinking a beer with a calm, introspective gaze. Loose and expressive brushstrokes with soft pink and mint tones reinterpret the photograph, blending realism and abstraction to convey intimacy and personal connection.
SCARLETT HOADLEY
Memory Fragmentation
This project explores memory loss associated with conditions such as dementia, vascular disorders of the brain, amnesia, and Alzheimer’s disease. Through cyanotype printing and photography, the work reflects on personal memories and lived experience.
Treasured Rubbish
A collection of objects that are considered rubbish and get thrown away. I wanted to show how easy it can be to forget memories as soon as we stop experiencing them, the rubbish representing the memories.
SOPHIA MACEDO
Pain Chew
An exploration into the relationship between pain and pressure, and how these interacts when stimming as an autistic person. The object replaces flesh and skin, allowing for self-soothing stimming behaviour such as biting and scratching without the danger of injury.
Reaching Out
This piece conveys the sense of helplessness that often accompanies depression, feeling unable to help yourself and simultaneously unable to ask others for help. The body mimics a person drowning into the floor, showing how normalised such experiences are.