Northbrook College
BA Fine Art
Littlehampton Road, Worthing,BN12 6NU
Deborah Jones
9 June 2022
There were 15 students exhibiting their work and the college had set up the work using 2 large studios and with supporting space on 4 corridor walls and 2 cabinets. The result was an excellent use of the space to showcase some very diverse and exciting work. I decided to visit the main studio first which displayed 7 students’ work which varied from oil paintings to drawing and work on paper. Each student’s work was allocated a section of the studio with standing dividers allowing the work to be displayed on 3 walls. This was complemented by the use of the corridor outside the studio being used to display some of the same students’ work. It was helpful to display the same artist’s work in a different setting although I suspect that the reason was to make sure that each student had all their best work on show.
May Beveridge’s work was the first work in the studio consisting of 3 images on board and an installation at the centre of her section of the studio. The natural light was on the far end of the studio but the studio lights caught the hanging sections of painted MDF and projected interesting shadows on the wall. The plastic cord and transparent plastic from which the installation was attached was barely visible so amplified the feeling that the boxes were in a suspension. The college had displayed some more work in the corridors which added up to 10 more works on the same theme of cardboard boxes. In the same studio Alison Wilkinson’s oil paintings were displayed in the space nearest to the natural light from the windows out to the quadrangle. The four large paintings selected on 3 walls was an excellent use of the space and the light.
In the second studio the works of Caroline Dewing were well spaced and eye catching and she had a comments book and I noticed several people expressing interest in seeing more of her work. The figurative work of Kristine Bandzinaite was also displayed in this studio. Only a few works but they were very large. I walked along the corridors where there was also work displayed. It was a natural circuit around the quadrangle and the other 2 studios so you did not miss any student’s work. Anna Ford’s large oil paintings of cowes in a farmyard setting were shown to their best advantage in the corridor setting with separate spaces for 2 large works. It could have been dark but the artificial lighting made sure this student was not at any disadvantage.
It was an excellent degree show. The fact that there were so many students graduating and that there was such a wide range of works on display which apart from the works already mentioned included large charcoal and pastel drawings by Maria Strickland, Lucy Unsted and Tara Doe and collages by Morgan Evans and Tia Phillips wonderful use of words on teeth to express the importance of words and communication.
