The 2016 MA Fine Art summer show is on from 3 to 9 September 2016, at Chelsea College of Arts, London. As with previous years, business-as-usual is comprised of anything-but in a show that includes around 80 graduate artists in “…a programme that covers the entire spectrum of what fine art is and can be.”
Chelsea College of Arts continues where Tate Britain left off
Next door at Tate Britain, fine art lovers can wander through 500 years of culture from 1540 – but the road ends around the year 2000. To continue the journey, we must head over the road to Chelsea College of Arts where, in a tour of the MA Fine Art show, we can discover up-to-the-minute works by today’s artists.
Chelsea is such a maze with the MA Fine Art discipline spread across the campus (that along with Fine Art, also includes MA shows in Graphic Design Communication, Interior & Spatial Design, Textile Design, and MA Curating & Collections); as such, it may be easier to take in the show as a series of “mini-exhibitions”, in which several artists share a space that seems to be curated beyond mere aesthetic concerns – an approach that serves each artist’s work effectively.
Following the natural flow from gallery to gallery, one might wonder, is figurative work making a comeback? And painting, as always in art schools through the centuries, forms the centrepiece in many of the rooms – but – any ideas about “traditional” forms of art are handily waylaid by the experimental (and sometimes fanciful) nature of all the artwork in these galleries.
There are installations including those from Natalie Anastasiou, Lihong Liu, and Wasma Hamidaddin that draw the viewer into a space/time that exists only in some in-between,
paintings by David Vinall posture in a thrumming room that lures the viewer in from down the hall and forms a visual soundscape,
and 3-D pieces such as Cuishan Huang‘s rabbits that share a wistful intimacy between viewer and artist.
It would be easy to spend another hour (or three) here to keep exploring very human themes that I came across here today, such as displacement, sexuality, the human figure, dystopia, nostalgia, and identity – to name just a few of the innumerable ideas that these artists are interested in.
If you’ve only a little time to see the show today, it’s worth checking out a section then making another trip. But hurry back because the show ends 9 September 2016!
More info about MA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts
- Meet the artists of MA Fine Art 2016 – Chelsea College of Arts, London
- Check out the MA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts – how to apply, history, programmes, and more
- Keep up-to-date with MA Fine Art on Facebook – photos, artist stories, exhibition/event announcements and more!
kelise soixante-douze 