04 June 2021
— 13 June 2021
Interlude.
We were delighted to host ‘Interlude.’ Sheffield Hallam’s MFA Fine Art Degree Show, which, for the first time, was presented in Sheffield Hallam’s new Project Space at S1 Artspace.
Despite the many challenges of the year, the exhibition celebrated curiosity, wonder and imagination through painting, drawing, sound, new media and video installation. The exhibiting artists – Lauren Clarke, Will Harrison and Phil Waterworth – demonstrated not only resilience but persistence in their individual explorations of visual language.
Lauren Clarke combines digital image-making, film, montage and installation within her practise. Clarke is drawn to concepts such as ‘the dream scene’ (Bishop, 2005) as a mode of installation art to investigate her own identity, and unconsciousness. The work drew on her experiences within the working class, gender, hyper-femininity and the cultural tropes that signify these.
Phil Waterworth’s small works on paper used the language of abstraction and landscape to explore themes of place, memory and emptiness in the poetic imagination.
Will Harrison explored what makes a ‘landscape’ by challenging the interpretation of gestural brush strokes and mark making methods against our predetermined definitions of the ‘landscape’ or landscape painting.
Sheffield Hallam University’s MFA Fine Art course offers an intensive programme in contemporary art that supports conceptual and studio-based artistic practice. The student-centric approach to making and thinking engages with practices ranging across the spectrum of the art world. Students ask questions of art, and of themselves, to engage with what it means to be a practitioner in today’s social, intellectual and artistic context. Studying is an exploration of the ways in which art practices can be transformed and re-invented by shifting definitions of practice and cultural conditions.
The programme benefits from the strength of research in Fine Art, and also in the Art and Design Research Centre. Fine Art education in Sheffield has a rich experimental history that continues to inform Sheffield Hallam’s programmes. Students join the course from an incredibly diverse range of backgrounds to come together as a studio community, sharing individual and collective interests that expand contextual and cultural awareness.