We are delighted to announce the selection of four graduate artists from art schools across Scotland for the 2019 Graduate Award Programme at SSW.
In November 2019, we will be joined by Jamie Donald (DJCAD), Tasha Lizak (GSA), Chell Young (ECA) and Jacob Hoffman (Grays). Coming together on residency, the artists have opportunity to make new work, learn skills, build national networks and find approaches and methods for sustaining their practice post-graduation.
Jamie Donald
BA (Hons) Art and Philosophy
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design at the University of Dundee
My practice sits loosely between those of writing and sculpture. I view the worlds of objects and information – quite soggy with each other – as an infinite ball of resources, out of which there is always something new to be found and poetic connections to be exploited. My research has the pattern of a rhyming scheme gone awry, currently circulating around problems of categorisation, porosity, and extractivist practices (fishing, mining, theory). I hope to make work in resistance to the easy extraction demanded of language and landscape, and the system of value and exchange to which they yield.
I’m currently thinking about puddles (quite small bodies of water) and puddling (a metallurgy refinement process), and plan to use my time on the residency making work in and around the two.
I feel privileged by this opportunity of time and space to focus completely on my practice, get back into a workshop, and be among a peer group of fresh eyes, work, and ideas.
Jacob Hoffman
BA (Hons) Contemporary Art Practice
Gray’s School of Art at Robert Gordon University
I see my work as a meeting point of images and ideas. Within this practice, I endeavour to explore certain ‘in-between’ spaces in relation to queer-ness and the re-telling of personal histories. I take a multi-disciplinary approach, curating various outcomes and visual elements in order to contribute to a wider dialogue.
Looking ahead to the residency, I would like to conduct a period of research with specific focus on the social history of the surrounding area. I hope to uncover some hidden stories and gain insight into the signification of objects in rural communities.
I’m looking forward to having the chance to work without distraction and to begin to develop my practice beyond the art school environment. I’m hoping that it will be a productive and enriching experience.
Tasha Lizak
BA (Hons) Sculpture and Environmental Art
Glasgow School of Art
A blend of the forthright and the inarticulate, my practice explores the paradoxes of hyper-connectivity in the network age. With an emotive compass, I navigate through the ambiguous terrain of virtuality and its effect on our subjectivity. Mixing humour and melancholy, my work is situated between the physical intimacies and conceptual distances, that are manifested in our virtual cum meatspace existence.
I work largely in digital media, constructing noisy, anxiety ridden work from digital animations, found footage and sound, that are evocative of the inherent desire and despair of our multi-realm existence. These works manifest as physical interventions of the virtual impositions, through installations ridden with tactile forms made through methods of reproduction; such as casting, screen printing and 3D printing.
I’m looking forward to getting back into the workshop to develop the material side of my practice; a facet I was worried I’d be unable to pursue after graduating. This in itself can enhance both the digital side of my practice as well as the dialogue between the virtual and physical that is so essential to my work.
Chell Young
BA (Hons) Painting
Edinburgh College of Art at the University of Edinburgh
My work investigates the relationships we have with architectural spaces we encounter on a day to day basis. I create realistic small scale interiors which attempt to disorientate and surprise, orchestrating perception through photography, film and the presentation of the models as sculptural forms.
I plan to spend my time developing my technical processes, engaging with new materials and using the technical support offered to really mature and expand on my particular skill set. The SSW Graduate Award Programme will enable me to immediately throw myself and my research straight into practice and I’m excited to have the support to really push my work and expand my ideas and processes.
Coming out of art school it is incredible to be given this opportunity, to continue to develop and receive technical and professional support whilst also making new connections with other artists. This residency will help me to continue gaining momentum and enable me to work on larger and more ambitious projects.
More information on the Graduate Award Programme
Graduate Award Programme 2018 artists announced
