Reading · artplace · RSS Amplifier

This page did not load. You can still read it on the original site — the toolbar below keeps your place in the directory.

Last week, between the Art Basel madness, we found time to go and check out this year’s graduating class from the Fine Art MA course at the Slade School of Fine Art, London.

It’s a maze in there! But after working our way around four floors of student’s work, today we’re highlighting five artists whose work stood out.

Annual subs are discounted for the next few weeks because it’s summer and why not?!

Selected artists and works below:

1. Michael Raphael

@michaelraphael__

First up, Michael Raphael’s presentation of three works, which sat together like a triptych, felt particularly considered and showed a confident sense of artistic identity. Le concert (left), Fèis Tir a’ Mhurain (centre) and Pour (right) bring together imagery from pop culture, archives, cartoons, and typography as well as folklore from Raphael’s South Uist heritage. The resulting juxtaposition of high/low references creates what Raphael calls a “painterly mixtape”.

2. Yoona Kwon

@yoona.indeyo

Yoona Kwon’s paintings were ethereal and warm, with a softness that shifted as you moved around it. Using layers of organza over linen, Kwon treats painting as a way of questioning what it really means to see, creating compositions that change with the light and the viewer’s position.

3. Lakshya Bhargava

@rookie_artist_17

Lakshya Bhargava’s paintings stopped us in our tracks. His figurative scenes have a brilliant sentimental feeling to them, elevating intimate, everyday moments with the glow of a long afternoon. A man shaving, skin scattered with tiny hairs, is a universally understood image and felt so visceral that it made us itchy just looking at it.

4. Manuel Alejandro Hernandez Rivera

@el_otro_manuel_hernandez

Manuel Alejandro Hernandez Rivera’s sweeping curtain and ornate valance drapery were striking for their grand, theatrical presence. The work had the drama of something old-world but the surface pulled it firmly into the present, with imprints and phrases including “Smile, you’re on camera.” The textile felt like a relic holding multiple histories.

5. Elysia Byrd

@elysiabyrd

We loved the range of Elysia Byrd’s practice, particularly this canvas that seamlessly moved between painting and sculpture, with ceramics embedded in the centre and oozing from the edges.