Peter S. Clarke

This week is the annual show for undergrad art and design students at NTU. I went last year and enjoyed it so made a point of going again this year. It also gave me the opportunity to take my new Panasonic TZ6 camera for a spin (more on that at the bottom).

The main event is held at the Bonnington Building, with the following courses represented:

• BA (Hons) Decorative Arts
• BA (Hons) Fashion Design
• BA (Hons) Fashion Knitwear Design and Knitted Textiles
• BA (Hons) Fine Art
• BA (Hons) Graphic Design
• BA (Hons) Photography
• BA (Hons) Textile Design

Decorative arts

Below is the main decorative arts section, in the centre of the maze-like building.

I guess there are likely to be themes in each graduating year. Last year there seemed to be a lot of ceramic work in decorative arts, this year there was far more work with textiles. All the work was of a very high standard, but a couple of pieces caught my eye particularly.

Katie Smith’s ceramics:

And this piece from Anna Byers:

Fine arts

I’ll admit to being disappointed by last year’s fine art exhibit. Amongst a couple of stand-out pieces, a lot of the material felt derivative and, frankly, a bit amateur. This year’s work felt far more complex and skillfully put together, with work from Nicola Jennings, Kyran Gregson and Adam Berriman particularly ringing out to me.

Nicola Jennings’ (who has a blog, Inside the Cabinet of Wonder) found-object birds and rats inside a cage showed vision, skill and humour.

Adam Berriman’s destruction by basketball (‘Epicentre’) also brought a smile to my face – it reminds you that you’re not alone in the secret desire to smash  things that have taken hours of effort to produce. At least it did with me…

Incidently, the camera performed superbly. It really is a great piece of kit and well worthy of the great reviews it’s been getting (look at the detail on the photo of the bird above – that’s at 1/40, handheld).  Aside from a bit more noise and a bit less detail, I doubt the results using my D200+35mm f/2 combination would have been all the much better.

One last piece, from David Bance: