The Fine Art of Success
From academic accolades and movie stardom, to launching new galleries, showing new work and winning awards, Falmouth Fine Art students have been reaping the rewards of success and establishing a variety of interesting careers. A recent evaluation of students both past and present has highlighted some impressive achievements.
Jo Stockham has recently been appointed Professor of Printmaking at the Royal College of Art.
Gong for the most glamorous entry goes to Rebekah Gilbertson, who moved into film production after graduating in BA(Hons) Fine Art from Falmouth in 1995. She went on to enrol at the National Film & Television School, and her feature film, starring Keira Knightley, about the relationship between Dylan Thomas, his wife Caitlin and his childhood friend Vera Phillips, goes into production later this year.
A number of current students have gained places on prestigious postgraduate courses. Rowena Harris has been accepted by Goldsmiths to study for a Master of Fine Art. Other MA congratulations are due to Simon Jacque for his place at the Royal College of Art to study Visual Communication. He will be joined there by Richard Baines who will study painting and John Nielson who will study sculpture, as well as Cordelia Cembrowicz and Poppy Jones who will start their postgraduate studies in printmaking at the RCA in September 2008.
Wendy Croft, who graduated in 1997, has opened her own gallery in Whitstable, showcasing not only her own work but that of six other Falmouth alumni from the same era: Virginia Bounds, Marie-Claire Haman, Paul Wadsworth, Samantha Sand-Holmes, Simon Tupper and Mike Hoggett. Mike Hoggett has also exhibited more than 600 paintings at the Eden Project.
Another collaboration of Falmouth Fine Art graduates is gaining momentum in London. Twenty-four students who are set to graduate in June are taking their work to the Docklands area of the capital, transporting ideas grown in Cornwall - ‘a geographical edge' - and exposing them to an urban climate. The exhibition, held at Trinity Buoy Wharf (www.fleetexhibition.info) starts in early July 2008. If you are travelling by tube, (Canning Town Station) watch out for Fine Art staff member Derek Tynan, working on an artwork commissioned by the London Underground.
More exhibition news comes from graduate, Onya McCausland, who concluded her year long residency at Gloucester Cathedral with a show that ran throughout May. Lisa Wright, Fine Art staff member and former Artist in Residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company, has an exhibition running at the Beardsmore Gallery and Roundhouse Gallery (www.beardsmoregallery.com). The work of current final-year student, Chantal Brooks, has recently been shown at The Exchange Gallery in Penzance.
Awards have been won by current student, Jayne Smith, who scooped second prize in the Boundary Gallery Figurative Art competition and Felicity Powell, a former graduate and now staff member, who through an association with the British Arts Medals Society, has designed a commemorative medal for African Leadership (www.moibrahimfoundation.org).
Ends
Media relations contact
Sally Grint - Communications & PR
Manager
University College Falmouth, Woodlane, Falmouth, Cornwall TR11 4RH
Tel: 01326 255854
Mobile: 07780 565552
Email: sally.grint@falmouth.ac.uk
Copyright © 2011 University College Falmouth. All Rights Reserved.
