The following blog post is by Isla Haddow who is studying a BA in Fine Art at De Montfort University, Leicester, and has completed a work placement with Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums.

Newcastle University Fine Art Degree Show 2013, Hatton Gallery.

It’s that time of the year again – another group of students reaching the end of their Art Degree journey, ready to enter the art world.

This year’s show is home to 58 students.

The thing I always find pleasant each year at this show is the contrast between the old architecture of the Art school; tiled floors, hallways full of figurative statues, acting as a backdrop, in contrast to the contemporary and conceptual nature of the students’ work. That contrast creates a charming representation of how many art schools still are today.

This year’s show, full of diversity and ambition, represents today’s students and their creativity capabilities at their peak. With a unique combination of risk taking, processes and subject matter, the art works reflect what is key to Fine Art practice: risk-taking and experimentation.

“Logic will take you from A to B, imagination will take you everywhere.”

– Albert Einstein

The show is a creative space for students to display their work where the public are free to wander, interact, and challenge their own perceptions of Art. The exhibition also further reflects Newcastle’s Art School as an institution – this year students have done a good job at this.

Work which particularly stood out to me was that of Lilly Williams. Her drawings bring together fragments of dreams, imaginations, and mystical charismata like that of folk tales, and Surrealism. She says that her practice ‘starts with a telling of a tale’ however her drawings are ‘not the whole story’ – the work steams from the truth within these tales and takes a visual and partly written form.

Go to http://www.nclfineart2013.com/williams.html for more information on Lily’s work.

Lilly Williams: Untitled | Watercolour on Paper | 28cm x 28cm

Another student whose work appealed to me was Dan Linden. In the exhibition catalogue he states ‘there are often spaces within spaces…reflections that hint new spaces without fully depicting them’. Linden’s paintings are dreamlike, through their form – interiors and landscapes float in a soft, ambiguous space. However as he stated, his works simultaneously hold a sense of peril – broken spaces, faint uncertain forms, and a hint of the concept of time passage. Go to http://danlinden.com/index.php/paintings for more information on his practice.

Dan Linden: ‘Vienna Woods’ | Oil on linen | 160cm x 160

For more information and a full list of students profiles in the show go to: http://www.nclfineart2013.com/