Meet the MiAL Artists Behind #MiALSS16
Last week we launched our Spring/Summer 2016 Collection, featuring over 40 of UAL’s finest emerging artists and designers.
The collection showcases photography, fine art, sculpture, illustration, video, fashion and homeware design. Here we introduce you to to six of the new artists and current students who have joined MiAL as part of #MiALSS16.
MA Fashion Curation, London College of Fashion 2017
It is Daniela’s Bolivian and Singaporean bi-cultural heritage, and the physical and emotional journeys she has experienced, which have led her to express a curiosity and wonder of the world through textiles.The idea of collecting memories and characters is a running thread in Daniela’s work, her inspiration comes from travel or through researching history, stories and places that catch her imagination and resonate.
Daniela’s work takes inspiration from lots of different sources including the history of women using textile crafts as a way of communication and self-expression. The colours she uses come from her love of folk art, and she is also inspired by the way the Surrealist and Dadaists movements decontextualized objects in humorous yet unsettling ways.
Daniela hopes that her embroideries transport her audiences elsewhere, through visual association or though the materiality of the textiles.
“I am inspired by the simplicity of my medium and its social associations with craft and femininity. Historically, the finesse and intricacy of embroidery was a reflection of a woman’s character and her patience. This is something I like to explore and challenge through the use of bold colour, subject choice and reckless stitching.”
MFA Fine Art, Wimbeldon College of Arts 2017
Frederic works exclusively from direct observation, usually in charcoal, pencil or ink on paper. Drawing affords him the immediacy he needs to quickly grasp fleeting relationships of mood, colour, shape, tone, weight, space, vibration, presence, light and dark. He works in series, building layered composite images of a single subject seen from multiple viewpoints.
In order to make the connection between subject and drawing as direct as possible, Frederic uses blind drawing techniques – not looking at the page as he work. As he draws, his eye is constantly moving across the subject, as he lean closer in, backs away, peer round the sides. This leads to his experience of a static object becoming a dynamic one, constantly shifting and changing.
The finished drawings inhabit the space between figuration and abstraction, between how we believe things to be and how they actually appear – the space in which, under persistent observation, things begin to fall apart.
BA Design for Art Direction, London College of Communications 2018
Described as a wearable testament that one is never alone on their journey, Pixie T’s brand, Of Trying Times is inspired by the difficulty faced by young people coming of age.
Statement jewellery produced in collaboration with Amado Gudek features broken pieces of marbled clay reset in bioresin to create something new a desirable, which would otherwise have been considered broken or waste.
Pixie considers the inspiration of personal struggles, which features in so much of her work, due to the influences of artists such as Tracey Emin and Felix Gonzales Torres who have translated their own stories into their practices so well.
“‘Of Trying Times’ is not about lamenting bad hard times and tough situations. Rather, it seeks to redirecting negative energy from bad days into creation, picking one-self up after each setback. The pieces are a wearable testament that one is never alone in their journey.”
MA Book Arts, Camberwell College of Arts 2014, PHD CCW 2016
‘Mirrors and Windows’ is an on-going project by Altea that she started during a residency in July 2015 at Aldeburgh Beach Lookout, a studio based in an old lookout tower facing the North Sea. This body of work includes photographs taken during this residency and explore the concepts of mirroring and duality. By evoking textures, images and dissimilarity, Altea’s work opens a dialog between landscape and language, history and time.
Currently completeing a PHD, a key element of Altea’s research is in exploring the page and in particular the double page spread as a material support and as a discursive space for visual ideas within an exhibition context. Altea is constantly experimenting with different ideas and concepts, opening up new enquiries within her work. Through her work, Altea hopes to engage with audience by stimulating the viewer’s perception and inviting them to take part and complete the piece of work with their own history, knowledge and experience.
In her work, Altea combines printmaking, drawing, light and installation. Within her print work she uses techniques such as incisions, cuts, alterations and repetition, which are inspired by concepts such as echos, reflections and mirroring.
BA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Arts 2016
The idea behind the David’s works is to create a window into a small world, a playful world unbound to any preconceived notion of reality where paint slips in and out abstraction.
David draws inspiration for these pieces everywhere he goes. Much of the inspiration comes from architectural spaces and the dialog between shapes, masses, light and shadow that opens up new dimensions.
David’s paintings are made to be immersive, pulling his audience into the work and encouraging them to enjoy it’s playfulness as they journey through the painting. Each piece is intended as a glimpse into David’s and our collective subconscious.
BA Graphic Design, Central Saint Martins 2016
Emissions are an everyday accessory of a modern person living in a city. They smother you, coil around you and penetrate your lungs. Varvara’s collection of scarves are a tangible embodiment of what’s happening everyday, concealed from our eyes. Each scarf is packed in an envelope in a way that you have to literally drag the “fume” from the factory chimneys to be able to adorn your body.
Inspired by an early childhood surrounded by factories churning out pollution in Russia, air quality is a cause which has continued to remain close to Vavara’s heart.
“I want to show people how you can talk about global issues through different media in the art world, how differently you can approach the problem.”
Click here to see the whole of the Made in Arts London Spring/Summer 2016 Collection
