FEATURE DEGREE SHOWS
State of the art
As the annual Summer Degree Shows open in Glasgow and Edinburgh, Susanna Beaumont takes a sneak preview at the work and chooses some of her favourites from across the board.
Robert Chapman has been buying a lot of apples of late. and it‘s not because he wants to keep the doctor away.
3 " Instead he has been dicing. peeling and pickling his » ~ g I favoured brand of apple. the Golden Dehcrous. to make " g I ., ' ‘ I his installation lsm. Ism. A student at Edinburgh ’ ' j u College of Art. Chapman declares his glass-fronted ,. cabinet. filled with rows of apples in pickling jars. to be t - - [A I .r,“ 1.1;, ‘a tongue in cheek collection of art objects and a parody ,, ‘ ' ,, '- of the art market‘. The tease lies in the labelling. :2 I”. 1" ,' g 1’)". ' . re " ,. q» ; There s the jar labelled Rornantrcrsm containing an t ’ Ivy: apple carved into a rose; Minimalism containing just Q m m r V I. ,’ four pips; and Brutalism. which saw the artist pickling a V. ,y f, 72’ '9, 9-5;” " Golden Delicious that he'd attacked with a meat ' ‘ a a t g, ' v .. cleaver. And for the Post-Modernist thinker. there‘s an " ’ apple placed beside a pickling jar. / '~ 5 r' ’3}
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Self-styled Style Engineer. Alexander Walker is setting out to be a silent but deadly force in
the world of fashion: ‘I don't want to be a star. I don‘t want to be a label or own a label.‘ says the student of fashion at Edinburgh College of Art. Yet already the accolades are coming his way. Last year he picked up for Scotland The CloI/ws Shaw's M & S Award for ‘l)esign For The Millennium‘ and soon he heads off to London to do post- grad at the Royal College of Art.
An admirer of the queen of
British eccentricity. Vivienne Westwotxl. Walker declares ‘good ingredients are crucial in design. it's fabric and technique'. His degree collection of chiffon tops. tailored jackets and wispy minis. though. was partly inspired by the colour of a local landmark. ‘The steel-blue chimney at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. I've been seeing it daily for three years and. besides. the colour complements my ginger hair.’
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MARK HAMILTON
Katie McKee can't be doing with the sentiment that paintng is on its way out. Resolutely a painter. though she has worked in text and on video. McKee. a student
at Glasgow School Of Art. prefers to work on canvas. ‘Some people regard the work as very restrained and minimal. not spur of the moment. But I wanted to explore painting.‘ says the artist. whose work puts lines and drips of paint on the canvas. Post-degree. McKee plans to stay on a while in Glasgow. ‘The city has stepped up a gear. not just the art scene but with clubs and in design. It gives artists the chance to do everything. to take on new possibilities. But you can get too cosy here. that has to be remembered.‘
MARTYN R( )Sli
8 The List l4-27 Jun I996