MA Artists
Katie Briggs
With a fascination with the role of an artist, the work discusses the difficulties and complexities of representation and translation. Referencing personal cross-cultural encounters and using sound and movement, Katie Briggs attempts to present the process of transition from one encounter to another; how the experience of looking and capturing can problematise the act of representation. Often the presence of herself in the first instance, aims to be mirrored by the audience in the second. With this process of storytelling as the focus, questions of responsibility and agency appear to be challenged. Constructing installations which are often participatory or with haptic components, the artist invites opportunity for the artwork to develop as a performance when presented to its audience. Sound consistently plays a fundamental role in these installations, being recorded from the source and then activated in the space of exhibition. Recent work introduces ideas of ethical responsibility to the previously discussed practical processing of performance and sound.
Michael Sullivan asks how choreographed participant’s footprints are as they take their part in participatory artworks. Through creating installations for the audience to explore in a critical manner, Sullivan’s work aims to reawaken a consciousness in people that has been deadened by neoliberal capitalism, an awareness of their potential to shape not only the artwork, but also society and its practices. To ensure the participant’s role is not choreographed, Sullivan attracts participation through eliciting curiosity in the look of his work rather than employing people through their political convictions and propaganda. Sullivan believes that to participate, one also has to realise and accept consequences. Through accepting responsibility we are realising real democracy.
Michael Sullivan
Darshini Prasad
Darshini Prasad is interested in the illusive and ethereal nature of portraiture painting. She seeks to explore the language of portraiture panting through the analogous relationship between painting and photography. To examine photography within the narratives of painting, the process of documenting portraitures through traditional means and their predicament to construct new meanings and senses. The mere act of painting a photograph not only transforms its denotations into connotations but also seeks a deeper correspondence to the subject and subliminally decodes the photograph. Her current series of works attempts to confront and challenge the deep-seated entanglements of race and colour that has plagued the Asian society. The aim of the series is not to make a statement but rather to set forth the audience to ponder about the prohibitive value of colour in aesthetic appreciation
Safurah Saffinee
Malaysian born artist, Siti Safurah Saffinee uses different drawing and print making techniques to interrogate colours and contemporary patterns in relation to her cultural background. Applying traditional patterns that can be seen in Songket, a traditional Malaysian costume, hybridising it with Surrealist automatic drawing, it creates an interesting dialogue between the east and the west. Music plays an important role in the process of Safurah’s making. Exploring perceptions of the subconscious through automatic drawing that is being constructed from the free associations of the music that Safurah listens to whilst drawing.
Mumtazah Samat
Bruneian video and installation artist, Mumtazah has been developing her practice in United Kingdom for about 4 years now, being a Muslim Malay, living in a western society has played a big role in inspiring her subject matters and content in her work. Mumtazah Samat uses art as a pathway to self-discovery, in return it is evident in her work that the start of all her exploration and experiments come from very personal life experiences. The very reason the artist chose video and installation to showcase her work is that she considers film as a mirroring tool, and installation as a space to enhance experiences for her and others.From exploring varying themes such as adoption, disorientation and belonging, she would like to use personal stories as a departure into triggering a wider context. Mumtazah will continue to challenge the visual context and representation of her in her films. The artist would also further explore investigating installation art by experimenting with materials
