The back streets of the student inhabited Hyde Park provides the ideal setting for the first Open House Exhibitions event. A student run, hosted and exhibited art show from four artists, three from our very own Leeds University, Megan Willis, Freddie Hill and Gev Barton and from City and Guild college in London, Annie Fiddian-Green. Forms, Figures and Fantasy was an exciting opening to a new platform for students to show their work in an informal space, breaking the limits of a typical gallery.
From 4pm until 10pm, a basement room on Regent Park Terrace was open to the public to view the work of these local, up-and-coming artists. The soundtrack to the event was provided by DJs from the Leeds-based, student run nights Nørd and Loop Hole. Peers and friends came to soak up the artsy vibes, have a few drinks and share ideas.
Freddie Hill (studying graphic design at University of Leeds) displayed hand painted works fed through digital software, creating humorous and characterful images. Annie Fiddian-Green, who studies Fine Art at City and Guild in London, was inspired by the album covers of Jimi Hendrix and the band Love, depicted figurative work as she prefers to work from life, using colour and bold lines. This created an explosive aesthetic with a graphic element. Work from Fine Art student, Gev Barton, merged people with the subconscious to evoke a sense memory and the surreal. Megan Willis, another Fine Art student, displayed her work from a project in which she created 3D-representations of fantastical approaches to everyday situations and interactions, creating a surreal image of normal instances.
The event organiser, Robin Brignall, spoke about the exhibition and what is coming next for Open House Exhibitions: “Primarily I just wanted to offer a space for people to show their work in an alternative art space where you can break the rules of normal gallery showing. Even if its just friends now, a place where students can approach me and show me their work, and then from there I can formulate a collection. That’s exactly what I did for Forms, Figures and Fantasy. I contacted about ten artists in Leeds, asked to see examples of their best work or just pieces they would be happy to exhibit, and from there, came up with the theme. The aim is to unite all these artists together so they themselves can contact other artists and eventually everyone could put on their own shows – build a community where everyone can work together and bounce off each others creativity.“
This exciting student forum is still in its infancy, the anti-institutional attitude promoted by Brignall leaves much room for creativity in the future. If you would like to get involved, or would like to find out more about what events are on next, contact Open House Exhibitions via their Facebook page.
Georgie Parkinson
Image courtesy of Facebook