RCA - Fine Art MA show

All art colleges have their own ethos, and of course the Royal Collage of Art is different from most as it is completely post graduate and has such an esteemed reputation. However the contrast between this show and the MA Fine Art show at the Slade that I went to on the same day couldn’t have been greater. For example the sales stands, as you walk in are very prominent here, quite intimidating, but then this is what it’s all about at the RCA – selling the work! The results, of the two year course, are resolved and polished in the main and the whole show has a professional ‘finishing school’ feel with the stuff ready to ship out to the art fairs.

Show 1 only covers the Fine Art practices of painting, photography and printmaking as the sculpture show comes later, however these sit along side Applied Art and with a few exceptions are just as commercial. There is a lot to like here though, and starting with students from the photography department my particular favourites include Susanne Ludwig, who’s witty videos show a bouncy cathedral inflating and deflating and a Russian church floating away over a forested mountain side. Humorous, but more disturbing, were Dawn Woolley’s photographs of men making love to cut-outs of photomontages of life sized girls………… perhaps she over egged it a bit by cutting out the characters from some prints and arranging them on the floor! An exception to the instant commerciality of results was a conceptual project by Jessica Layton who presented some photographs and a book titled “Look what I snitched from your home” there were quotes on the wall from a couple of the people she ‘house sat’ for (including an ex tutor of mine!) and their description of the interventions and thefts were an integral part of the work. I would be very nervous about allowing her in my house – although maybe she would tidy up the tip!

The huge paintings of Ruth Murray dominated the show. There is a lot of Paula Rego here, both in the luscious beauty of the paint and in the expressions of the female subjects, though the perspective shift that has us looking down on the subjects gives the work striking individuality. “Redruth” has perhaps something of a ritual about it or maybe a party game - but all the plates of red jelly are disturbingly menstrual.

As a sculptor I was inevitably drawn to the work of the painters Scott O’Rourke and Thomas Needham. O’Rourke’s images include “Life Support” where a blow up doll slides off the canvas floor-wards and “The Argo” which appears to have the most deliciously stripy paint strippings from studio floor collaged into an abstract relief. Thomas Needham presents us with floor based sculptures in which he combines ‘car boot clutter’ (the epitome of object trouvé of the twenty first century) with ceramics, gloss paint and plastic the morphing is done in such a way as to disguise the original things giving a colourful but ‘Merz’ like effect.

Three dimensional work can be produced by the printmakers here too, most notably by Celia Warnants whose absurd life size paper furniture was delightful. The piano “PP (Pianissimo)” was the piece de resistance created from just digitally printed paper and glue. The irony is that the cheapest furniture we can buy is similarly produced from ‘printed wood’.