Previous Exhibitions

'Indigestible: Recent Sculptures and Installation' 20th July - 12th August

A free exhibition by artist Claire Bauling is open to the public from 20 July to 12 August at the ncn Lace Market Gallery.

Indigestible: Recent Sculptures and Installation uses the medium of books to create works of art. Claire’s intention is to create an exhibition that captures the essence of a found and secretive environment.

Claire’s aim is to accentuate the natural materiality of the book, to celebrate it as an object and to manipulate its physical qualities into an alternate sculptural form, liberating it from its original functionality and purpose. The resulting works become indecipherable as books, yet the forms remain inviting and tactile, with some text remaining but not constituting coherent prose.

She said: “There is a magical quality to the transformation of the books – once destined to end their lives in a landfill; they have now been morphed into sculptural entities.”

There is no need to book. This exhibition is opened for viewing weekdays between 9am and 4.30pm.

For more information about Claire Bauling visit www.clairebauling.co.uk

'BTEC Visual Arts Level 1 Exhibition' - 7th July - 16th July

Visual Arts students are exhibiting a range of 2D and 3D design pieces at ncn’s Lace Market Gallery from 7 to 16 July.

Inspired by famous artists like Gaudi, Matisse and Klimt, students will be showcasing a selection of visual arts including paintings, drawings, ceramics and stained glass.

The exhibition is free to view at the ncn Lace Market Gallery, 25 Stoney Street, Monday to Friday between 9am and 4.30pm.

'Great Thoughts – an exhibition of exquisite taste ' - 23rd June - 25th June

A special end of year show Great Thoughts – an exhibition of exquisite taste will feature the work of ncn Art, Design, Fashion & Media students between 23–25 June at the ncn Lace Market School, 25 Stoney Street.

The range of work on display includes fine art, fashion, photography, digital media, broadcast media, ceramics and 3D design.

The FREE exhibition is open to the public on:         

• Wednesday 23 June: 10am - 8pm
• Thursday 24 June: 10am - 8pm
• Friday 25 June: 10am - 4pm

'Life and Trials of Miss Frances Crawford ' - 24th May - 4th June

Work by Mandy Ingram

Artists, Mandy Ingram and Stewart Easton are exhibiting The Life and Trials of Miss Frances Crawford at ncn’s Lace Market Gallery until 4 June.

Mandy Ingram and Stewart Easton have created a number of embroidered works illustrating fictional scenes and narratives reminiscent of pre-war photography and illustrations. Their work draws upon the handmade and DIY ethos of the anti-folk movement.

Mandy uses hand embroidery to stitch nostalgic themes. She incorporates found text within her narratives and she creates surreal and kitsch scenes with unexpected colour choices.

Stewart fuses digital print on fabric with hand embroidery, creating large-scale multiple narratives containing elements of tradition folk song and story.

'Ceramic Head Show’ exhibition - 10th - 21st May

Sculptures from last year’s show

Art and Design students are presenting the fifth annual Ceramic Head Show, at ncn’s Lace Market Gallery from 10 to 21 May.

This year’s impressive collection of work is inspired by ‘Times and Cultures’ and more than 70 heads will be on display at the Gallery. Each student has worked to produce a unique sculpture, which is a result of their personal research and interest in another time or culture.

Don’t miss your chance to see this innovative collection created by artists of the future.

'Painting in Progress’ exhibition - 26th - 30th April

Acrylic on canvas by Paula Reid

Local artists Pauline Woolley, Paula Reid and Billie Ireland are displaying a group art exhibition, ‘Painting in Progress’, at ncn’s Lace Market Gallery until 30 April. 

The range of abstract paintings on show come from a mix of influences and have been created using materials such as acrylics and oils.

The development of work for the show was intended to allow time to investigate similarities and differences in the artist’s process and to allow a deeper look into the construction of the paintings by the audience.

A follow-up exhibition is planned over the coming months to allow the audience to follow the further development of the paintings.

To view some of the artist’s work visit www.billieireland.co.uk or www.paulinewoolley.co.uk

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ncn Open Student Show

Inner Rhythm: Outer Body - 22nd March - 16th April

Artwork inspired by music - which is universal, yet we all have our own personal taste.

As part of a collaboration between BTEC Level 3 Fine Art and the ncn Lace Market Gallery, second year Fine Art students are curating and managing an ncn Open Student Show.

The exhibition demonstrates all mediums of work submitted by ncn students from various creative course areas, with the chosen work inspired by musical expression in its many forms.

The exhibition is the result of a competition within the College, and winners were announced at the official opening evening on the 23rd of March.

BugArts

Enterprising & Inspiring

A group of ncn students are exhibiting their artwork 'Enterprising and Inspiring' at the ncn Lace Market Gallery until Friday 12 March.

'Enterprising and Inspiring' is an exciting collection of vivid paintings, collages, t-shirt designs and prints.

University of Nottingham students

Halfway Through: University of Nottingham Fine Arts Students Group Show - February 2010

This was an exhibition of work by thirteen mature students who recently completed the third year of a six year part-time degree in Fine Art at the University of Nottingham.

These students came from different backgrounds, but shared a passion to develop their creative skills and forms of expression. They produced varied paintings, drawings, sculpture and other artwork as they strived to develop their creativity and forms of expression.

ncn Media (Interactive Media, Games & Digital Graphics) National Diploma Students

Cubeecraft - February 2010

Cubeecraft are papercraft collectable models which are free to download from cubeecraft.com.

The collection of work on display were all produced by National Diploma Media students, and were all original designs based on iconic movie characters.

Victoria Lawson

Recent Paintings - January 2010

Victoria Lawson creates visual representations of her imagination influenced by the world around her. Painting, Victoria is influenced by colour, design, contemporary illustration, fashion, film and magazines. The organic forms, leading lines, drips, runs, smudges and glitter decals are all part of an ever-changing and developmental formal language through which she aims to create aesthetic, escapist, surreal and imagined dreamscapes.

Victoria, who lives and works in Nottingham after graduating with a Master in Fine Art from the Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts in 2006, says that her abstract paintings are like journeys. "The colour flows, drips, runs and takes the viewer with it on a trip through an imagined place."

Nottingham University Samworth Academy Diploma Students

Britishness - December 2009

This show represented the first photographic works created by the Level 3 Creative and Media Diploma students at Nottingham University Samworth Academy, and was part of their on-going process of experimentation and discovery. The Diploma is a new qualification for 14 - 19 year olds, focusing on learning in a practical way, including real-life industry experience.

The students were asked to consider the concept of 'Britishness', and what it meant to them. After much discussion, it was decided that Britishness can take on many forms - even eating an Indian curry on a Friday night while watching American programmes on a Japanese-made television is British. The work represented a more 'traditional' idea of what Britishness means to the students - a foggy autumn morning, watching the countryside gradually revealed; old buildings which make our towns and villages distinctively British; arcades and chip shops; and, of course, a nice cup of tea.

The students were: Toni Archer, Loretta Brown, Sarah Greatbatch, Mitchell Msungama, Kayleigh Thompson and Demi Whitehead.

This exhibition was produced in collaboration with NUSA, New College Nottingham, Castle College and South Nottingham College.

Photo by Sarah Greatbatch.

Louise Spencer

The Unhomely - December 2009

Louise Spencer created a series of sculptures and drawings inspired by Unheimlich, the 1919 essay by Sigmund Freud. These works were designed to evoke an emotional response that simultaneously intrigues and unnerves its viewer.

These strangely beautiful sculptures and drawings use doll-like imagery and found domestic items to create a 'crisis of the proper'. The surreal composition of these familiar, commonplace materials arouse an uneasy curiosity through their distortions.

After graduating with 1st Class Honours from Drawing and Applied Arts at University of the West of England in 2008, Louise now lives and works in Bristol and continues to use sculpture and drawing to communicate her themes.

Fiona Disney

Sea Sky and In Between - November 2009

Fiona Disney is a painter with a background in design, metal, and ceramics. Her work is inspired by many naturalistic forms from the world around her and through the process of painting, expressing these forms, utilising very basic shapes and bold colours. The process for this body of work began with the purchase of a large plastic crab on Brighton sea front. This plastic crab was used as a component to several still-lifes, and inspired Fiona to work with more man-made copies of natural forms. Fiona is interested in simplifying the shape, and colours of natural forms to exaggerate the qualities of the natural and the artificial. Fiona’s creative process is concerned with the artificial expression of naturalistic form.

Femke de Jong

Recent Works: Femillustration - October 2009

Femke de Jong’s work focuses on creating images with a curious and whimsical feel. She designs surreal characters and landscapes by juxtaposing and layering image and context digitally and by hand. Much of her work evolves around her fascination with the relationship between man and machine. She often customizes existing objects by re-appropriating them with mechanical and nostalgic elements.

This exhibition showed a range of her illustration work, which often directed itself towards environmental issues (such as: bio-mechanical contraptions and bio-mimicry) but also gave a cynical view on a wide range of general issues. This exhibition was a contextual overview of her editorial and commissioned work in the form of digital prints.

You can see Femke's website at www.femillustration.com and her blog at peninsulaillustration.blogspot.com.

Leena Mistry

Recent Work - October 2009

Leena Mistry is a photographer and video artist and for the past three years she has been documenting her grandmother’s life, through various types of media. The two video pieces shown, Untitled 1 and Untitled 2, are the product of this documentation. This project illustrates the monotonous routine that takes place in everyday life for Leena’s grandmother, at the age of 91 she finds that time is passing much slower, as she drifts in and out of sleep to pass time.

Leena explains,” My intension for documenting my grandmother’s life is a personal one. For me, a photograph or video is a reminder of presence of a person. I want to be a part of her life and capture some time she has left. From a technical aspect, my interest lies at the interface between the still and moving image. In some aspects the recording represents life and living, and I have used my grandmother as a metaphor for life, how her perception of time appears to lengthen as she gets older.”

ncn Foundation Degree in Fashion Interpretation and Practice Students

Vibrant Sun - September 2009

A first-year dress project, focusing on volume and structure with vibrant colours and dynamic shapes.

Kate Tyler

Booths and Boxes: Passport Photo Art and New Zealand Letter Boxes - August/September 2009

Kate, who specialises in photobooth work, has been collecting passport photographs since 1991, and now has over eight hundred different images. Her showcase of work displayed both passport photo art as well as a collection of New Zealand letterbox images and the stories behind them.

Kate explains: "The anonymous freedom and restricted space that a booth offers are the chief attractions of passport photo art."

Jacqui Jay Grafton

Outside the Circle - July/August 2009

Outside the Circle was an investigation of sexual identity which presented a series of thirteen portraits referencing Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting The Last Supper.

The title of Jacqui's work was taken from Edwin Markham's epigram The Outwitted:

He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout!
But love and I had the wit to win
We drew a circle that took him in.

David Severn

Quiet: Photographs - May 2009

This exhibit was put on by one of ncn's 'A' Level Photography students. David Severn is a young Nottingham photographer, but obviously very experienced. He possesses a clear vision and technical expertise that is unusual for a photography of his age.

The series of photographs he exhibited featured a range of waterscapes and landscapes. The images captured a variety of locations, yet were unified in their silent representation of nature. This was a series of ethereal, serene photographs revealing the quiet beauty of nature.

David said 'Through my work, I try to convey a sense of delicate tranquility by photographing in a way that reveals the quiet, serene beauty of nature that often goes overlooked in today's fast-paced society. Photography, for me, is a way of purifying my mind, slowing down and becoming more sensitive to my surroundings and my images reflect that.'

ncn 'A' Level Art & Design Students

Ceramic Heads - May 2009

The AS Art and Design Applied Art students were proud to present the 4th annual Ceramic Head show. This year’s collection was inspired by ‘Times and Cultures’ and was an impressive display of work. Each student worked to produce a unique sculpture, the result of their personal research and interest in another time or culture, with over 80 heads on display in the gallery.

Clare Bull

Recycled Weaving - April 2009

The exhibition was created using reclaimed materials and was based on anti-capitalist ethics, with emphasis on highlighting the ‘disposable culture’ in Britain today.

Clare said: “This exhibition proves that it’s possible to make beautiful yet functional things from reclaimed materials; legitimising the usage of waste materials.”

Nicholas Wright

New Paintings - March & April 2009

Nicholas Wright presented a site-specific installation of illustrative paintings, created especially for this exhibition.

He used playful and humorous imagery to create a world of 'spacemen'.

ncn Design and Nottingham Trent University students

In Between - March 2009

This exhibition is the result of a series of intense project planning workshops between ncn and Nottingham Trent University, working to bridge the gap between Further Education and Higher Education.

The exhibition created by the students is based on a fantasy narrative of the paranormal through photography. They have created an installation in the gallery, putting up walls to create an uncomfortable space viewers can wander through, with photographs of urban decay as well as projection.

This collaboration has been sponsored by Skillset, the sector skills council for the media industries, in conjunction with the Diploma in Creative and Media Development Partnership.

ncn students in BTEC First National Diploma in Art & Design

Giant Objects - January 2009

The students from New College Nottingham's BTEC First National Diploma in Art & Design course created a bright and colourful exhibition of work based on a recent design brief.

The students were asked to choose a confectionery and produce a two-dimensional composition of a detailed part of their sweet. These paintings form an abstract stripe of colours around the gallery walls.

The students also created three-dimensional versions of their sweets, enlarging them by seven times. The result is a larger-than-life tempting mound of sweets spilling out across the gallery.

Ahinee Mensah

Embracing Africa - November 2008

Naa Ahinee Mensah is an artist and philanthropist based in Nottingham, who has been making art since childhood. From her early memories in Ghana, she tells stories of using her fingers to create designs in the sand, digging clay and drawing with charcoal on the pavements. Today she works in a wide variety of media, including traditional African crafts such as bead making and batik on fabric.

The exhibition consisted mainly of her paintings based on identity and culture, inspired by Africa.

Ahinee has created a charity, the Tse Ataa Mensah Foundation, to raise funds for children's education in Ghana.

Nottinghamshire NHS Trust

Celebrating Creativity - October 2008

An exciting and inspiring exhibition by people who use mental health services at the Broad Street Centre, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust.

The exhibit, part of Nottingham Mental Health Awareness Week, was a colourful and impressive showing of an array of decorative and fine art, including photography, painting, glasswork, textiles and ceramics.

Elaine Thompson

Trinidad and Tobago Carnival - August 2008

This lively and colourful exhibit by Elaine Thompson was a documentation of the artist's journey and experiences at Trinidad & Tobago Carnival in the Caribbean.

As an event organiser and artist who is very involved in Nottingham community events, Elaine received an ACE grant to travel overseas and experience this exciting celebration.

She has designed and re-created traditional costumes, produced a documentary video, and took photos, all of which were on display in the gallery.

In association with Arts Council England

Jay Wright

Recent Work - July 2008

One of ncn's top 'A' Level Art & Design students, Jay Wright showed an impressive collection of his illustration work, as well as a bold site-specific graffiti installation he created especially for the exhibit.

As street art and urban installations are some of the biggest trends in contemporary art at the moment, it was great to have some of this type of work in the gallery.

Jay won the High Pavement 'A' Level Art Award for his excellent achievement, and has already worked on two film sets and had exhibitions in Berlin. He is now studying Illustration at University of Bristol.