Beyond the Threshold : Liminal @ UON Art Gallery

The University of Newcastle celebrates a new round of graduating artists with their Fine Arts Graduate end of year show: Liminal. For the first time in recent memory, graduates from the BFA degree will join the annual BFA Honours exhibition resulting in a greater selection of artworks and students on show. The exhibition showcases the artwork of diverse emerging artists with works including painting, sculpture, multi-media, photography, printmaking and other disciplines.

Many Fine Art graduates from the University of Newcastle have been very successful in their artistic careers. This includes recent graduates of UoN Shan Turner-Carroll (2013) & Andrew Styan (2015) who were 2 of the last 3 winners of the $35,000 Doctor Harold Schenberg Art Prize (The Hatched: National Graduate Show, PICA). As well as winner of the 2015 Archibald Prize: Nigel Milsom.

This year’s student achievements will be celebrated across three venues: Art (AT) Building, the University Gallery (Callaghan Campus) & newly opened WattSpace Student Art Gallery.

The Follower Newspaper met with two BFA Honours graduates, Libby Eckersley & Kalinda Nelson-Boyd and two BFA graduates, Tim Buchanan & Jasmine Hanlon. Together they discussed what it meant to be an emerging artist, the challenges & the successes & everything in between.

What does this exhibition mean for you?

Any opportunity to exhibit really raises the bar. It’s not until you see your work in that context, out in the public sphere, that you see the wholeness of it. And the gallery walls really do make your works bolder. (Eckersley)

What is it like to be an emerging artist?

It’s exciting. It’s at the point of something new. Finishing your degree, you’ve learned and now you’re in a phase of change. (Hanlon)

What is the most challenging part of being an emerging artist?

I think staying focused on that aspiration to be an artist...because I think we live in a society that maybe doesn’t take art – or being an artist – very seriously and that can affect the way you see yourself as an artist. Even how you make art, your practice, you need confidence to put your art out there because it’s such a vulnerable thing...but when you’re getting the underlying message of “it’s just art”, it’s quite hard. (Nelson-Boyd)

And how do you handle negative criticism?

I think it’s dependent on the person. Speaking for myself as an introvert, I have to go within myself and withdraw. (Nelson-Boyd)

What has been your greatest artistic success in your art career at UoN?

The opportunity to travel with my degree. Having spent a semester abroad in Scotland and then recently returning from America, it’s the opportunity to go to other countries and learn from other people and see how other people function as an artist. And to see how accepted art is, especially in America – it’s very much involved in the culture. (Hanlon)

Does travel inspire your art making?

It gives me confidence because I see how other artists are making their way throughout the world and I know I can do that too. (Hanlon)

In your art making have you made a specific medium choice because it complements your style or statement?

Not really, I think medium choices are a product of the 20th century. I think contemporary artists are considering the concept of the art making over their medium choices. I’m an inter-media artist. I’ve just made an art-book, I’ve done photographic prints and my latest work is a virtual reality installation work – so that’s digital & non-material but at the same time I’m making books. I think so much art is accessible so it’s important to explore it. (Buchanan)

What is your creative process like?

My creative process is essential to the way I make art. The art work is the process. Anything that comes from that is almost the bi-product. For this exhibition, it’s using printed matter, cutting it up, rearranging it, being irreverent, using different perspectives and then using this as a basis for making more work.

Creativity can take it out of you though and you need to keep something in store. Listening to music or going to see an exhibition. Coffee, red wine, all those sorts of things that help you to relax. Sitting in the cafe, writing in my journal is a big part of the way I practice. (Eckersley)

What should expand in Newcastle’s art scene?

I want to see more new media stuff. More experimental practice. This experimental practice can mean more performance, painting as performance and all the wide range of ~weird~~ stuff. (Buchanan)

What advice would you give your first year self coming into the Fine Art program?

Be patient. Be confident. Everything works out in the end. Take it as it comes & then work from there.

The Fine Art program is really a big sharing of ideas & skills. And that’s why we’re here. We’ve embedded ourselves in an artistic community and are taking advantage of connecting & collaborating with other emerging artists (Hanlon).

The inaugural joint exhibition will be officially launched on the 25th of November by founder of Renew Newcastle Marcus Westbury at 6.30pm at Callaghan Campus’s University Gallery. The exhibition at Callaghan Campus runs from the 18th of November to the 12th of December at the University Gallery and from the 25th of November to the 4th of December at the AT Building.

Westbury will also present a seminar Creativity and Culture in 21st Century in the University Gallery on the 26th of November from 10.00am.

To RSVP for the 25th of November opening or to attend the seminar on the 26th, please contact the University Gallery (+61 2 4921 5255 or gallery@newcastle.edu.au).

A satellite exhibition at the Watt Space Student Art Gallery will launch earlier on the 19th of November at 6.30pm and runs from 18th of November until the 6th of December.

Get down & have a peep at this year’s freshest talents!

By Nina Dell’Amico