EXHIBITION INTRODUCTION

It is the aim and function of a Masters programme to induct the student into the histories of practice within their chosen field of study. Through rigorous analysis, the graduate will gain an overview and understanding of both the ways-of-working and the context within which its practitioners operate. In sum, they will be able to think through practice, in context.

In a year marked by financial meltdown and continued global conflict, context has asserted itself at every turn; in its scale and reach it is unavoidable; overbearing, inescapeable, pervasive . In the face of this, the artists in this exhibition have each developed a way of working that allows them to make sense of the world, despite its immense complexity and uncertainty.

At times, this takes the form of a structured approach: planned, methodical. Through the conventions of an academic programme, all the artists represented here have researched and written a dissertation that speaks of their ability to deal with the world as it is, as they find it, and to identify their place within it. Equally, as well as having the skills necessary for rigorous analysis, each artists here recognizes the value of the 'hunch' and the moments when intuitive insight counts for just as much. More than this, they've developed the skills of self-reflection and the ability to articulate what it is to live and work in this way. (Talk to them. You will see.)

Practice produces its own complexity, disrupting the world as-is, and what we see in this exhibition is the implication of each artist in that which they study. Through independence of direction, strong self- motivation, a willingness to pursue an idea through practice, (and to allow practice to suggest its own course) we can count this exhibition as a valuable contribution to the field. For some, this represents their first such contribution; others are already making their way through commissions, public exhibition, residencies and the like. They are all, each of them, developing a way of working that is robust and sustainable enough to flourish beyond the walls of the art school and to be able to return in its own time, to research and to reflect further.

This exhibition is a snapshot –a freeze-frame; a moment within a process whose end-point cannot be plotted. For the artists, the creative act continues.

Simon Pope
Programme Director
MA Fine Art
Cardiff school of Art & Design