Forced Adaptations
10 May - 3 July
Online Exhibition
Lauren Jones
Steve Wood
Luke J Walsh
Jack Hinson
Lily Dodd
Leah Bilson-Brookes
Ellie Goodwin
Pippa Baldwin
Jill Perkins
Mia Dickerson
Ben Murphy
Anne Marie Russell
Forced Adaptations is one of four online degree shows by third year Fine Art students at Sheffield Hallam University.
Having been ‘inside’ for over a year has meant homes have become places of work and bedrooms have turned into studios. For this group, it has meant contending with mental, emotional and physical interiorities – both of one’s own as well and others, especially loved ones.
More information about the artists can be found towards the bottom of the page.
Glace d’isolement, oil painting and digital images. Painting dimensions 137cm x 112cm
Lauren Jones
Chariots of Oxidised Memories, mixed media sculptures.
Sculpture in top image: 170cm x 38cm x 97cm
Sculpture in middle image: 215cm x 85cm x 130cm
Bottom: details
Steve Wood
Top to bottom:
Bubble Gum Balls In The Shape Of Mi Dad, gumballs, MDF, chrome trim. 120cm x 120 cm
Found And Repaired Brake Disc With A Crystal Attached To A Windscreen Wiper, found brake disc, carriage bolts, crystal door knob, windscreen wiper motor. 30cm x 30cm x 7cm
I’ll Stab Ya, Ya Cunt, jungle knife, wool. 28cm x 14cm
Gallery:
What’s in the box!?, foot stool, LED Lights, junction box. 38cm x 38cm x 32cm
What’s in the box!?, foot stool, LED Lights, junction box. 36cm x 36cm x 31 cm
Every Possibility of Six Different Coloured Light Bulbs in Six Different Locations, digital print, 100cm x 100cm
Luke J Walsh
S.T.T.T.G Season 3, custom designed t-shirts
Jack Hinson
A Step by Step Guide for Care, instructions and participation
Lily Dodd
Untitled, painting. Series of two, 81cm x 51cm
Leah Bilson-Brookes
Moments, digital photograph series and video. Photos each 59.4cm x 42cm
Ellie Goodwin
Fragments of Time, video
Pippa Baldwin
Letter to My Mother, domestic materials (coffee, milk, bicarbonate soda, cocoa, sugar, dust, cherry wood ash) on paper, 37cm x 47.5cm
Jill Perkins
Untitled, pencil drawings, series of four, each 29.7cm x 21cm
Mia Dickerson
Cycle of Succession, illustration, each 21cm x 29.7cm
Ben Murphy
Silent Escape, sculptural installation (acrylic sheets, cord and toggles, grass and wildflower seeds), 45cm cube and 90cm cube
Anne Marie Russell
Lauren Jones
Lauren Jones’ work was initially inspired by the unpleasant emotion’s lockdown had created, she wanted to channel these emotions and create something positive, by using her artwork as an escapism she uses raindrops to visually represent metaphors of sadness and isolation.
She explores the dialogue between painting and photography, creating oil paintings on canvas and glass surfaces as well as digital art which allows her work to not only exist physically but in the virtual space as well.
Jones creates pixelated digital images and has translated this to painting by using techniques that disturb the paint layer by dragging it across the surface horizontally and vertically, creating square forms. She uses these forms of pixeled art to show the relation to technology in her work and the accelerated use for the digital space, as a means to keep everyone connected.
She uses a layering of techniques and processes to create new imagery and to retrain traces of the artwork that has come before, whilst providing a history of the work inside of the image.
In her final piece she combines visual metaphors with material symbolism to capture the essence of the image and to convey her personal experiences through colourful abstraction.
Steve Wood
I am a mixed media artist, working primarily in sculpture. I use a wide variety of sculptural mediums, and I am concerned with reflecting the hidden nature of these materials.
Driven by my internal expression and compulsion to create art I use digital technologies to manipulate sculptures. I explore the relationship between sculpture, object, and space, and I have found that distorting the materiality of sculpture provides an opportunity for the viewer to conceptualise my journey. Like a writer who would create a novel or a script, I tell a story of a journey in sculpture; provoking thought and contemplation, whilst frequently avoiding links to reality.
Luke J Walsh
Luke J Walsh works with a variety of media, including sculpture, painting, photography, within installation to create works which can also employ light, video and sound. The resulting work reflects the hidden nature of the material used, its history, the space in which it is placed, and object association.
The forms created may not always follow logical criteria, and can involve more idiosyncratic associations. These are reflective of a more personal agenda, particularly childhood memories, nostalgia, domestic space and archive.
He creates situations in which everyday objects are altered or detached from their natural function. By applying specific combinations and manipulations, different conditions and contexts are created. His work refuses to show complete structure, sometimes avoiding direct links with reality. Regarding materiality, the work incorporates an experiential element, by often minimally representing a personal universe that emerges one piece at a time.
It is important that the viewer experiences the works within the space they are installed to enable the full range of senses and interaction with the work.
Jack Hinson
Jack Hinson is a Sheffield based artist whose work combines fine art and fashion. His brand S.T.T.T.G (See Through To The Greys) represents how he views the world. Hinson was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome when he was nine, for years he struggled with accepting his Autism. As he grew older, Hinson began to realize how being Autistic is what makes him who he is. His flaws and imperfections are unique traits that define him. His garment designs are all hand drawn, developed in Photoshop and screen printed onto 100% cotton T-shirts. The ‘ENCYCLOPEDIC MEMORY’ piece represents how autistic people know every little detail surrounding their interests and hobbies. ‘Lovers’ is in relation to how love cannot be explained, it just happens. ‘The tale of the Bluecow’ reflects Hinson’s unapologetic passion for being himself. The final design is a statement piece inspired by the rising trend of the ‘Roses are red’ memes. Hinson’s branded clothes are unisex and can be worn by any and everybody. Hinson’s mission with S.T.T.T.G is to keep it always related to himself and how he views his surroundings. The most powerful art is also the most personal. His aim is to create an independent clothing brand which people can relate to and form their own personal connections with his art. If people can see elements of themselves in his work, gain some form of closure or even acceptance in oneself, then Hinson will have already completed his mission.
Lily Dodd
Please refer to the instructions in the work.
Lea Bilson-Brookes
Mental health has always played a part in my life. Instead of letting it take over, I convey it into my practice. I paint how I am feeling in the moment, or how I have previously felt from lower points in my life. It allows me to express myself instead of keeping everything inside. With my work, I aim to help others who are suffering from mental health disorders to do the same. To be able to paint down their emotions; no matter how it looks. It allows people to configure their feeling onto paper, when they cannot put them into words. My practice is also aiming to bring more awareness to a wider variety of mental health disorders; not just anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, etc. As for now, I have only experimented painting with the ideas of anxiety and depression, as these are my own illnesses. My next steps for the near future are to be able to speak with many people about their own personal experiences with mental disorders, and to be able to, in some form, understand how they feel, and put it into my own practice, (with their guidance/ own ideas).
Ellie Goodwin
Captivated by the power of photography and film, Ellie Goodwin uses the lens to create images with a painterly quality and sense of movement. The artist uses flash photography to add depth to her images, exploring ideas around relationships with friends, lovers, and acquaintances to portray how a strong connection can help to elevate an image. Her practice involves a sense of collaboration through artistic thinking and intellectual conversations, creating moments that could be staged or genuine moments in time. She is influenced by ideas around time and space through her almost historical looking images, which show strong links to nostalgia, beauty, and the importance of one’s own identity. She is also interested in poetry and narrative which play a big part in her practice, often writing her own poems that appear in different ways within her photography and videos.
Jill Perkins
Jill Perkins's art practice directly translates her emotional responses as she walks besides her mother in her journey with dementia. Inspired by the work of philosopher Gaston Bachelard in ‘Poetics of Space Home/Mother Nest’, theorists: John Berger ‘Ways of Seeing’, Dylan Trigg ‘The Memory of Place’ and others artists: Surrealist movement artists Toni Luciani Photographer, Jenni Dutton Textiles, Eve Hindle Sculptor, William Kentridge, and others.
The work explores themes around relationship displacement and ongoing loss, seeking place and space for acceptance and resolve.
Landscapes are presented as a series titled “A Letter for My Mother” 2021. In process, the mark-making material gently falls, sentence and words dissolve (as in dementia) leaving behind a materiality to speak a sub-language in the folded paper, beautifully creating shape, line, forming a scene in its wake, revealing a narrative of itsown for further interpretation by the viewer.
The full series consists of contemporary 2d multi-translational abstract landscapes, created from coffee, milk, bicarbonate soda, cocoa, sugar, dust and cherry wood ash -domestic materials, sourced from her Mother’s home and reflections of the artist’s childhood, worked on a range of 80g-180g papers. The granular compositions offer an additional perspective through photographic lens manipulation, along with active developmental bodily performance.
This work has produced a huge emotional catharsis for the artist. By taking agency, progressively translating emotions into a materiality through to solution, she has evidenced a vehicle to transport inside/invisible to outside/visible which has acted as a form of management/coping strategy in the process of slow loss which may also be useful to a wider public, in ‘post-Covid’, perhaps assisting in the development of an educational art practice model to aid in loss.
A note for the viewer: an extended gaze is greatly rewarded.
Mia Dickerson
For over a year now, we have been told to ‘social distance’ in order to stay safe. My work looks at how intimacy and relationships have been effected by this and how technology, something that was once argued as keeping us apart, has brought people together when they could not be there physically during this time. More specifically, I use the hands as the subject to express the lack of touch in our lives and how touch creates intimate moments. I mostly work with coloured pencil to create detailed drawings which I feel further builds on the idea of taking time to care and notice the intimate details of the hand whilst observing it. For this piece of work, the paper acts as a screen in which the hands are pushed against reaching to touch someone on the other side but being unable to.
Ben Murphy
My piece is made up of 5 comic book pages and a simple cover. It is meant to show the repetition of life that is shared by everyone no matter who they are and that no matter how we live our lives, we will all start and end the cycle the same way and it repeats that way for every generation.
Anne Marie Russell
My practice is colourful, bold and tactile.
I create abstract installations by juxtaposing mathematical precision & acts of randomness.
In Silent Escape monochromatic & earth tones contrast with vivid living green & reflections of daylight and blue sky. Dichotomies of laser cut geometric shapes with the unpredictable chaotic flow of nature over time, the materials present themselves to fulfil their part in the narrative. They tell of a personal mythology originating from the contents of dreams, memories, and resonant inner landscapes.
Inspired by John Bunyan’s classic novel “The Pilgrim’s Progress”, this artwork marks the beginning of a metaphysical journey to find the vital essence of life.
From inside the cube a hidden message in the engraved symbols can be read once the key is understood. From this invisible cell someone escaped, a key to self-identity inscribed on the walls, marking the first part of the story. Now broken open, this past habitation will be consumed by nature. First by grass and even wildflowers in time.
My art is an expression of the surface tension I feel on boundaries of physical and spiritual worlds. While seeking the place where opposites fuse and specific colour presences reveal the nuances of insight, I wait and watch as seasons change, sensing the shifting unseen movements at the conscious/subconscious interface and its experiential timelessness.