Manchester School of Art Degree Show 2015 Pt 2
Welcome back to part 2 of my posting about Manchester School of Art’s 2015 Degree Show. If you missed part 1 just scroll down my blog post until you find it. I begin today with a smattering from the Graphics department.
Two eye-catching and rather stunning film posters.
I particularly liked these beautiful landscapes and mark making delights. They are so beautifully smudgy and yet have control and definition. They made me think of the backgrounds for children’s books from the 1940’s or a grey version of the work of Mirko Hanak.
I’m not certain how these images were made but their crystallised, frost-like complexity was stunning.
Henry had his work all set out and Louise gave us a small taste of something more classical.
My favourite department, Illustration with Annimation, I kept til last. For me there were three strong contenders for my own award for best Illustrator this year. Sinead came in third with some rather special 3d figures, which certainly made me smile.
Second, and runner up was the work of Esme, who’s relaxed tigers and zoo landscapes were truly beautiful. I was reminded of the work of Laura Carlin here, but honestly anyone who can illustrate with her quality and style is a definite artist to watch out for.
A few different graduates work from a display case of sketchbooks.
Molly and Susie had some lovely ideas, colours and structures.
But this year’s Fishink Blog award goes to Elsa Rose Frere who’s quirky little figures and delicately colour-coded story about orange items on a rainy grey day, made me smile the most.
Her wonderful fold out book is sooooo loooong !
I really loved the suggestion for the rain with the dashed lines and the fact that some people went almost transparent when wet. (Perhaps they got washed out !)
Lovely work Elsa, for me, it shone out a mile. I ended up heading for a coffee in the rather comfortably odd Sandbar.
Many thanks to my camera-shy, degree-show companion, (an illustrator who is also called Craig), for his company and humour for the afternoon. It seems we share a lot of the same views.
A great show MMU well done to everyone, do get over to see it if you can.
fishinkblog.com 
Thanks Craig… great post again, although that chap at the end looks decidedly dodgy!
Wholeheartedly agree with your award to illustrator Elsa Rose Frere – lovely work and highlight of the show for me also! Thanks for your good company 🙂
My pleasure Mr C, we should do more of the things that are good for our artistic souls I think : )
More talented artists in the making eh Craig? A great post and some beautiful pieces – I especially like the granular landscapes!
Thanks Lizzie, a great mix and definitely artists in the making. Wanted there to be more Illustration to see, there’s somehow never enough! : )
Thanks for posting this, it looks like it was a good year, I hope that all the new graduates get to work in their chosen careers. I love the long concertina book in particular.
I wasn’t able to visit the degree show this year but met up with an old friend from our Manchester days a few weeks before the show opened. We walked around All Saints and remembered our own degree show which took place 40 years ago! We were both textile design students and went on to take part in Texprint later in the year- 1975, no doubt before you were born.
Thanks Valerie for sharing your thoughts. I also did Textiles but at Trent Poly as it was back then, in Nottingham. I was born in the 60’s so was about 10 when you did Texprint… which I also did in the late 80’s! Funny how things happen lol
That is interesting, did you enjoy Texprint? I visited last years Texprint in London, some beautiful work on show. I don’t think life has got much easier for today’s graduates especially with such hefty fees.
I found Textprint very useful to see what my peer group for that year were also producing. I don’t think Nottingham Poly (as it was then) got many leads from the show but it was good to take part for certain.