Bloomberg acknowledges quality of Fine Art Painting

Image: They Visited Twice, 2012, by Freya Douglas-Morris. Photograph: Courtesy of Bloomberg New Contemporaries images/ICA

Work by graduate and postgraduate students from the University of Brighton Faculty of Arts Fine Art Painting courses is included in this year’s Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition at the ICA in London which has been noted for the strength of its painting entries this year.

In a review of the exhibition by Laura Cumming in the Guardian, she noted that Brighton “scores remarkably high” in terms of its undergraduates in painting. The Fine Art Painting courses provide studio-based, in-depth education in the creative, intellectual and practical knowledge and skills of painting, giving students time and space to focus on the diverse aspects of the practice, from method and materials skills acquisition to the development of a personal visual language and an informed critical philosophical position.

The three artists featured in this year’s nationally touring exhibition are George Little, Freya Douglas-Morris and Jan May.

On graduation in 2010, George Little won the Seoul University and Nagoya University Art Prizes and has exhibited regularly since. He has just completed an MA Painting at the Royal College of Art.

 A Mess up at the Holy Palate 2011 mixed media on canvas, 210 x 180 cm by George Little. Courtesy of Bloomberg New Contemporaries ICA

Freya Douglas-Morris graduated in Fine Art Painting BA(Hons) in 2002 and will complete an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art next year. Cumming describes Douglas-Morris’s large watercolour They Visited Twice, 2012 as having a “real force of personality. Two strangers in a strange land appear twice over. With its subtle palette and delicate vision, this is a mysterious reprise of Ukiyo-e.” Douglas-Morris had her first solo exhibition/workshop in Barcelona last year.

Jan May completed his Fine Art MA in 2011 and exhibited at the Brighton Festival in a Pop-up Gallery residency in the same year. His work is described in the Guardian as “sweet post-pop paintings showing zippy pictograms on solid-coloured backgrounds.” He most recently exhibited at the Vermont Studio Center in the USA.

Image: Ring Binder 2011 acrylic on canvas 60 x 40 cm. Courtesy of Bloomberg New Contemporaries images/ICA

New Contemporaries is the leading UK organisation supporting emerging art practice from British Art Schools. Since 1949 it has provided a critical platform for new and recent fine art graduates primarily by means of an annual, nationally touring exhibition. Artists are selected by a panel comprising influential art figures including curators, writers, and artists often who have themselves previously been a part of the New Contemporaries, and a rigorous process that considers the work within a broad cultural context. The selectors for 2012 are Cullinan Richards, Nairy Baghramian, and Rosalind Nashashibi.

The Bloomberg New Contemporaries Exhibition is at the ICA, London, SW1 until 13 January 2013.