Graduate Research Weeks are held at the Slade Research Centre, Woburn Square, and provide MFA and MA students across all three areas, Painting, Sculpture and Fine Art Media, the opportunity to explore an aspect of their work under a particular research theme, which can be imaginatively developed in the unique studio space of the Centre. The research themes involve basic notions that continually inform the activity of art-making, and hence are key to the development of artistic research.

The research themes this academic year:

Colour
Material
Body
Extra-Large
Light and Shadow

The continual conversation of Fine Art with design, architecture, fashion, and the development of culture and its related industries is often overlooked. Much of what we see around us has been made by some one who went to art school, often working with experts in other fields. The Slade Research Centre and Graduate Research Weeks support emerging artists in providing a forum to help construct the thinking which will allow them to engage positively with other disciplines. In light of exploring the constant themes that run through artistic practice, related questions and ideas shift and change. Context and materials change too, and through this dynamic, artists bring new questions and answers to the fore, interrogating familiar issues in new and different ways. Art school, and one situated in one of the world’s great research universities, is here to explore and question existing paradigms, foster innovative research and enable new approaches to thinking and making.

This e-publication represents a selection of the work of MFA and MA students who participated in one or more of this year’s Graduate Research Weeks. It demonstrates a range of experimentation, collaboration and discussion, and reflects the spirit of ambition and enthusiasm that has energised the programme. We would like to thank everyone involved, the students and staff within both the Slade and UCL, as well as the artists and researchers from outside the university who have engaged in our debates and given so generously of their time and expertise to help us achieve our aims.

Thank you to Martin John Callanan for editing and designing the publication.

Edward Allington, Director of Graduate Studies. Head of Graduate Sculpture
Lisa Milroy, Head of Graduate Painting
Jayne Parker, Head of Graduate Fine Art Media

Graduate Research 2012