Jonny Small gave AAL students a great Artists Talk in one of our studios recently. Jonny is a an abstract painter, who developed his practice at BA and MFA at Wimbledon school of art. He discussed the way that he works with obscurity and ambiguity to create images which are not directly decipherable to the viewer.

He told students that at the start of his studies at university he was most interested in portraiture. But he was gradually influenced by his BA tutors, the majority of whom where non-figurative artists. As a result, he his compositions became more ambiguous, and began to slip from distinction. His influences (which can be seen in his approach to painting) include Paul Nash, Futurism, the Horro Vacqui art movement and Vapourwave music!

“My paintings are close to looking like figurative images, but have just fallen out of recognised territory.”

The Artist noted the difficulties of working outside of the support of an institution. Since university, he noted that it is often more convenient to make miniature paintings. Though, smaller canvases aren’t ideal for his practise, as they don’t give the space for a lot of detail.

Since university, and having a break from London, Jonny has found himself returning to portraiture, which might be interesting for Contemporary Portraiture FD students to hear!  It was very interesting to hear about the development of the artist’s practise, thank you Jonny.

We had an artist talk from Caleb Madden in our studios last week. Caleb is a sound and installation artist who is greatly influenced by philosophical theories, including Capitalist Realism and Hyperstition. Noise is a central concept to his work, looking at the way noise plays a part in human experience and culture. He completed his BA, MFA and is currently working on a PhD at Brighton University, all centred on the study of sound.

He started being an artist at the age of 18, initially being influenced by rave culture and the ‘Sensation:Young British Artist’ exhibition at Saatchi Gallery. Caleb was interested in the idea of human perception, and the way that culture can have an effect on it.

How does the noise of culture work to modulate and affect the fixed structures that we live with.

He talked about his interest in the concept of noise as a “productive and generative force.” Caleb explained how he had been moved and awakened by noise when visiting a functioning turbine in Southampton. Caleb also discussed the theory that is fed into his current work called Hyperstition: the notion of inventing a future which will effect the mindset of the present.

Thanks to Caleb for the talk, was very interesting to hear about the use of sound in art!

We had a talk from video, sculpture and installation artist Robin Tarbet at the Academy this week. He shared some really interesting insights into his career as an artist with AAL students.

Having grown up in rural Wiltshire, Robin was inspired by natural landscapes and open spaces from a young age. He then went on to study printmaking at Norwich College of Art and Design. During his university explorations, he started to develop ideas around the notion of an illusion. The ambiguity of technological objects’ inner workings really interested him; he noticed how often we don’t know how the devices we use actually work. He began creating sculptures and installations which created an illusion of their inner workings.

Robin’s practice changed when he moved to London; he was influenced the by large scale infrastructure that surrounded him. He said “the aesthetic of my work is based on in-between places, places between the city and the countryside.” Robin found a lot of great imagery in places and objects that have a solely functional (and often industrial) purpose.

A lot of his practice involves low-fi video and photography. The featured photograph is a product of one of his installations, through which he took photos with a camera attached to a moving model train! He is drawn to the “painterly quality” of the burred, low-fi image.

He talked to students about the shift from art student to artist, reminding everyone that once you leave university you don’t necessarily have access to facilities and expensive tools (such as a printing press). He works around this by being incredibly resourceful, often using recycled objects and kit that he could “get from a toy shop.” Robin still uses all of the skills he learned at art school to “pay the rent!”

Thank you to Robin for joining us today and giving our students a really interesting perspective on life as an artist in the real world.

Rob Pepper, artist and principal at Art Academy London, provides some handy hints for wowing the art school of your dreams and discusses why it’s important to encourage creativity in young people.

At Art Academy London, every year we see how nerve-wracking prospective students find the application process: it can feel like they are being asked to lay their soul bare to a group of judgmental strangers. While we always try to be supportive, it’s true that art students have to reveal and explain themselves and their work in a much more personal manner than those applying to study science or maths. However, as with any educational path, the way to take the pressure and emotion out of the application process is the same: preparation, preparation, preparation!

Let’s start with the basic principles of preparing for your interview: presenting your work. Think of your portfolio as a snapshot of your potential as an artist – a way of showing the art school of your dreams your style, skills and thinking, and how you can develop these while studying with them.

Your portfolio should comprise around 20 pieces of work, featuring a range of research, ideas development, experimentation with different materials, techniques and media, and some finished pieces. Whether you choose to include self-initiated work or projects from school, it’s good to show images in sketchbooks or notebooks, working drawings, life drawing, photography and media manipulation, and 2D or 3D work.

It’s also useful to organise your portfolio into categories to make it easier to view and present. Avoid repetition and try to demonstrate a range of your skills – and not just technical skills, but also your ability to find inventive and creative solutions to visual problems. You can include brief explanations, but avoid falling into the A-Level trap of writing a detailed analysis of your work: one or two sentences is enough.

At interview, it’s essential that you can talk confidently about your work – not only to show passion and determination, but also to justify your decisions. Each piece in your portfolio should have a thought process behind it, and it can’t just be “I made that piece because my art teacher told me to!”

To stand out from the crowd, think about ways of developing creativity and thinking differently (but don’t confuse this with trying to shock an art tutor, as they’ve seen most things already). It’s about being authentic to your own creativity and pushing the boundaries of that.

It’s essential that you show an interest in art, culture and society and can talk about how this informs your own work. This type of contextual knowledge will really strengthen your portfolio and show your commitment when interviewing for an art school. It’s a good idea to get into the habit of visiting galleries, and learning to look at and record the work of others – this not only helps to inform your practice but will prepare you for studying art at higher education.

However, you don’t need to limit your interests to creative fields: politics, the environment, media, history, religion, philosophy, music, theatre, cinema, literature, film or new technologies can all inspire your art. Building your knowledge on a subject that interests you and incorporating that into your practice adds a new layer of meaning to your work. And if you’re passionate and interested about it, you’ll find it easier to speak engagingly at an interview.

A-Level students will typically start with a foundation course before studying an undergraduate degree such as a BA. At Art Academy London, our one-year Fine Art Foundation focuses on giving students the tools to go on and study art, including building a portfolio, providing one-to-one guidance, visiting top museums and galleries, and conducting mock interviews – all of which will help prepare students both for applying to, and then studying at, art school.

There has never been a more important time to develop our young people to be creative and art schools play an integral part of this: we teach people to think creatively, challenge them to realise their potential, and help them find good jobs. Focusing on creativity and the arts has never been more relevant in a world that continues to define its culture by the human ingenuity, resilience and adaptability that comes from studying art.