Preview Archives - Bonington Gallery

Thanks to all who joined us for the preview yesterday – what a brilliant way to start off 2019!

Below are a few highlights from the event, featuring some selfies taken in front of Dick Jewell’s epic photo collage, War & Peace. When you visit, be sure to take your own selfie and share it on instagram with the hashtag #djwarandpeace. One lucky winner (selected by Dick) will get a signed copy of Dick’s book, 4000 Threads!

Image from the opening of Dick Jewell: Now and Then

Dick Jewell Poses with a visitor for a #djwarandpeace selfie

Dick Mewl posing with a visitor for the #djwarandpeace selfie competition.

Image from the opening of Lace: Unarchived

Image from the opening of You're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat

A huge thank you to everyone who came to the preview of Krísis last night! It was great to see so many new faces. Special thanks to all the artists who came along and to all those who were involved in the performances! Here’s a selection of photos from the night – with more to come of the individual performances later (next week):

In the run up to the opening of Mastered, we’ll drawing your attention to just a few of the artists and designers who will be exhibiting their work in the show – bringing together the best work from across Nottingham Trent University’s School of Art & Design postgraduate courses.

Fiona Nugent, MA Fashion Knitwear Design

“Anxiety is a lasting feeling of unavoidable doom. Anxiety is a state of tension and expectation of disaster.” [1]

The MA project ‘Distorted Lines: An Investigation into Anxiety’ looks at the subject of anxiety and the ways in which it can be translated through the medium of knitwear. The project takes the contrasting ideas of restriction and comfort, contorting and altering the surface of knitwear to reflect the ways in which anxiety binds and restrains, creating physical and mental suffering. Against this, comfort is juxtaposed as a means of lessening these negative effects, brought through in the softness of the lambswool and the oversized, engulfing garment silhouettes.

The work incorporates handcrafted, dubied machine knitted techniques and crochet to create pieces that are at once unique and high quality. A huge importance is placed on sustainable design practices, from the careful sourcing of premium, organic yarns to the fully fashioning of all pieces to eliminate unnecessary waste.

[1] (Ed) Wolman, Benjamin B/(C0-ED) Striker, George, Anxiety and Related Disorders, A Handbook, New York, John Wiley & Sons, INC, 1993.

Tong Zhang, MA Photography

Tong’s series of self-portraits explore the differences between oriental and western women in social status – the old society and the new society. The photos can be divided into 3 groups: playing the part of celebrities, self-expression and regional culture.

As an international student, Tong hopes to make oriental feminist culture known to more people through her works based on her experience and study overseas.

The composition is important too: the photos are all taken from the same angle, and there is a large space left above the top of the heads of the characters. This not only endows the photos with a sense of space, but more importantly, Tong hopes to express that there is a large space for women to improve their social status and pursue freedom in the future.

Yi-Ying Chen (Ellen), MFA Fine Art

Ellen is an artist who is intrigued with the colour grey. She is inspired by traditional black Chinese ink, which when diluted and applied to rice paper, produces a variety of shades of grey – soaking into the paper layer by layer.

Ember- Floating space’ is a performance piece, in which Ellen attempts to make invisible space visible, through wax formations in water.

Something unpredictable and uncontrollable emerges in the process of conflict; and beautiful, mountain-like spaces are created as the liquid wax cools and solidifies in the water.

Here are a few images from the preview of Imprints of Culture: Block Printed Textiles of India last night. Thank you all for coming along, and if you missed it, don’t worry, this exhibition will be open until the 24th March

Thanks to all who came along to last night’s preview – it was a great to see everyone interacting with the installations. Here’s a few photos from the evening, along with some of the results of the scanner cams: