Curators Foreword

Henry and I visited 16 degree shows in 3 and a half weeks. The task was formidable and by the end I had begun to have dreams about trains & stations and getting lost in remote places called things like 'Digglesburn-under-Wyke'. We presented an eccentric pair, meeting in station cafés all over the North. Henry travelling up from London, hugely tall, armed with his book on Walter Sickert (was he the true Jack the Ripper?). Me, a middle aged lady from Rochdale, with reading specs and a sack full of essays to mark. We more resembled the odd couple than anything out of Close Encounters. By now Henry and I could write Egon Ronay style reports on various station cafés, toilets and taxi services. Between us we compressed the time/space continuum to such a degree that disparate places & events have begun to take on odd associations. A memory of an innocent cup of cappuccino on Leeds station summons up disturbing connections between the morally suspect antics of a video installation at Leeds Uni, a chainsaw with a fetching Burberry finish (Will Richmond-Watson) and the infamous Victorian serial killer. By definition, this exhibition implies 'regionalism' as an issue. As a Southerner working in the North, the North/South divide is nearly always in my consciousness and I am probably more qualified than most to comment. I wish however to avoid this a) because I'm bored of the subject, and b) it's irrelevant, except to say that amusingly, Henry had to stop off at a shop in Preston to buy a warm jumper before we could comfortably continue on our visit that day! Having said that, I don't think climate differences have much bearing on creativity. Urbanisation seems to, and there was much reference to aspects of city living, whether viewed positively or negatively, in a lot of the work we saw (see Anna Ashworth's pieces or Joe Clark's photography). We started out thinking it would be great to spot 'schools' of practice or some kind of zeitgeist in the collection of work we saw. This, actually, was more difficult than predicted. There was quite a bit of painting that examined the physical properties of paint itself, textures, paint & gravity. Abstract painting was familiar - both gestural and hard-edged geometric patterning appeared in various places (Amy Harrison and Siobhan Heugh are two excellent examples). Most 3-D work persists towards installation and a fair amount of 2-D work ventures out to breaking the boundaries of the picture frame: some kind of post-modern deconstruction perhaps? Self-knowing humour, particularly of a dark kind, could be found in all of the shows we visited (see the latent humour in Ben White's miniature scenarios) and there was quite a lot of work describing 'anxious absence' - empty spaces described either in photographic form, print or 3-D (see Kevan Whittle's dark etchings or Roger Young's desolate paintings). Although this isn't supposed to be a survey show, we wanted to choose a range of work for the sake of interest. Obviously installation and time-based work is difficult to show in the galleries, which is a pity. Some great video and environmental work had to be excluded for pragmatic reasons. This exhibition aims to bring the 'best of' but there were alternative artworks we could have chosen. There is a great deal of very competent work out there that sits within recognisable genres. We selected work that represents the best of its type, or is an interesting divergence from the expected (such as Fraser Chapman's white paintings). Some of the exhibits are chosen for their sheer entertainment value (we could have made a whole show on this theme alone) but the work of this kind is also complex and layered in terms of meaning and resonance (see Kathryn Forde's letters). Other work we chose out of cheek because it was taken from degree shows not strictly falling within a Fine Art category (Cheryl Pilling's intricate books), but nevertheless we thought it worth testing within this context. So here is our final selection that I hope you will enjoy as much as we did in choosing it - though for you, without the trains and legwork. I have to say that I wouldn't have missed this particular job for the world and thank everyone at Business Art Galleries for their generosity in allowing me the chance to do so. Enjoy.

Karen Lyons (Co-curator 2004)

Acknowledgements

This August we are holding our seventeenth annual Northern Graduates Exhibition and as always we are greatly looking forward to it. The joint curators, Karen Lyons from the University of Salford and Henry Walsh of our own gallery (his third year in the post), have travelled many miles to visit the sixteen colleges and make their choices. It is an arduous task (even if a rewarding one) and we are extremely grateful to them. In turn they are made very welcome by the staff and students at the colleges, so we would like to express our sincere thanks to them, and to add our own good wishes to the students for success and enjoyment in their future careers. I do hope you enjoy the exhibition - I am sure you will.

John Hutchings (Managing Director)

Exhibition selected from the following Northern Universities

Bradford College School of Art & Design
Bretton Hall College of Art & Design
Cleveland College of Art
Cumbria Institute of the Arts
Hope University at Liverpool
University of Central Lancashire
University of Lancaster
Leeds Metropolitan University
Leeds University
Liverpool School of Art
Manchester Metropolitan University
University of Newcastle
University of Northumbria
University of Salford
Sheffield Hallam University
University of Sunderland

Past External Curators of the Northern Graduates

1988 Julia Midgley (Liverpool Polytechnic)
1989 Gordon Senior (Newcastle Polytechnic)
1990 Vaughan Grylls (Wolverhampton Polytechnic)
1991 Paul Mason (Staffordshire Polytechnic)
1992 Michael Ginsborg (Wimbledon School of Art)
1993 Rod Bugg (Central St. Martins School of Art & Design)
1994 John Holden (Liverpool John Moores University)
1995 Ray Masters (University of Sunderland)
1996 Gerda Roper (University of Northumbria)
1997 Kevin Phillips (Cumbria College of Art & Design)
1998 Gerry Davies (University of Lancaster)
1999 Vanessa Scarth (Bradford College)
2000 Anne Grebby (Sheffield Hallam University)
2001 David Alker (University of Central Lancashire)
2002 Keith McIntyre (University of Northumbria)
2003 Paul Haywood (University of Salford)