Class of 2018: Frances Kelly

BA (Hons) Fine Art and Visual Culture, University of the West of England, Bristol

I started art school thinking I was going to be a painter and I couldn’t have been more wrong. My practice has developed over the three years, becoming far more experimental and adventurous. My work now sits in-between sculpture and video which is led by fictional narratives. This is something I had not even considered when beginning the course.

For my degree show I want to create an immersive environment that transports the viewer outside of the gallery space. I am playing with ideas around the extinction of objects, these are based upon my constructed narratives. I am planning a forest like arrangement of large-scale soft objects with a video piece acting as a window to another world.

I’m really interested in creating a space where both myself as the artist and the audience come to an agreement that what they see is not real. However it creates a space to discuss the existence of the object. The objects become squishy, not in the sense of a physical structure but in meaning. You can manipulate them and delve into them to validate the narratives or to find new meaning.

I’m hoping that the degree show will provide me with opportunities and experiences that I haven’t yet had, and that I can push my practice further. I want to continue being experimental and taking risks with my work.

Recently I’ve been applying for residencies, both in the UK and abroad, so I hope to complete one of those. I hope that a residency will open up my practice, allowing me to meet new people and push outside of the art school bubble.

Degree show: 8 – 13 June. www.uwe.ac.uk

Images:
1. Frances Kelly, Step down.
2. Frances Kelly, More Than One, video still.
3. Frances Kelly, Beach Day.