Penny Allen

Called Control In the house where I was born lived a child called control and she never let go of my hand..let it go, let it go. Just like the old days Johnny Kearney and Lucy Farrell (2012) The visual rhythm in my piece reflects the repetitive nature of its construction. Inspired by municipal architecture from the post war period, which was the cityscape of my childhood, I am intrigued by the relentlessly functional design of these poured concrete leviathans. I look for the design flairs which each building has; hidden in the angle of a curve or the asymmetric placing of windows, proof that a person imagined every detail of these imposing structures. The same rhythm and detail is translated into my quilts. The process of making this quilt allowed me to explore my relationship with structure and control, how this relates to my own experience and ultimately learning to let go.

Anne Blades
My main interest is in nature and in particular trees; they are the major influence and starting point of my work. I want to capture the invisible essence of trees, the spirit. To achieve this I have been working with the grain of the wood, as this, along with all its knots tells part of the life story of each individual tree. I have burnt into the wood and then sandblasted the black back, which emphasises the colours. In some cases I have burnt right through the wood to allow a sense of what is going on below the surface.

Anna Blair
Nature is a constant source of inspiration for me and a strong influence on my work. It never fails to provide new, interesting and captivating subject matter. For this project I have become quite fascinated with lichen, the delicate subtle qualities which usually go unnoticed have really captured my attention. Also the contrast between this delicacy and the structural, elegant, linear qualities of bamboo is something I have tried to capture within my work. My lighting pieces are made from Lutradur, a heat modifiable material, I have combined this with organza, shocked silk and satin fabrics to add tone and subtle difference in texture.

Nik Burns
I draw my inspiration from a passion for the fantastical. The work that I create has an element of mystery, it is my intention for the viewer to be drawn in by the work and ask the questions what and why? These small scale sculptural pieces are informed by my long held love of mysterious ship wrecks, a love which has fascinated me since childhood. What I achieve in my work is the illusion of an organic occurrence to a man-made form, creating a life history. The desire to create forms like this stems from my interest in fantasy and science fiction genres in particular the work of HG Wells and JRR Tolkien. These pieces were formed from sections of copper sheet which were then welded together. The surfaces are treated using chemical processes, giving a textured patina. The surfaces are endlessly varied as the processes involved allows for little intervention once it has begun.

Joshua Devenish
Sculpture The natural environment and the use of natural found wood is the main driving force behind my work. Using materials such as bark, bog oak and rotten branches to create something beautiful to be appreciated instead of overlooked. I aim to make people look deeper into nature and see it for what it really is, looking beyond the surface to discover how exiting even the most mundane of materials can be. My work shows the relationship between man and nature, how nature is changed over time through a series of interventions both natural and man made. Revealing the unseen I hope to understand this history of interventions to then add my own, using geometric shapes and order amongst the natural forms. Resembling mans influence on the environment to create a simplistic style that abstracts and enhances the material.

Alice Finch
These figurative ceramic pieces and paintings are expressing the complicated relationship between women and the beauty industry. The ropes made of flax are meant to represent a womans hair plaited and then utalized by its time consuming nature, to bind and restrain the woman from persuing more productive activities. I found this old fashioned method of advertising with fear still being utalised by cosmetic and fashion companies. The continued pressure for women to perform is cemented in the cultural fibre by increasing the importance of engineered beauty and ridiculing public female figures for not attaining the standard demanded by the Industry. A lie told often enough becomes the truth Lenin. This dehumanising of a womens body into public property has bound the everyday women into a constant battle to maintain a beauty ideal or she has failed as a women. Men look at women .Women watch themselves being looked at( in modern media)Critic John Berger. The option is to opt into the beauty motived crowd or face continuous alienation from the social norm thus creating a perpetual cycle of fear and undermined confidencein the female populace. Although gender roles set by media stereotypes are equally damaging to me , I felt there was a stronger visual to be explored with focusing on female themes.

Lucy Hubbard
My work takes inspiration from life around me, family history and times that havepassed. Using postcards, photographs and family documents as references in mywork, gives me a personal connection with the things I am making. Narrative is also a big part of my work, allowing a small insight into the past throughthe words of someone else. I have experimented with layering in a mixed media approach to achieve theportrayal of a memory. This has developed into work using Perspex as the main material and printing onto this to create a translucent image. This work demonstrates life, and appreciating the small things, a thinking taken fromfamily documents as well as post-war slogans.

Emma Hughes
Earth geography has always been an interest of mine. Within this, I have focused on crystals and stalactite/stalagmites to inspire my glass ring collection, as I am intrigued by the angular qualities and triangular structures. I sculpt my rings in jewellers wax, and then create plaster moulds from these. The wax is then melted out of the mould and replaced with glass. I appreciate glass as a medium, as it is unpredictable how the colour will flow inside the mould. This to me also relates to lava flowing beneath the earths surface. Cracking each mould open is like a surprise present.

Becca Jones
The inspiration for my work is taken from nature, looking at macro patterns and repetition in circular/spherical forms in flowers and seedpods. I make my work out of porcelain. By press moulding, texturing and sticking metal pins into the porcelain I make small scale vessels which are not functional. The pins are put into the clay before firing, and they come out quite brittle and matt blue/grey in colour, which, in my opinion, contrasts with the translucent white porcelain.

Esther Mclaughlin
Half Cooked My work is about capturing and highlighting the beauty of the last moments of an animals life before decay begins. The resin holds the artefacts in a moment, suspended amongst dust particles, unchangeable by time. The title however, reflects where I feel my work stands at this current time; an exciting and fruitful idea, arrived just a little too late in the day for full realisation.

Nic Peate
Spring is especially important to me as it is the time when the lifeforce, the blueprint for new life bursts forth from magical vessels. Nuts, buds and seeds have become symbolic for me of life, birth and re-birth. These are recurring themes that I continue to attempt to capture in my pieces both in a literal and an abstract sense. Currently my practice is focussing on green wood, hand carving with beech wood from the hedge in my garden. The pieces are minature nut inspired shapes. I combine whittling with simple tools such as a penknife combining it with treasure gleaned from the natural environment, casting this in resin inside to compliment and contrast the interiors and exteriors. I am attempting to acheive a very smooth, tactile quality in my work that invites people to touch them and once the pieces are picked up, they reveal their exciting interiors.

Lucy Salter
Inspired by the effects of erosion, I find myself drawn to the detailed cracks in the roads surface, contrasted with the manmade patches slapped on in repair. These events create a map, evidence of the surfaces history, a map which evolves the more its travelled. The idea of journey is a concept which runs throughout my practice; for me it brings together my fascination with maps and satellite images, as well as the processes I use within textiles, dying, printing and reconstructing. Two Hundred and Fifty-Six, 2012 Three Hundred and Ninety-Two, 2012 Hand dyed and digitally printed fabric, deconstructed and reconstructed.

Danny Waples
Meditations in thought? My work portrays a level of conscious thought. Considered and composed to provide a datum, a point reference, where I am able to see the wood and the trees. Need and purpose for simplicity, an economy of orderly structure that is reflected through objects. Investigating balance and volumes positively and negatively, experimenting with transitions in plane, light and line. I am attempting to catch a moment, with movement, flow and energy; as the hand and the eye move around the object, to engage and focus, mentally and physically. Working with white plaster, pure and clean, each piece feels like a hundred pencil sketches, but in every aspect better. The material represents questions of value, of how we perceive and judge. They have purpose and utility as illustrations of thought; in tokens, objects used as evidence, symbols defined with contents and meaning. Considering permanence, does the fragility of the plaster enhance a beauty in the transient nature of their and our existence, our thoughts and feelings? Offering a direct connection, they are something you can hold on to and feel, as our perceptions can be deceiving. I want to hold on for a moment as through these I have found a peace and calm in a balance of complexities. Eloquence in simplicity

point six six is a showcase of thirteen Contemporary Applied Arts students studying at Hereford College of Arts