Meet the stars of our Graduate showcase

I am most looking forward to introducing my work to a whole new audience. I hope that I can make some new connections, both within the group that Pascal has selected and also with other exhibitors. Obviously, I would be overjoyed if I sold any of my artworks to the visitors of the fair too.

Where do you look for your inspiration?

Books form a large part of my initial and ongoing research, they not only inspire me but they assist me in the contextualisation of my work. Given that most of my work consists of the representation of the abject, Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror and Rina Arya are always close to hand.

With an undergraduate degree in Politics and Economics from the University of Bath and a Postgraduate degree in Conceptual Art from Goldsmiths, Bokani Tshidzu works across disciplines to explore our visual experience of nature. Her recent work combines computer imagery with contemporary abstract painting to offer new perspectives on themes of climate change and integral ecology. Be sure not to miss Bokani’s beautiful patterned works at the fair this October.

What motivates your work?

Telling a new story about integral ecology, how we are connected to the planet and to each other.

“Describe my work in three words? Vivid, Evocative, Abundant.”

– Bokani Tshidzu

Alex Jones is an artist based in Brighton, East Sussex. His work is primarily concerned with systems of language as methods of construction. Through both painting and drawing on canvas and paper, he utilises our understanding of how language is applied to create formal structures made of language and the space around it.

What is the importance of colour in your work?

I use colour as a tool to communicate my experiences. Colour plays an essential role in my practices – it determines the feeling of my work.

“My work communicates a joy in ordinariness”

– Daisy Isles

Created by pouring resin and acrylic paint onto primed wooden canvases, Fleur Simon’s captivating paintings are an investigation into the Romantic concept of the ‘sublime’ in nature – the paradox between the awe-inspiring and frightening. Fleur explores this idea through her abstract, vividly coloured landscape paintings. By pouring her materials, Fleur refreshes the Abstract Expressionist approach to painting and builds layers of paint within her work. The layering creates an illusion of endless space, yet also, an atmosphere of claustrophobia. The result is beautiful and evocative paintings that have a deeply psychological effect upon the viewer.

University of Brighton graduate, Sue Hicks, uses the theme of road repairs in her practice to explore digital and analogue realms. Her alluring artworks combine a variety of materials related to industrial production including concrete, plastics and fluorescents. Through her unusual choice of subject and material, Sue extracts the hidden beauty in the ordinary, everyday object and prompts us to consider themes of disorder, repetition and impermanence.

Sachiko Oshima is a Japanese abstract painter currently based in Athens. Her work explores the simple accents and textures of our surroundings, often overlooked, yet rich in character. She is fascinated by the surface of old building walls and by natural patterns and shapes.

How do you capture a certain place or atmosphere in your paintings?

I travel a lot and have lived in many different locations in my life, I love absorbing a sense of place through landscape, old walls, stones, plants, temperature and smell. I then extract the beauty and the emotionally strongest parts of what I see and experiment with composition, colour and texture.

Through the use of geometry, colour and form, Megan Burns creates illusionary structured spaces that are open yet confined, and plays with the balance between the real and imagined. Using mostly household paint helps create a sense of the uncanny within her abstract architectural interiors.