About
The Students of Mr. D. Brook
INCUBE8 Part V
Laura Reeves
Pre-preview critique
led by Nia Metcalfe:
Thursday 1st November, 6pm
Preview:
Thursday 1st November, 7pm-late
Exhibition Continues:
Friday 2ndSunday 4th November 12-6pm daily
This is the first solo exhibition of work by Laura Reeves, recent graduate of UWIC and Winner of the Young Artist Scholarship. Reeves presents a body of new work for INCUBE8 investigating what it means to be a graduate artist.
Reeves collects, now redundant, analogue photography in a variety of formats including 35 mm slides. She creates her own archival system that often leads her to assume the identity of others, following in their footsteps and exploring concealed narratives. Her work encompasses found photography, text, lecture presentations, small publications, ephemera and film.
Reeves' practice is research based and uses archival processes, working like a detective she follows clues and makes links between her life and those of others. Using the found photograph as a starting point for research, Reeves explores common feelings of nostalgia and the revival and activation of lost stories.
During her final year at university, while working with a photographic archive featuring the life of Richard and Beryl Grunwell from the 1960s, Reeves coincidentally stumbled upon a retired lecturer's collection of 35 mm slides. These images document UWIC students of the 1980s generating work in their studios and their final exhibitions. Incube8 will see Reeves consider the value of these lost works, the clichés inherent in art school and questions the validity of how art was âtaught' in the past by often reproducing âgreat' and âimportant' artworks.
Laura Reeves grew up in the South West and moved to Cardiff to study Fine Art specialising in sculpture. She recently graduated with a first, receiving the Eisteddfod Young Artist Scholarship of 2012, and has exhibited widely amongst her peers. Reeves works as studio assistant to Sean Edwards producing works that have been shown at Limoncello, Tanya Leighton and Spike Island galleries.
www.laurareeves.tumblr.com/
Trained in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University, Nia Metcalfe now lives and works in Cardiff as a curator. She has worked with artists in various roles and organisations, with a focus on art in the public realm and cross-disciplinary practice. In 2011 Nia undertook a period of curatorial research in Venice, working with artists from Wales, exploring the boundaries between Artist and Curator, the potential for collaboration and art making over distance and investigating ideas of authorship in artistic production. Nia is one of three founding Directors of Elbow Room, a co-operative established in 2010, whose aim is to create the space, capacity and opportunity to make and experience art in public places.
http://www.elbowroom.org.uk/
