Secrets of the Soul

About

Six student artists from the Slade School of Fine Art and the University of the Arts London have produced pieces that reflect on the fascination of secrets, meditating on art’s capacity both to reveal and conceal, and challenging Freud’s conviction that ‘no mortal can keep a secret’ from a psychoanalytically trained observer.

A linked one-day event bringing writers, artists and psychoanalysts into dialogue about secrets in art, mind and psychoanalysis will take place at UCL on Saturday 8th April. Further information available here. 

The Psychoanalysis Unit’s mission is to break the mould of traditional approaches to psychoanalysis, taking inspiration from the discipline’s ideas to meet modern challenges. Their truly interdisciplinary research draws on a wide range of research methods and theoretical perspectives taken from neuroscience and clinical trials, anthropology, economics and history.

Exhibiting Artists:

Ishwari Bhalerao: I am a student making art at The Slade School of Fine Art. My practice is mainly sculptural, with a bit of film and photography. I like working with easily accessible objects in our surroundings. I enjoy the materiality of objects that look and feel organic. I believe in making art that’s not permanent or precious and I am deeply inspired by the actual process of creation itself. Poetry, literature, nature and people have a great influence on my artwork. I enjoy the materiality of soft, entangled and fragile objects like wire and thread.

Li Yang: Li Yang was born in Chengdu, China, where she studied and practiced the Chinese traditional art forms. With her passion for discovering the significance of art, she moved to the US and studied at Academy of Art University, San Francisco, California. She currently lives in London and studies at Slade School of Fine Art.  Her works bring together drawings and sculptures and explore the relationship between 2D surfaces and 3D objects. Her desire is to transform languages into a more direct, precise and deep communication through art forms.
 
Sarah Gracie:  Sarah Gracie took a double first in English literature at Oxford University before going into journalism, where she wrote for The Independent on Sunday and The Sunday Times. In the past few years, she has gone back to the practise of art, and is now doing an MA in Drawing at Wimbledon College of Art. Her work has been included in exhibitions at The Slade School of Art, Chelsea College of Art, the Royal Scottish Academy and ING Discerning Eye.

Yi Zhang: Yi Zhang graduated from Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, BA, 2008. She graduated from New York Studio School, New York, US, with MFA degree in Sculpture. Since then she teaches sculpture classes at Central Academy of Fine Arts. She also writes art exhibition reviews for varies Chinese art magazines. As a sculptor she has participated in various group art shows in China, Australia, Italy and the US, as well as two solo shows at John Davis Gallery in Hudson, New York. Now she is studying in the MFA Sculpture program at the Slade School of Fine Art.

Zoe Forster: Currently residing at Chelsea College of Art studying Fine Art. From the very North of England, grown by the sea & used to salty air. My work explores the sublime, on a tiny scale or the most cosmic, both as predominant in my practice to the other. At present my work is focused on the female and her relationship with the cosmos and the earth through mythology and astrology. Chance plays a huge role in my practice; found objects and chance encounters being the most recent. I seem to have a knack for manifesting these chances, which to me is as magic as the sublime that I so thoroughly explore. 

W.K. Lyhne: W. K. Lyhne trained as to be an architect at the Architectural Association but then went on to develop a painting career. Currently at Chelsea School of Art doing a Masters Degree in Fine Art, Lyhne had a highly successful solo show hosted by Mark Hix in 2015 called "Death and Desire: We are all Animals."