CFPR Artist Talks for Students (Feb-Mar 2023)
The Centre for Print Research is hosting some online artist talks for MA students on Zoom in Feb and March. CFPR resident artists will be giving an overview of their practice with the opportunity for Q&A.
If you would like to join any of the talks, please email cfprinfo@uwe.ac.uk for the Zoom links.
Wed 22 Feb, 4:15pm – 5:00pm
Navid Azimi Sajadi
Navid Azimi Sajadi was born in Tehran, Iran, 1982. He gained a Bachelor of Art in painting from Tehran Art and Architecture University in 2005. The same year he moved to Rome. In Italy he graduated from Accademia di Belli Arti di Roma, in 2009. He was awarded the Amedeo Modigliani Foundation prize in 2009. He gained his Master of Fine Art in Multimedia Sculpture in 2013 from Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, and in the same year was invited to the 9th Shanghai Biennale. Navid’s work reviews his experience in-between two cultures, dealing with cross-cultural codes. He has developed an esoteric language of signs and symbols from multiple mythologies and histories. Navid aims to manipulate and play with the pre-prescribed meanings of images, forms and memories, creating a metaphorical landscape where viewers can attach a wide array of significance to indicators of time and space.
Put simply, his work gives a visual glimpse of a crossroad where present day events meet the past and ancient cults. His installations are based on a reading of “ambivalence” that has been transformed to become a shape that can be demystified only by taking into account one’s presuppositions —in other words, the viewer is to “read into” the work, rather than extract meaning from it in an objective manner. Each individual element is laden with meaning, coalescing to represent today’s society as Navid perceives it. His reading of “ambivalence” does not merely reflect a psychological state but aims to be an aggregation of all possible states.
Wed 1 March, 4:15pm – 5:00pm
Tracey Bush
Tracey Bush is a British Artist who works with paper. After obtaining an MFA in Printmaking from Camberwell College of Arts and Crafts London, Tracey made a research trip to South Korea, where she studied paper culture. After this travel scholarship, funded by the Stationers’ Company, Tracey began to view paper as the substance, rather than the surface of many of her artworks.
Tracey’s work is informed by the histories of Natural History collecting, which are often the province of amateur women enthusiasts. Through her lengthy career making artist’s books, Tracey has developed a dextrous approach to creating Art, involving a high level of craft skill, through which to explore humanity’s impact on the environment.
Wed 15 March, 4:15pm – 5:00pm
Matt Smith
Matt explores how history is a constantly selected and refined narrative, that presents itself as a fixed and accurate account of the past. Using techniques of institutional critique and artist intervention, his work investigates how museums can be reframed from an outsider, often LGBTQ, perspective by taking objects and repurposing them in new situations, or creating ‘lost objects’. Solo shows have included Queering the Museum (2010) at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Flux: Parian Unpacked (2018) at the Fitzwilliam Museum and Losing Venus (2020-2022) at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. In 2016 Matt was awarded an AHRC funded practice-based PhD from the University of Brighton exploring the intersection of contemporary art practice and queer identities. From 2017-2022 Matt was Professor of Craft at Konstfack University in Stockholm and in 2016 was artist-in-residence at the V&A where he explored how historic figurines could address questions of representation within the museum.
Wed 29 March, 4:15pm – 5:00pm
Lucrecia Urbano
Lucrecia Urbano was born in 1968 in Córdoba, Argentina. She received her BFA from the National University of Córdoba, with a major in printmaking. She has specialized in non-toxic photogravure and digital graphics in Canada and The United States – Pyramid Atlantic, Baltimore, Maryland and the Canadian School for Non-toxic Printmaking, Alberta Canadá.
She is the founder and director of Zona Imaginaria, a contemporary print studio located in San Fernando’s neighbourhood – Buenos Aires, Argentina , where she carries out workshops for children and adults. in ZI she also runs “Who can live in this house?”, an international residence project where invited artists and the local community are strongly linked.
In addition, Urbano organizes research and teaching workshops and curates exhibition projects, focusing on interpersonal relationships and on the connection between the local community and the environment. Her personal work is research oriented and combines the applications of different techniques: non-toxic printmaking, photography, video, digital prints, glass and installations.
