Satellite Presentation: RCA 2021 Painting and Sculpture Degree Show at Cromwell Place

Spread across nine spaces and 4 buildings, the Royal College of Art will present a satellite event for their annual Painting and Sculpture Degree Show, comprising work from their 2021 cohort of students. 

The Royal College of Art’s MA 2021 Painting and Sculpture classes come together in a satellite event within the galleries at Cromwell Place. A graduate exhibition is a space where multiple sites of knowledge, production, creation and process come together. The RCA 2021 cohort share their delight, that the time spent researching, making, experimenting, discussing and developing can now be experienced in physical form. 

The 2021 Royal College of Art Graduate Show will offer visitors a unique opportunity to experience the very best of emerging contemporary art practice in person. Students in the painting department will present work of exceptional quality, imagination and technical skill, that informs and enriches our worldview.  An extensive range of media will be on view and available for sale, from painting, sculpture, print, photography, video, performance art, multi-media, interdisciplinary art, ceramics, textiles – all using a wide range of materials and subject matter that push against the expectations of what painting and sculpture is and can be.

PROXY: MA Sculpture 2021, Royal College of Art, Satellite Event

“Proxy confronts us as an absent ground, it is a title that speaks of the disappearance of older modes of orientation that faithfully held up the illusion of fixed boundaries and stable meanings. We might then understand Proxy as follows: to stand in for and to stand for; to be both here and there; to perform as an agent without instruction, and finally; to be a representative of a world that demands new modes of representation. Hito Steyerl’s description of ‘free fall’ is important here, she writes: “As you are falling, your sense of orientation may start to play additional tricks on you. The horizon quivers in a maze of collapsing lines and you may lose any sense of above and below, of before and after, of yourself and your boundaries.’ Steyerl continues: ‘In falling, the lines of the horizon shatter, twirl around, and superimpose.’ Could it be that this experience of verticality, of free fall, helps us to better understand the critical force of Proxy? One thing is certain, the word proxy is situated in the space of this exhibition to stand in for a world that is currently unavailable, a world on hold until further notice.” Jaspar Joseph-Lester.

The Royal College of Art’s MA Sculpture class of 2021 presents PROXY – a satellite event of their physical showcase of their graduate study.

A graduate exhibition is a space where multiple sites of knowledge, production, creation and process come together. The RCA 2021 cohort share delight that the time spent researching, making, experimenting, discussing and developing can be experienced in physical form. RCA celebrates sculpture as everything and this is demonstrated with the variety and scope of the work on show. Pieces have been cast, moulded, painted, printed, collated, screened, photographed, written, performed and everything in between.  The show relishes our diversity in a time when many may not have met in person, but have still forged deep connections. PROXY reflects the spaces the that students found to resided in while at (not at) RCA during the pandemic, space took on a new meaning and zoom the hinterland that enabled discussion. The work in Proxy touches on this, space, identity, transition, the environment, and while varied, a strong sense of positivity and being in the here and now shines through. 

Exhibiting Artists:  Albeiro R. Tomedes, Abi Braley, Alastair Kwan Alexei Izmaylov, Amba Sayal-Bennett, Ania Assadi-Sabet, Araceli Gomez Castro, Camilla Bliss, MillieLaing-Tate, Catharina Bond, Danying Yu, Deming Huang, Divya Sharma, Dorte Kloppenborg-Skrumsager, Esther Merinero, Feng Lin, Fengjin Yu, Hannah Dinsdale, Helen Wilson, Hsi-Nong Huang, Hugo Hutchins, Inês Coelho da Silva, Janina Frye, Jasper Garvida, Jenna Fox, Jiamin Ye, Jihyun Min, Kairong Zhang, Ker Wallwork, Linda Zagidulina, Lydia Brockless, Margarita Trushina, Mila Dolman, Mingxuan Nie, Minhee Kang, Muhan Jiang, Oisin O'Brien, Po Lam Chan, RedBlack Lawrence, Ruocong Ma, Ruofan Chen, Samuel Padfield, Snyder Moreno Martin, Sophie Giller, Steph Huang, Taylor Davies-King, Woonhae Yea, Yi Li, Yuan Zhuang, Yue Zheng, Yuiko Amano.