London Grads Now. 21 @ Saatch Gallery
Very excited to have two of my MA works - ‘Full Fathom Five’ and ‘Celeuma’ in this fantastic exhibition.
London Grads Now 2021 is to be held at the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea and will run from 4 November to 16 January 2022. The show has a collection of works from seven leading London art schools and has been put together by eight graduate curators with over 200 MA graduating artists.
The exhibition will include MA graduates from: Goldsmiths University (curated by LaTosha Monique), UAL: Camberwell College of Arts, UAL: Chelsea College of Arts (both curated by Juan Bolivar), UAL: Central Saint Martins (curated by Jingwen Weng & Lingfei Rena Song), UCL: Slade School of Art (curated by Victoria Cantons), Royal College of Art (curated by Thomas Hjelm & Lauren Bevan), and, new to this years’ edition Kingston School of Art (curated remotely from Tehran, Iran by Shahrzad Jahan). The exhibition identity was developed by UAL: Camberwell College of Arts MA graduate Tom White.
The aim of London Grads Now. 21 is to present a survey of London’s new emerging art scene. Addressing meaningful dialogues of today, curators have selected artworks focusing on themes including: environmentalism, gender identity, post-pandemic reflections, UK race politics as well as explorations of the human psyche. The works selected for London Grads Now. 21 span moving image, assemblage, installation, performance, painting, sculpture, photography and drawing. Nine galleries across two floors will be utilised for this headline show, with dedicated exhibition space allocated to each school.
London Grads Now. was initially conceived in 2020 as a response to the unprecedented, pandemic-induced cancellation of graduation shows, which disrupted a crucial moment in artists’ creative careers. This summer, higher education students experienced another setback with the government’s announcement of UK-wide funding cuts of 50% for arts and design courses. As a result, Saatchi Gallery remained committed to supporting graduating artists and renewed its pledge to dedicate exhibition spaces for the graduating class of 2021 through a larger and longer-lasting graduate-led major exhibition.
Some quotes from the curators
“A second wave of provoked ingenuity; this selection of graduates continues to define themselves through their fortitude and resilience. It has been our privilege to work amongst this community of artists that relentlessly inspire and uplift one another - a willingness to embrace the raw and unknown with unflinching certainty.”
“The artworks selected reveal the confines of human knowledge, demonstrate the artists’ tolerance and diverse understandings of the unfamiliar and the unusual, and highlight mankind’s relentless quest for adventures and new discoveries.”