New Art West Midlands is back! This region-wide celebration of contemporary art showcases the most exciting work from local art graduates, and in 2018 there are some thought-provoking and memorable pieces to discover at the three host venues.
Now in its sixth year, New Art West Midlands is the region’s largest showcase of contemporary art, and this year the exhibitions are being held at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum (Coventry) and artist-led space, AirSpace Gallery (Stoke-on-Trent).
Each of the 28 artists showing their work have recently graduated from one of the West Midlands’ six art schools: Birmingham City University, Coventry University, University of Worcester, University of Wolverhampton, Hereford College of Arts and Staffordshire University.
This year, over 130 artists applied to take part in New Art West Midlands and the 28 successful artists were chosen by a group of three female selectors: Patricia Fleming, Curator and gallerist from Glasgow, Sinead McCarthy, Curator, Liverpool Biennial and Ingrid Pollard, photographer, media artist and researcher.
The exhibition includes painting, sculpture, digital and sound installations, assemblage, photography, prints and film and video works that reference wide ranging themes from artificial intelligence, fake news, gender inequality and surveillance to timelessness, interruptions, displacement and glitches.
New Art West Midlands is a great opportunity to see new work by outstanding emerging artists. Previous exhibitors have seen their work purchased for the national Arts Council Collection and have gone on to achieve solo exhibitions in respected galleries.
Here’s our pick of the artists:
See Hayley McNally’s imposing Urban Heights (2017) at BMAG; multiple stacks of varying dimensions, held together by weight and gravity alone. Her work is about giving new life or attention to the usually unrecognised, mundane and often discarded materials that we encounter every day.
Lucy Hanrahan’s We Are The Social Media Generation a multi-media installation, composed of colour, text and moving image is on show at all the venues. Her work focuses on the impact of social media, in terms of alienating and detaching users from reality.
Many of the works explore themes of digital presence and identity, considering the impact of social media. Staffordshire University graduate Keri Jayne presents an installation of drawings taken from online media and social media feeds from 1 April, April Fool’s Day, including fake news stories. The resulting work questions the legitimacy of ‘news’ reported through social media. See Keri’s work at the Herbert.
Visitors to Airspace can see Lily Wales’ sculpture Radioactive Rhonda (2017) – pictured top, a large-scale papier mache covered sphere, referencing the advent of the first atom bomb nicknamed ‘Gadget’, with its surface covered in photomontage.
Special mentions also go out to the installations by Aileen Doherty and Bryony Loveridge and the photography of Bob Langridge. Pictured below in order.
You can read more about the artists and where they are showing in the current special edition of Area Guide here.
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Until 6 May
Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, 24 Feb – 13 May
AirSpace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, 23 Feb – 31 March (Thu-Sun)
Opening times vary
