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stephen craighill Artist Biography From this basic art and design training, I moved on to study Fine Art at Nottingham Trent Polytechnic. My original intention was to study sculpture, but this I altered to two years of painting, and a final year of experimenting with installation and film. Sixteen mil film and video was the media I used for the production of my degree show. I graduated from Trent Poly in 1989 with a B.A. (hons) Degree in Fine Art. After graduation, and a short spell doing nothing, acquired a studio space and reverted to painting. At the time a wanted to carry on working with film, but this interest soon petered out. For a number of years in the 90's I produced large-scale images using household paints on hard board. My main subject matter, at this time, leaned towards my own experiences, desires, fears, and phobias. This I executed in a narrative manner, with paint applied in a bold graphic style. After a while I became bored. I then undertook a short
course in fashion pattern cutting, which I left before completion,
as I was hasty to go back into my studio and experiment with the new
skills I had gained. This pattern-cutting course informed my work
with a new methodology, and visual language. Statement Fashion whims and style revolutions aside, clothing the body is a fundamental need, has a profound effect on our lives and can be closely linked to the psyche. Very few individuals, if any, can live without any form of covering or accessory. The choices we make while selecting our attire convey many signals to the casual observer, and speak volumes about our gender, status, job and sexuality. Everyone possesses a favourite piece of clothing at some time in their lives: a garment that has become as part of yourself as your own left arm. The familiarity produced by repetitive contact, which may render an item indelibly altered by the owner's physicality, echoes his/her contours, and is reassuring to their dimensions. Encompassing, flattering and supporting; emotional attachments are easily formed with such a congenial friend. Without these items we simply do not feel ourselves. Beyond this comfy image there is an uncomfortable undercurrent to the relationship we have with our attire. Clothing can bind and constrict our movements, leave marks on our flesh and alter our physique permanently. The frustrating process of trying and re-trying garments in differing combinations, an integral part of the search to find ourselves, only serves to disclose our imperfections. Pulling something up, tugging something down; we inevitably attempt to adapt ourselves to their will. All the while, with each choice we make, and each garment we select, we are transmitting signals to the rest of the world. Our wardrobes may hold the power to forever keep us in our place, terrorizing us daily with an endless round of pinching, itching, chaffing and tickling; the comfortable nature of this situation rendering us unwilling, if not unable, to change. This darker underbelly of attire is what I would now like to explore the frustration of the un-findable, the subliminal torture of the ill fitting, the unsettlingly curious nature of the fetishistic and the reeling terror of the deformed. Unfamiliar proportions and construction fill our minds with horror as we struggle to imagine what purpose (and creature) inspired their design. Restraint or support, constrain or contain; I would like to produce ambiguous items with a missing function, that dare the viewer to adapt his/her form to their contours.
1986 - 1989 Trent Polytechnic.
Nottingham. B.A (Hons) Fine Art Selected Exhibitions 2004 Mere Jelly @ On the
Wall. Olympia, London Film Project 1989 The National Film Festival. The London Film Makers Co-op. Camden, London 'When I say I'm in Love you'd best believe I'm in Love' L.U.V Grants & Awards 1999 East Midlands Arts.
Major Award
2000 The Square Centre
Recording Studios. Nottingham. Installation |
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