KENNY MATHIESON sets the scene for the 2003 Moray College Degree Show.

THE ANNUAL Moray College Degree Show provides a showcase for the work of this year’s crop of final year Fine Art students, but is also a platform for several other aspects of the College’s work in visual arts.

The show at the college in Elgin will also feature work from the City and Guilds course in Textiles, and displays of ‘A’ Level Photography, Fine Art and Textiles. The exhibits are spread across two different gallery/studio spaces at the college, and Gina Wall, the course leader of the BA in Fine Arts, believes they now have one of the finest exhibition spaces in Moray.

“We believe that the new gallery space we have here will allow our students to contribute even more fully to the growing visual arts culture in the region,” she declared, “and will also attract artists to exhibit and run workshops within the college.”

Moray College first presented their BA in Fine Arts degree show in 1998, but the course then underwent a major revision for 1999, when it became the present UHI (University of the Highlands and Islands) Millennium Institute Course. There are 39 students spread across all three years of the course at present, but the final year is smaller than last year, with seven students showing their work.

They are Evelyn Benton (installation/mixed media/digital prints), David Lloyd (non-representational painting), Annette Smith (portrait paintings), Elizabeth Nimmo (photography), Sabine Roehrig (mixed media/painting), Amy Tavendale (installation/performance), and Sarah Hague (installation/mixed media/digital prints.

“All students start with a foundation year,” Gina explained, “in which they study all the relevant fine art disciplines — drawing and painting, spatial studies, mixed media drawing, printmaking, photography, contemporary technology, and also historical and critical studies.

“In second and third years it is very much studio based, and is all about their own practice and developing their own approaches to making art work. Our main aim is to prepare students to be independent art practitioners, although many graduates do go on to study elsewhere. The work they produce here is quite varied — some years will be strong on painting and some on photography and so on.”

Gina acknowledges the influence of high profile (and often controversial) art events like the Turner Prize and Becks Futures on some of the work emerging in the course.

“The Turner Prize is a great one for getting them talking and thinking about art,” she agreed. “Some take to that type of work and others don’t, but art is a very broad spectrum, and they usually find something to inspire them.

“We have a couple of painters and a photographer this year,” she pointed out, “but we are seeing more work coming through now in mixed media and installations. There is an awareness of contemporary art among the students, and I think that is increasingly reflected in the work we see.”

Whatever the influences brought to bear by the students on their own work, Gina insists that there is no dominant ideology or attempt to create a “house style” within the Moray course itself.

“We don’t want to encourage a house style,” she added. “In fact, that is something we are really keen to avoid. We are comparatively small compared to the big art schools, and we like to focus on the individual rather than a school style. I believe we get an individual response to the course from the students, and there is a great variety year on year in the work we get from them.”

The Moray College Degree Show opens on Saturday 14 June 2003, and runs until Friday 20 June 2003, and is open from 9am-9pm (Friday and Saturday 9am-5pm).  Moray College, Moray Street, Elgin IV30 1JJ, tel: 01343 576413.