MA degree show Royal Academy Schools 2008

MA degree show Royal Academy Schools 2008

My idea of heaven would be three years here doing an MA, so I was very much looking forward to this show. I did find the work in my favourite space, the life drawing room, however a bit underwhelming. Although I quite enjoyed the low key slide shows of Natsue Ikeda showing continuous furniture rearrangement, I was bemused by the nearby sound pieces. Also, with near ‘school boy humour’ she has replaced missing parts on many of the classical sculptures that litter the corridor.

I found out about Saatchi’s spending spree at the RA Schools when I asked Angus Sanders-Dunnachie if I could take a picture of his spectacular installation for this review, he was initially reticent as it had been sold, and he didn’t know where he stood on giving permission………I said I’d risk it if he would. Angus is probably not £7,900 richer as Mr S. is famous for getting discounts but it will change the life of this boy from Bristol. The room, filled with cut out plaster board shapes with applied cartoons was my favourite in the show before I found out that it was being moved lock stock and barrel to Chelsea. I was less enthusiastic about the paintings of Jill Mason and Carla Busuttil who both also experienced the ‘Midas touch’ before the show even opened.

It took quite a while, studying Carla’s smaller pictures, to identify some of the despots depicted but I found I did like a high-up small image of the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussain. However I was struggling to identify the subjects in the four large works – but following some research I will plump for Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel, Adolf Hitler and Winnie Mandela – quite a team! The colours and paint handling in “Alles ist Schwindel” are very strong but mostly the paintings are of the Stella Vine school of portraiture, so no wonder Saatchi bought them.

There are other fine painters in the show, whether you prefer the very small images of Stewart Cliff or the huge (260x200 cm) canvases of Gabriel Hartley will be up to you, but some other things that caught my eye were Zara Schofield’s “Thy Kingdom Come”, a Noble and Webster ‘Vegas style’ shrine of huge proportions, and some delicious still life photographs by Petros Chrisostomou. These images look photoshopped initially, but the truth is much stranger. Petros makes meticulous tiny ‘doll house rooms’, then places objects in them giving an Alice in Wonderland feel. Even when you know this, it is hard to tell that the sets aren’t real full sized rooms.

In summary a strong show with only a couple of disappointments – in particular I couldn’t see the point at all of Alexander Scarfe’s objects despite my fascination with casting inside spaces!