Degree Show 2008

More than 4000 people visited the University in May for the opening night of this year's Degree Show hosted by Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design and the School of Architecture.

Almost double that figure visited the exhibition during its week long run to see an impressive collection of work by final year students from all disciplines including Animation, Architecture, Fine Art, Illustration, Jewellery, Textile Design and Interactive Media Design.

Time Based Art, Graphic Design, Interior and Environmental Design and Innovative Product Design were also included in the exhibition, which is the first art school exhibition of the season in Scotland.

Described by Dean of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design Professor Georgina Follett as one of the "cultural highlights of the arts calendar" the exhibition showcases the talent emerging from the college and highlights the students' work to a larger audience.

Bold statements
Dundonian artist Fraser Gray (21) made an impression with his huge wall-based work which uses bold imagery and evocative figure painting. As a teenager he developed an interest in graffiti and credits the visual and political elements of this scene for his choice of study path.

Fraser is the winner of this year's James Guthrie Orchar Memorial Art Prize which brings the chance to exhibit for a month in Broughty Ferry and the WASPS Studios prize of a free studio for a month next year.

Silver linings
Camilla, who is originally from Aberdeen, draws with silver. Her beautiful silverpoint drawings depict rabbits, crows and worms which she remembers from formative childhood experiences of life and death in nature.

Camilla was awarded a David Gordon Memorial Trust Award at the Royal Scottish Academy Student Exhibition in February and is the winner of the John Milne Purvis Prize awarded by the School of Fine Art to a fourth year drawing and painting student of outstanding ability.

Counting on nature
Lynne MacLachlan has created a unique set of jewellery which unites maths and nature. Inspired by insects' wings, Lynne created a three dimensional repeating pattern using Photoshop and CAD. From her resulting computer files the patterns were laser cut and photoetched onto silver. Lynne then soldered the pieces together, using enamels to introduce colour into the complex forms of bracelets, necklaces, rings and earrings.

Her eyecatching pieces have secured her a place in London on Royal College of Art's Masters in Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metal Work and Jewellery course.

Baby what a picture!
Originally from Shetland, now living in Alloa, Mandy Tait is an artist who is pre-occupied with faces and how we recognise them. Science has proven that our brain recognises a face by breaking it down into a pattern. Mandy brings this fact to light by combining portraiture with eye test charts, such as combining a portrait of a baby with the circles of The Ishihara Colour Test - a test for colour blindness.

With an eye to combining art and science, Mandy hopes to be accepted on School of Life Sciences and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art's Forensic Art MSc course.

A degree of success

Nicole Porter from Aberdeenshire celebrated an outstanding finale to her four years as a fine art student at the University.

As well as obtaining a first class degree the talented 21-year-old artist, who combines portraiture and still life in a representational style, won no less than six top awards including a one year residency in Norway with the acclaimed Norwegian figurative painter Odd Nerdrum.

Other prizes picked up in her final year include the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant worth £6000, the Farqhuar Reid Trust Art Prize awarded by Duncan of Jordanstone College, and a David Gordon Memorial Trust Award won at the Royal Scottish Academy Student Exhibition earlier this year.

She also won the Artists and Illustrators Magazine Self-Portraiture Competition and a second place in the Boundary Gallery Figurative Art Prize, a national competition run by the Boundary Gallery in London.

Nicole won the Norwegian residency through a selection process run through the Forum Gallery in New York.

She has also had her work widely exhibited this year including at the Boundary Gallery and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Self-Portraiture Exhibition at the Long Gallery in London, the Royal Scottish Academy Student Exhibition in Edinburgh and the Generator Projects Members Show in Dundee.

She will also be taking part in the Compass Gallery's New Generation Show in Glasgow in July.

"Winning the awards this year has been a great boost and has given me the confidence to try and succeed as an artist," said Nicole. "The opportunity to live and work in Norway for a year, under the world renowned artist Odd Nerdrum, will be a great opportunity and one I hope will take my career one step further.