Top honours for graduates

Here are the latest alumni to make the honours board:

Two Fashion with Business Studies BA(Hons) graduates, Alice Winzar and Olivia Bradley, have been picked as Global Graduating Talents of 2017 by The Council of Fashion Designers of America. They now join a select community of 41 design talents spotlighted for 2017, chosen from nominees from the best fashion design schools around the world.

This is the first year that students from the University of Brighton have been selected, with only three schools from the UK being represented this year. Following their graduation Alice secured a position at Craig Green and Olivia at Laura Ashley.

Alice Winzar

3D Design and Craft BA(Hons) alumni Maisie Broadhead and Phoebe Cummings have been shortlisted for the prestigious 25th Arts Foundation Anniversary Awards and are among just 25 artists nominated.

The shortlist was selected by a panel of judges including curator Hans Ulricht Obrist, craft specialist Philip Hughes, pianist and composer Joanna McGregor, Brighton Festival Director Andrew Comben, artist Isaac Julien, poet Tim Liardet and design critic and author Alice Rawsthorne.

Phoebe and graduate Lin Cheung (3D Design and Craft) have been shortlisted for The Woman’s Hour Craft Prize.

The competition aims to find and celebrate the most innovative and exciting craft practitioner or designer-maker resident in the UK today.

The prize is organised in partnership with the Crafts Council and the V&A, and was launched to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Woman’s Hour. An overall winner will be awarded £10,000.

Lin Cheung is an artist and designer who explores jewellery both materially and conceptually. She designed the medals for the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

Phoebe creates temporary sculptures and installations from raw clay. She was the winner of the British Ceramics Biennial Award in 2011.

The twelve shortlisted finalists have work displayed at the V&A, until 5 February 2018, before touring to venues around the UK.

Check co ords by Megan Lovett

Textiles graduate Megan Lovett has scooped a Wool Innovation Award and with it a prize of  £5,000 prize, presented on behalf of the Worshipful Company of Woolmen and The Company of Merchants of the Staple of England. The annual award is given to innovation which is commercially viable.

Megan mixes her own woven wool fabrics and then casts them on to knitting machines. Through a combination of well-chosen design and colours she has created extremely innovative articles for apparel and other uses.

She said of her course: “I feel so lucky that I was encouraged by such wonderful teaching and technical staff at Brighton, and am hugely grateful for their support. MDes was the perfect choice for me, and I could not recommend it more.”

Two 3D Design and Craft BA(Hons) alumni James Rigler and Nao Matsunaga have been featured in a London exhibition at the Marsden Woo gallery. James describes his most recent work as being “led by thoughts of ruined and abandoned ancient places, romantic landscapes and stage sets”.

His work can be found in collections at the Craft Council and Chatsworth House. In 2013, he undertook a six-month ceramics residency with the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum and he is included in their public collection.

Nao Matsunaga also completed a ceramics residency at the V&A and he too is included in the public collection. Nao was born in Japan and trained at the University of Brighton before completing an MA in Ceramics and Glass at the Royal College of Art.

Two graduates have been tipped by one of the UK’s top furniture stores as designers of the future.

Each year Heal’s launches a collection to promote innovative work or new and emerging designs and this year’s catalogue includes works by 3D Design and Craft BA(Hons) graduates Matt Davis and Adam Fairweather (and partner Rosalie McMillan).

The ‘Heal’s Discovers 2017’ collection focuses on designs made from unconventional materials and new production processes.

Adam and Rosalie’s  Smile Plastics coffee tables are made from materials including recycle plastic bottles which “transform waste material into a unique and decorative table top”.

Matt’s porcelain and bone china bottles, appearing to be virtual, were made working with computers. Multiple stages of software are used to create generative models that are 3D printed and then traditionally moulded and slip cast in liquid clay creating a 21st century ceramic collection that challenges the preconceptions of technology and traditional craft.

Elizabeth McCarten who graduated in  Fine Art Painting in 2012 has won the Jacksons Young Artist Award in the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2017. In its 30th year, the competition is the largest and most prestigious showcase of contemporary watercolour painting in the UK. Eighty-seven works were shortlisted from 1057 submissions by a panel of leading figures from the art world.

Elizabeth won for her ethereal watercolour The Boboli Gardens. Explaining the work she says that “living in a complex and urban environment, my work often stems from a desire to find freedom, space and simplicity. Finding and connecting to places by creating emotive responses are central to my painting process.”

Elizabath McCarten with her bookcase painting in Mayfair, photo by Belinda Lawley

She said: “Brighton gave me a new sense of independence. Firstly because I had left London and was exploring a new city on my own for the first time and secondly because it helped develop a strong artistic independence and confidence within myself.

“Whilst the group critiques and tutorials could be tough and offered a sort of deadline or structure to the year, you were given your studio space and you just had to get on with it. I enjoyed this freedom of making the work according to my own schedule and the studios were always busy with exciting paintings and new ideas so I wanted to be there.

“I learnt how to be organised and develop a positive sense of ownership within my studio practise which kept me motivated throughout my degree and in a lot of ways prepped me for the future as well.”

Dominique Evans designed the UK’s new £2 coin celebrating the life of Jane Austen. Dominique, who graduated in 1995 in Graphic Design BA(Hons), has been a Royal Mint graphic designer for the past 12 years.

Dominique said of her University of Brighton course: “I, like so many of the creative people who went there, will wax lyrical about the course – I have such fond memories of my time there. The course really did instil in me the importance of idea generation, which has been a foundation stone for everything I have done in my career since then.”

Eliza Hatch

Illustration graduate Eliza Hatch featured was interviewed by The Guardian and Marie Claire regarding her campaign to raise awareness of sexual harassment and documenting women’s experiences.

Eliza, a photojournalist who graduated from the University of Brighton last year with a BA(Hons) Illustration degree, photographed women in the public places where they had been harassed. Their images and personal accounts are featured in Eliza’s series Cheer Up Luv and Instagram.com/cheerupluv.

Eliza said her course gave her the foundation for her project: “I absolutely loved Brighton, and without studying on the illustration course, I wouldn’t have achieved what I have so far with this project. The course gave me the initiative to be able to start and thoroughly carry out an idea, and gave me opportunities that I could not have got anywhere else.

“I am very grateful to it!”

Find more student success stories on the Art, Design, Architecture, Media blog.