Degree Show 2016 Private View

The trustees, staff and students of The Prince's School of Traditional Arts request the pleasure of your company at the Degree Show Private View on Monday 27 June 2016, from 18:00-21:00.

The exhibition will remain on view until 8 July, 2016 at 13:00. The building is open from 10:00-20:00, Monday to Friday. Please note we will be closed on 30 June.

To RSVP for the Private View, please email events@psta.org.uk.

The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts

The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts (PSTA) specialises in teaching, researching and promoting the practice and theory of the arts and crafts of the world’s great traditions. Founded by The Prince of Wales in 2004, the school offers practising artists the opportunity to undertake research at the highest level with post-graduate degrees validated by the University of Wales.

Graduating Students PSTA 2016

This year there are nine MA and one PhD students exhibiting in the degree show. Their short biographies are below.

M.A. Students

Matts Cederburg – Sweden

Matts specialised in Islamic Calligraphy in the first year of the MA programme. For his second year project he is designing a Norse prayer niche (mihrab) for a contemporary mosque – the Islamakademin in Malmo. For this project, he has attempted to integrate Scandinavian ornament with Islamic biomorphic design. He has been learning the craft skills needed to execute this design in carved wood. He has also explored Islamic geometry in woodcarving technique.

Noora Al Meadadi – Qatar

Noora worked in the Qatar Museums before attending the MA programme at the Prince’s School. Noora has been studying Islamic Illumination with Prince’s School alumna, Farkhondeh Admadzadeh. She has been learning the gilding techniques associated with Ottoman and Persian schools of illumination. As inspiration for her major design project, she has used a Persian Illumination from the Qatar Museums collection. She has also worked on a number of Shamsa Qu’ranic Illuminations.

Amber Robinson – UK

Amber has worked with Egyptian paste (coloured clay), glazing techniques and the relationship with alchemy. She has worked with the symbolism of birds, using their mythical interpretations. She has also worked with traditional textile processes and dying techniques. She has also worked with pattern generation inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement towards application in interior design.

Mahrukh Bashir – UK

Mahrukh has a good understanding of the need to preserve traditional values and cultures. She has been studying with Turkish Illuminator, Gul Nihal in London. She has learned the Tezhip (gilding) technique from her teacher and has developed her understanding and skills for the intricate, flowing arabesque forms. She is combining this with the use of traditional techniques of staining paper and the use of natural pigments.

Ran Li – China

Ran studied at the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing and at the Chelsea School of Art before joining the Prince’s School MA programme. Her work is a comparison between the Western and Eastern zodiac traditions expressed through ceramics using various glazing techniques and tile constructions. She has used the seasons as a focus of her ceramic brushwork. She has also been inspired by a large Japanese bowl from the Dumfries House collection.

Yunfeng Cong – China

Yunfeng has extended his skills in traditional Chinese brushwork techniques into contemporary interpretations using the binary language as a visual form. Resulting in Chinese landscape paintings in binary code. He has also worked with egg tempera techniques on gesso working with Isnik ceramic flower forms integrated within the Chinese landscape. His strong interest in the Chinese tea ceremony has resulted in a very fine ceramic on-glaze tea service.

Lucie Galvani – France

Lucie came to us from the Krishnamurti’s Brockwood Park School and has trained in book-binding and the book arts. Her work spans European Medieval Illumination using Hildegard of Bingen’s visions. She has also interpreted the discoveries of John Martineau’s cosmological diagrams, worked with Celtic ornament and raised gilding techniques.

Heidi Morris–Duffin – UK

Heidi has created a series of painting plates, using the boat motif from the Islamic ceramics tradition, as a symbol for the journeying soul. She has also worked with the symbolisn of the seabird, looking into the poem of the Ancient Mariner. Her influences extend from Cypriot ceramics to William Morris’s interpretations of the Turkish tradition.

Lauralie Rae – Canada

Lauralie has worked with Gulen Kesova, a Turkish Ceramics master in Istanbul as part of her second year project. She has learnt the Baba Nakkash, Kutaliya and Damascus styles. She has specialised in traditional glaze recipes and techniques and Isnik ceramic design. During her time at the School, she has published a book on Turkish architecture and ceramics of the Ottoman period.

PhD Traditional Arts

Susana Marin – Spain

Susana Marín’s doctoral research focussed on the Guler and Kangra idioms of Indian painting that flourished in the 18th century in the Punjab Hills. Her PhD dissertation, The Living Tradition of Pahari Painting: an artist’s exploration of the continuity of Guler and Kangra painting though fieldwork investigation of materials, techniques, form, and aesthetic content in present-day studio practice, critically analysed the current context in which Pahari painting is presently understood, practised, and transmitted, combining academic research with extensive fieldwork and apprenticeship in studios of Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. Focusing on four essential elements of the practice: materials, form, technique, and aesthetic content, her research addresses challenging questions about the continuation of traditional practice in a contemporary context. To what extent is it still possible to achieve the same quality of painting as seen in the 18th century examples? Are contemporary practitioners truly continuing this tradition? What can be understood about the atmosphere that inspired the creation of these works of art? Is this language still relevant in the 21st century? Susana’s thesis contributes to current scholarship on Pahari painting by recording the knowledge of living masters, offering the author’s insights as an artist and her own artwork as a contribution to current efforts to keep this art alive.