Meet our 2022 Recent Grads

Continuing our tradition of supporting early career artists to break into the art market, our annual Recent Graduates showcase is back at our Battersea Fair this autumn! Titled A Coalescence of Daydreams, the exhibition explores notions of home, belonging and Self through a kaleidoscope of pioneering young voices. 

A Coalescence of Daydreams

The idea of home holds a different meaning for each of us; it might be linked to places or people, it could be fixed or ever-changing. This group exhibition A Coalescence of Daydreams has been curated by Nephertiti Oboshie Schandorf (Cultural Producer and Artistic Director) and produced by Hugo Barclay, Fair Director, for Affordable Art Fair, Battersea Autumn. The exhibition brings together a selection of works from recently graduated artists, who explore the experience of being confined to or separated from home in uncertain times through the lens of daydreaming. Each artwork presents a unique dreamscape and subjective window into the artist’s relation to self, environment and home. 

Meet the Class of 2022 artists below, and come and see their work in person at Affordable Art Fair, Battersea Autumn from 20 – 23 October.

Lucy Hutchings

Lucy Hutchings is a figurative painter whose work traces the subconscious shifts in our collective emotional landscape and lifestyles throughout and beyond the Covid-19 pandemic. The obscure, exaggerated characters of her colourful paintings are seen indulging in the post-pandemic return to social life, relaying funny moments and carefree, youthful memories. She graduated in 2022 from Leeds Arts University with a BA Honours in Fine Art.

Dami Ayo-Vaughan

London-based Nigerian artist, writer and researcher Dami Ayo-Vaughan explores the experience of displacement from home as refracted through personal and collective memory. Working across various media including installation and poetry, Dami is interested in how objects, images and words might carry complex emotions such as love, loss and guilt. He graduated this year from Central Saint Martins (UAL) with an MA in Contemporary Photography; Practices and Philosophies. You can read more on his MA Project, Home For Now on his website.

Connie Stewart

Connie Stewart is a Scotland based artist working across disciplines and technologies. Connie’s work explores a range of themes and topics relevant in our contemporary climate, from surveillance, censorship and algorithms, to politics, nostalgia and cultural identity. Although primarily considered an image-maker, Stewart combines the processes of photography, collage, sculpture and painting as a means to explore concepts commonly close to her heart. Much of Connie’s work is made from recycled and found objects as a way to consider our current environmental challenges.

Prab Naththarampatha

Glasgow-based artist Prab Naththarampatha’s affection for the still image stems from the changes in culture, identity and belonging that defined his early years. He grew up in rural Sri Lanka with a childhood rooted in Theravada Buddhism, before he moved to Australia in the late 1990s. His artworks capture the artist’s shifting notions of home through photography, printmaking, and photography-based mixed media. He graduated from the The Glasgow School of Art with a Master of Fine Arts in 2022.

Amanda Seibæk

Amanda Seibæk works across painting and printmaking to reflect on the turmoils of contemporary life through an abstracted, poetic lens. Her practice is inspired by scientific explanations of natural phenomena as a tool to push the boundaries between fact and fiction, and to capture complex inner worlds through evocative compositions. She graduated from the Glasgow School of Art Painting & Printmaking School of Fine Art in 2022. 

Ella West

Ella West’s multidisciplinary practice engages with the relationship between human and geological timelines, using this as an artistic framework to address themes around community, family, collaboration and home. She creates installations that combine varying elements of sculpture, video and printmaking. Ella graduated from the Slade School of Art with an MA in Fine Art Media and Contemporary Art Theory in 2022.

Ziyan Liu

Chinese artist Ziyan Liu uses digital media in her practice to expand her own body and explore the different slippages of identity. Inspired by the rapidly accelerated technological landscape of today and its impact on culture and aesthetics – such as memes and social media idols, the artist’s works reflect how our emotions and notions of Self are constantly filtered through endless streams of pixels and data. She graduated in 2022 from Central Saint Martins with an MA in Contemporary Photography; Practices and Philosophies. 

Erica McQueen

Erica McQueen is a contemporary painter based in West London. She completed a foundation diploma in Art & Design at Arts University Bournemouth, followed by a BA in Fine Art at Leeds Arts University. Exploring abstract painting, her work is led by an intuitive and reflective approach. Her work translates a personal observation of the external world and her own internal world.  She places emphasis on the painting process, perhaps as being more important than the subject matter that is depicted. This process is considered and contemplative, a dialogue between herself and the canvas, resulting in a sedimentation of mark making over time. Washes of paint and loose painterly brush marks fill the paintings, whilst traces of forms and imagery emerge within this.

Central to this is a sensation of uncertainty and a lack of clarity, which challenges a sense of familiarity or recognisability in what is seen. The work holds an ambiguous and fluid atmosphere, appearing as a fragmented conception of a dreamscape or imagined space. Leading to a sense of the transitory or to a suggestion of movement through spaces or realms.

Get inspired by the power of daydreaming and discover thought-provoking works by the next generation of artists at our Battersea Autumn Fair.

The Recent Graduates Exhibition, A Coalescence of Daydreams, is supported by Fashion Partner, BOSS at Battersea Power Station