Art graduates show their creations at Derbyshire gallery

Armaghan Fatemi's Invisible Hands shows how professional weaving takes its toll on women.

The presentation at QUAD in Derby reflects the work of artists from UK based BA degree courses who graduated during the Covid-19 pandemic but were unable to exhibit their final work or who were limited in opportunities to show their work.

Titled FUTURE FOCUS, the exhibition covers a range of media and themes and runs from January 29 to February 27, 2022.

Among the seven artists who are exhibiting their work is Armaghan Fatemi whose installation Invisible Hands highlights the poor working conditions and financial instability for women working as professional weavers.

Benjamin Hall's work Analepses uses the medium of videogaming to explore ancestry and provincial local archives.

Sarah-Jane Field's work offers an invitation to peer into the relationship between an artist and her Artificial Intelligence friend.

You Hah Kim’s Home-Master series portrays the K-pop fandom culture through a metaphoric female body, focusing on the contradictory relationship between recognition desire and anonymity as well as voyeurism and exhibitionism.

Other artists selected to showcase their work include Ash/Ella, Takudzwa Chandiwana and Yuhong Wang.

The remaining 18 of the 25 shortlisted artists will have their creations shown on a looping slideshow at the entrance to QUAD’s main gallery.

FUTURE FOCUS is part of FORMAT International Photography Festival and QUAD’s artist support and mentoring schemes.

Peter Bonnell, QUAD senior curator, said “The shortlisted artists work offers a glimpse into the superb quality of work that continues to be produced in art schools across the UK. Our jury had an incredibly hard decision to make considering the high quality of emerging talent who applied.”