NUA End of Year Show 2014

Long time since my last post, apologies for that! But I’m sure you’ll understand, since I’ve been pretty busy FINISHING AT UNIVERSITY! Yeah, these three years at Norwich University of the Arts has now come to it’s conclusion, but what better way to do it than with the super lush show everybody on Illustration put on as part of the NUA Degree Show.

As previously planned, I printed my work onto some huge 80 x 33cm perspex and mounted them on some small hooks in the board. I was so worried something would go wrong; they’d not measure up properly, they’d be too small, they’d be too big, the hooks wouldn’t hold them, but they turned out perfectly. Below are some shots I got of my final display, including the amazing bear bone.

I had some brilliant feedback from some total strangers at the exhibition as well as tutors and friends & family. People seemed to really love the book as an object, plenty of comments about the binding and acetate sheets which is nice since it was probably my favorite bit too.

The perspex looked brill at the angle it was, it showed the audience clearly that the uncoloured elements were transparent while remaining close enough to the white board to maintain the vibrance of the the colours. The mount I used for the bone was ideal as well, it didn’t obscure any of the object itself and successfully looked like the sorts of mounts you’d see in a museum, which is the sort of atmosphere I wanted create with my display.

There were some elements I wish I’d done differently, however. The display for the book was a very last minute mad panic. I’d been a bit of a huge procrastinator and failed at getting a custom made display for the book to allow the audience to flick through the book without having to take it off the shelf. Because of this, I had to use a small skinny shelf (which was kept aside for me, thank god). So viewers of the book had to take the book off of the shelf and either flick through it with great difficulty or put it on the glass display just opposite, which was a bit of a nuisance. Also I didn’t have a separate display for my postcards and business cards, which I would have wanted ideally. But this didn’t seem to hinder the level at which people took them! I had to restock four or five times, which was a good sign.

All in all; success! Hopefully I’ll be able to take the perspex to more exhibitions and galleries, perhaps even make some sales out of it, who knows..