Jaime’s globe theatre
Fri, 17 Aug 2012 11:24:00 BST
Art student creates a spherical realm of visual wonders
STUDENT Jaime Slater’s dreamlike vision of strange worlds inside a giant white pod pitted with peepholes has earned her a place in one of the country’s most important exhibitions for emerging artists.
Named 53 Degrees North, the annual show is designed as a showcase for the best work by artists currently studying for degrees in fine and applied arts. Oldham-born Jaime (pictured), aged 21, who is about to embark on the third year of her BA course at the University of Huddersfield, submitted the concept for her highly unusual sculpture named Ungroundable Hope and was accepted for the show, which opens at the New School House Gallery in York on 8 September and runs until 27 October.
In addition to the honour of exhibition, Jaime could also be in line for a share of the £1,000 prize fund and a two-week residency at the gallery, if a judging panel selects her sculpture as the winner.
It is Jaime’s most ambitious work so far, taking her three months to devise and create. Ungroundable Hope is a large hollow sphere made from plaster-of-Paris and covered with wax. It has six peepholes, and visitors to the exhibition gaze inside the sphere, where they see bizarre shapes and images – although they are in fact created by everyday objects such as feathers, hooks, beads and flower. Magnifying lenses are suspended inside the sphere, and LED lighting adds to the effect.
“It is all about opening up a different world, between utopia and dystopia. It reflects my worries about the state of the world we are living in,” says Jaime. But there is also a magical, fairytale dimension, she adds, expecting that people will arrive at their own interpretation of the work.
Jaime took art A-level at Oldham Sixth Form College, and then a pre-degree course at Oldham College which broadened her artistic horizons – “it really opened my mind up” – before joining the University of Huddersfield.
“The art degree is really fulfilling,” she says. “But it also demands a lot of self-motivation”.
Pictured below: the exterior of Jaime's Ungroundable Hope.
