Rae Hesketh BA (Hons) Fine Art and Art History 2020

Can art accurately depict abstract concepts like movement, interaction and change?

Originating with questions about how to portray the movements of ballerinas without relying on figuration, instead following the dynamism of each part of the body as they weave and dance around each other, this work shows the complexity in the dancers elegant and instinctual expression. Expanding on this, I became interested in the idea of two people interacting with each other and how this contact between them creates a similar dynamism.

Using select colours to show different people entering the emotional field represented by the canvas, my work continues to use dance as a representation of human relationships, and employs slight alterations in colour to show emotional changes in a person caused by their connections with others. Colour works as a metaphor for the person, who cannot touch another without being transformed in some way by the contact. The work as a whole uses the qualities of abstract painting to conceptualise questions such as: Did that person change me? Did I change them? Have I become less my original self through my relationships with people in the past? Can I recognise and isolate that change within myself?

My artwork has always and will always be heavily influenced by my passion for art history and I am moving on to study MSc History of Art, Theory and Display at the University of Edinburgh in September 2020.