Konstfack MFA students on rage, dreams and improvisation

Should rage be controlled or expressed? Art works valued by their medium? And where does improvisation begin and end? Three Master of Fine Art students present three exhibitions at Konstfack, Vita Havet, starting 23 October.

Stage Fright by Nicholas Bates revolves around two questions. If we are to understand the idea of improvisation as a working methodology at what point does improvisation begin and end? What actions do we construct to counter and aid the improvised in such a process? These actions exist as living intentional edits of a constructed situation that starts off defined as something fleeting and spontaneous. The series of variables that have been enacted to clarify and confuse our understanding of performative improvisation is what Nicholas Bates have been working with ie the displacement of material, scale, location and reproduction.

Where do we go from here? by Jasmin Daryani, takes a starting point in where we are now but aims for something else, a new state of things. The creation of one’s own condition. The work deals with the reclamation of the self in representation. Where alienation ends and rage begins. Rage that has been born out of silence because one never had a place to speak. Rage as a result of oppression, which have become a physical burden. Rage that is turned inside oneself because it has no place in the public realm. What is more destructive, to control or carry it out? The turmoil is ever present.

In the exhibition Tangible Dreams Karl Patric Näsman questions what representation can be and how we value art works of painted matter, pointing out the originality aspect and the myth surrounding painting as a medium as well as the mythical aspects of images. In Tangible Dreams he presents a series of paintings that are fluent, light and elastic but at the same time have a solid and shiny surface. Beside the paintings the exhibition also includes reliefs that are late copies derived from the Parthenon friezes which have been used in the academic world as a quality mark for great art and classical values.

Nicholas Bates (b. 1987) As an artist my practice is informed by the improvisational and the "adhoc". I see my practice as a continuing series of situations and moments which are then, projected, glued, nailed , hung, attached in whatever frozen moment is best presented to me be it institutional public or private.

Jasmin Daryani (b. 1988 Tehran) is currently studying her last year at fine art, Konstfack. Her main mediums are text and photography. Daryani’s artistic practice is based on the notion of alienation amongst migrated individuals. She also investigates the identity making in relation to culture and history.

Karl Patric Näsman (b. 1986) studies his last year of Master Degree in Fine Art at Konstfack University College of Art, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. In recent years he has been incorporating the practice of imitating craftships and materials into a form of art making.

Opening Thursday 23 October, 5pm–8pm, in Vita Havet, Konstfack, LM Ericssons väg 14, Telefonplan. The exhibition is open 23–29 October. Welcome!