In the lead up to our 2025 Graduate Shows, we’re celebrating the creativity and talent of our graduating students by sharing their stories and showcasing their incredible work. We spoke with Fine Art Painting BA(Hons) student Laurence Tidy about the course, their influences and advice to their younger self.

Please tell us a bit about your work and your influences

I am currently making three-dimensional works that sit between assemblage and painting. I incorporate materials in a collagist manner, bringing differing substrates together, to make interesting forms and shapes. These act as surfaces, too, for paint or other mediums.

The materials I choose are discarded ones, left in or beside bins, which I am drawn to for their colour, the visible way they have been used, and their visual interest to me in their function and design. They are often unusual materials to work with, relative to the art practices and contexts that I am familiar with (e.g. European), though so much has been tried and explored in the history of assemblage that I would hesitate to make any claims to originality! I think overall I enjoy exploring what visual potential these materials may have, how they combine with pristine matter, and seeing how I respond.

After my first body of work this year, I noticed a predilection for exploring forms and shapes. So, I recently began stencilling onto found and discarded materials as a way to incorporate images into my practice without their content. I am currently thinking about the outline of an image as a reduced, more ambiguous signifier; it could suggest various things, not the thing it was and not even that. Playing with these stencilled images as shapes led me to explore their form more variedly and I have since begun to incorporate the stencils themselves, exploring shape more widely and untethered to specific source images. I think colour relationships work in the background, driving some of my choices unconsciously and intuitively. Paint can then intervene with colour and texture, to interact with the surface and form of what’s there, complicating and introducing a new element into the conversation.

‘Disclosure’ by Laurence Tidy

Overall, my current interests are in exploring suggestiveness and visual ambiguity; in considering what materials speak about and connote; in looking at the interactions between shape, form, and colour; and in noticing the personal relationship I have with the forms I make and the journey I go on with them. I researched John Keats’ idea of ‘negative capability’ for my third-year essay and his notion of existing in uncertainty has helped shape my approach to the way I deal with materials in an improvisatory way. Reading Helen Johnson’s book Painting is a critical form (2015) recently has been very stimulating too; her arguments about form as a way into thinking about content and the role of critical distance in painting have provided me with an exciting set of ideas to work with and to help me investigate what painting and assemblage can do.

What made you choose your course?

I chose Fine Art Painting BA because, from the day I decided to go back to college to study art, as a mature student, I verbalised that desire in terms of painting, not in fine art or any other medium. I thought it was important to stick with that. Though, having said that, I’ve certainly embraced an ‘expanded’ notion of painting during my degree, something that I could not have foreseen.

I did my foundation at the MET in Brighton and was told I might not be a painter; I took that on board but also put it to one side. Having had a small go at printmaking, I didn’t think that was for me, and I was never that interested in doing a fine art degree – the boundaries seemed too wide for me.

I also wanted to stay in Brighton, for personal and economic reasons, and the MET campus at Northbrook, Durrington, where I had an offer, was too far away from central Brighton. I had been to the Brighton Degree Show in 2022 and was not put off. So, I chose the painting course.

Can you tell us about your favourite part of your studies and how it helped the development of you and your practice.

It’s difficult to have a favourite part because a lot of them feed into each other. The studio practice time, which is the bulk of the painting week, is surely my favourite part, because I love making. At times it’s challenging and you’re not coming up with the goods, of course, but I like that struggle. It has helped my development because it provides a good chunk of time to really get involved with making and working.

However, I would add that I loved the third-year research essay because it gave me a chance to focus on studying a specific artist and specific questions. This fed into my own thinking and practice to a great extent.

I also love the group crits and 1:1 tutorials. Crits I find are engaging, fun and illuminating: I really enjoy sharing and hearing opinions on other people’s work, and hearing thoughts on my own. In this regard I’ve found Daniel Pettit’s tutorials in third-year informative and engaging; the way he speaks about painting and the approach he has taken to the group crits this year have been helpful and stimulating. I find I have learned a lot just by listening to the vocabulary and language he uses around the work and the connections he makes.

Can you tell us about any staff who particularly inspired you?

I think every tutor in the painting department has helped me think about my work and develop it; I feel I carry around a bundle of quotations from all of them, which pop up occasionally when I am making, and give me something to consider, to help steer my decision-making, which is very helpful.

Alex Pollard, the second-year tutor and my dissertation tutor, has been particularly encouraging. He initially suggested collage as an approach to making, which I initially hated but subsequently took on and I am so glad I did. I am inspired by the thinking and ideas he brings to the tutorials and crits. He was very challenging as a tutor and motivated me to work through the problems I was facing in second year regarding my work. I see that time as the main turning point in the development of my practice during the degree.

What does Brighton mean to you now?

Brighton is the place I came to to pursue studying art at college, and now, has become the place where I did a degree in painting and decided to become an artist. So, it will always be the place marked by this new beginning. Moving here marked a new chapter in my life. I have come to appreciate the things that the city it offers, including the art spaces and the individuals operating within that field. I have made many new friends here, so it’s special from that regard too.

Can you tell us your plans after graduation?

Two weeks after the degree show I have a residency at Studio Jelly in Reading. I’ll be making work, doing an Open Studios and facilitating a workshop for teenagers in assemblage, which is exciting.

I also have a solo exhibition planned at Gallery Lock-In, in Brighton and Hove, for the week beginning 4th August, dates TBC. I’m hoping to have found a studio by then. Alongside this I’ll continue working in my self-employed and part-time jobs.

Finally if you could give your 17-year-old self any advice about going to university what would it be?

I went to university before this and studied languages, so the question is a bit of a funny one for me. Nevertheless, to my 17-year-old self I would say: don’t be too hard on yourself. Make time for your friends and family. Stay sane, balanced, and get some exercise. You never know how things may turn out, so it’s okay if things don’t seem to be working out in the present. Do what makes you feel good. Take the risk.

If you’d like to see more of Laurence’s work, you can view his website and Instagram @laurencetidy.

Find out more about our 2025 Summer Shows where large parts of the university turn into a huge free exhibition space.