In celebration of our incredible Graduate show this month, we’re highlighting the creativity and talent of our graduating students by sharing their stories and showcasing their inspiring work. We spoke with Fine Art Painting BA(Hons) student Dylan White about the course, their influences and advice to their younger self.

Please tell us a bit about your work and your influences

Poundland arts and crafts kids’ section, I pick up any plastic, foam, shiny, tacky, kack-handed “children’s” material I can find to throw into my sandbox. To galvanize spontaneity and to open the practice up to unconventional materials and build off the collision with other traditional ones.

Recently the addition of “funky foam” which has extended the use of collage in the work. Alongside the primary saturation of the foam, the unusually smooth material also physically sticks out from the surface which creates an interesting more object like painting.

Iconography surrounding kid-characters, cartoonish cut-outs, childhood imagery and the Poundland kids, arts and craft’s materials is in constant rotation, stars, fish, dinosaurs, stickers, hearts. Ties, hats, Santa hats, plants, trees. Any symbol I can get my hands on and push to the bare bones or flesh out till it’s sagging.

The methodology I follow is like that of a middle-aged man in a sandbox in a park. Filling buckets, flipping them, patting them, removing sand, observing them, and then destroying them or combining them, building on top of other castles, or undermining them.

Glitter, now this is tricky it’s fun it’s like camp, rock, which I love it’s very the performative, like WWE wrestling so masculine, camp and over the top. This creeps in, in different ways, through an irreverence, spontaneity of the work and a constant pushing and searching for the left-field, question and answer. The right kind of wrongness or the wrong kind of rightness.

What made you choose your course?

I loved painting and this was one of the only specific painting courses left. Moreover when I came for the open day, Chris actually sat with me and my dad after the talks and just had a conversation with us. I’d been to so many open days and never had that experience before. So I decided this was the place for me.

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

The studios are incredible and it so rare to get some like this at this level, the majority of other studio based courses in London is a fraction of the space. The sense of community on the course has been truly special and has lead to some amazing lifelong friendships and sharing of ideas amongst like-minded people.

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

Chris Stevens has been incredible during the duration of my course. He has gone out of his way multiple times to support me when I needed it.

James Kearns is the unsung hero of the painting department he add so much to the course and is a shining light.

Can you tell us your plans after graduation?

I have an interview for the Clyde Hopkins Mentoring Award in Deptford, London. Which if successful I would receive a free studio for a year and Mentoring from artist. So if I get that I will be off to London.