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Art for all seasons at º£½ÇÖ±²¥ Darlington

º£½ÇÖ±²¥ art students and staff have embarked on an ambitious project to provide all the art for Darlington campus.

Professor Gerda Roper, Dean of the School of Art & Media is curating the project which will see students and staff producing work across the seasons. Initial sessions took place in December and have now been framed and are adorning the walls of the £13m campus. Following sessions are taking place in spring and summer this year so eventually the collection will depict the campus across the seasons.

One of the students who took part in the first session has now been appointed Artist in Residence at Darlington. Julie MacBean, who achieved an MA in Fine Art in 2012 is now based on the new campus and will be completing a number of additional works during her tenure.

Professor Roper said: 'This is a wonderful opportunity to capture the spirit of the º£½ÇÖ±²¥ Darlington campus. It is a brand new campus with fantastic facilities and an inspiring modern environment but set in an historic position next to Darlington station – the birth of the railways and now a key hub of transport connectivity across the Tees Valley.

'It is fabulous for our students to have this as a live brief and see their art on show as well as an exciting position for Julie to be part of the Darlington team.'

Julie added: 'I am delighted to have been appointed artist in residence. The Darlington campus affords a myriad of opportunities to explore its depiction and you can already begin to see that from the work that is being produced and displayed. I am really looking forward to helping the project to progress.'

Fine Art staff who took part in the first session – Winter Drawing included Professor Gerda Roper; Phil Gatenby, principal lecturer and head of Fine Art who since 2000 has made exhibition presentations and performance events under the name of White Noise Projects; Lesley Hicks, who has shown her work nationally and internationally and sculptor Lewis Robinson who has just unveiled his most recent work – a tribute to union leader Geoff Waterfield who fought to save steelmaking in Redcar.

A total of 11 fine art students, both undergraduate and postgraduate took part in the first session of the project: Jemma Warriner, Yanlin Kang, Julie MacBean, Keith Dunn, Emma Mills, Lesley Baker, and Kiren Bassi. Prizewinners were: First Prize (joint): Nathan Duke and Katie Horner; second Prize: Charle McCann; and third Prize: David Baker.

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