A grand set of rooms in the oldest part of College plays host to an eclectic exhibition of art by three former Fellow Commoners in the Creative Arts at Trinity.
The exhibition in D3 Great Court is open to all, 12-2pm each day, until 12 May 2019.
This set of rooms is in a building that was once part of King’s Hall, one of two medieval institutions merged by King Henry VIII to form Trinity in 1546.
What is now known as D3 was built around 1417 between the Master’s Chamber and the boundary with St John’s College. For many years the set was the home of the mathematician, Professor Alan Baker (1939-2018), and this is the first opportunity visitors have to view this part of the College.
Art works by Jane Boyd, Kate Palmer and Ulyana Gumeniuk are displayed on the first and second floors of D3, which is accessed from beneath the Clock Tower in Great Court.
The first Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts was appointed in 1967 and since then the College has hosted writers, visual artists, filmmakers and composers. The Fellowship provides artists with the opportunity of two years free from financial pressures to develop new work while participating in the life of the College.
Jane Boyd was the first woman to hold the post, from 1981-1983. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, 2011. You Are There is her site-specific installation on the second floor of D3, in what was the bedroom of the set.
Jane says:
I have brought together mirrors and frames, property of the College, where the female reflection and portrait have been scarce. The work weighs the life and influence of women who have consistently made their mark over five hundred years against an undeniable visual hiatus: a visit to Hall, a room lined with portraits or to the Antechapel, where plaques and statues fill every space, will leave you wondering, where are the women? Soon, the looking glass in the Lodge will see the first female Master of the College.
Works by Ulyana Gumeniuk and Kate Palmer are displayed on the first floor of D3. Ulyana was a FCCA from 2009-2011. Her portraits of Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII, and Lord Rees of Ludlow, former Master of Trinity, hang in Hall. In D3 she is exhibiting works that reflect her preoccupation with the environment.
One explores a manmade structure and history connected to it. The others are a set of sketches that contemplate our comprehension of origin and memory. The source material for the industrial works are images taken at the Zaporizhstall Steel Mill and BP plant in Hull, Ulyana says.
The second set of works are based on iron-nickel meteorite structure as carrier of life building elements the other one incorporates “petals” of desert rose crystal alluding to the evaporated memory of the seas.
Kate Palmer was FCCA from 1999 to 2001. She is currently Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at The City & Guilds of London Art School and a Psychodynamic Psychotherapist working in private practice and the NHS.
In D3 she is exhibiting a recent series of works, Sluff, which originated from a residency in a disused restaurant in the Swiss Alps.
The word ‘sluff’ relates to small point release avalanches. Steep lines of descent can destabilise a weak layer lying near the surface of the snowpack causing a ‘sluff’- a potentially hazardous cascade of loose powdery snow.
This could also be understood in relation to psychoanalysis, where a ‘descent’ often causes internal psychic structures that might have felt solid to become destabilised, giving rise to a feeling of ‘falling.’ These digested experiences then become physically manifest in the works, sometimes robust, at other times appearing fragile and near to collapse.
The D3 Art Installation is open daily 12-2pm until 12 May 2019. Entry is via Great Gate. Normal visitor fees to College apply. D3 is accessible by lift. Please ask a Porter or student worker on duty to assist.
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