Slade BA/BFA Degree Show 2025
After two years of immersive installations and conceptual whole-room displays, most of this year’s degree students appear to be following the current commercial gallery trend of focussing on traditional painting and wall-based works. There wasn’t much video or sculpture, though there were more performance-based displays than usual.
The only noticeable theme, if you could even call it that, was a large number of figurative painters appear to have been influenced by cartoon or graphic novel style work. Stylistically this means the works were less painterly with less realism, and leaned more towards illustration style depictions, often quite surreal, more commonly seen in drawing or animation.
Here are a dozen artists whose work kept me lingering in their booths.
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Ada Bond (@ada___bond) — It’s was a smart install choice to matchy match the pinks in the paintings with the backdrop curtains.
Amida Deen (@whoodeenie) — The portraiture was visually distinct, but it’s too soon to tell if it’s in service of substance or just style.
Aruthra Gurumoorthy (@_aruthra_) — This series of works tracing the artist’s family's identity through the life of the great-grandparents made me want to sit down and listen to stories of their journey.
Beth McAlester (@bethmcalester) — The paintings are accomplished but individually not that engaging. It was the wraparound hang that made the room stand out.
Ho-sa Wang (@hosa.ww) — The very impressive and eye catching install, combining 3D canvasses and video inserts, was more engaging than the overly convoluted and sometimes underwhelming imagery.
Jinhee Park (@hee.stu) — There was something very soothing and somber about these paintings.
Julian Kowal (@julian.kowal) — The conceptual filler, including a metal box in the corner emitting subtle scents, was easy to ignore thanks to the sublime photorealistic oil painting.
Laura Dethloff (@laura.dethloff) — The accompanying catalog showed much better works than were on display in the room, but the earthenware squiggles still captured my attention.
Netanya Schwab-Matalon (@netanyasm) — I like cupcakes and I like girls, but these cupcake girls scare the bejesus outta me.
Rose Jones (@rosefpjones) — I didn’t like most of the paintings in the show, but the business card is a keeper. This artist is strongest when the works are both simple and silly.
Rosie Buchanan (rosiebuchanan.co.uk) — Living petri dish displays, screens embedded in rock-like sculptures and videos of the artists writhing around inside a yellow bag. And if you think that’s odd, just wait until you read the statement on her website.
Viking Stendahl (@vikingtrolle) — The video was unwatchable but I’ll take a set of the very comfy lizard print dining chairs, please. (Note: the chairs are by Fatemeh Sarebannejad — @fatemehssareban)
Plan your visit
‘BA/BFA Degree Show’ runs 23-29 May 2025.
Visit the official site and follow @sladeschool on Instagram for more info about the venue.
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