‘Great Escape’ presents a series of exhibitions and events by second year students from Nottingham Trent University’s Fine Art course. Over the space of two weeks One Thoresby Street’s multiple galleries and project spaces will be taken over by a dozen different groups, bringing together a wide range of subjects, mediums and interests in one vibrant programme. 
 
Alongside the physical exhibitions, ‘Great Escape’ is accompanied by this website, where information for all the physical and online events can be found, offering access to those who are unable to visit in person due to ongoing difficulties presented by COVID-19.
 
OTS, itself founded by NTU Fine Art Graduates back in 2004, is glad to be able to support the project, and to have the opportunity to foster the professional development of these exciting young artists. ‘Great Escape’ continues a long history of involvement and collaboration with students of the course stemming from the early days of the organisation, which has included residencies, exhibitions, and most recently Grad Assembly & Interstitia, our 2020 graduate project and online exhibition.
 
 
‘Great Escape’, open daily (excl. Wednesdays), 12-6pm
May 17th – 30th
One Thoresby Street
NG1 1AJ
WELCOME TO
GREAT ESCAPE

What's Our Worth

One Thoresby Street, Nottingham
17th-18th May 

Our art collective is called The Cursed Pom Pom’s but the official event title is ‘What’s Our Worth?’, with this being the focal point of our idea. Our exhibition is a pop-up event where we will be selling the art pieces we have made, in order to question the concept of commercialism within a contemporary art space. The idea is that every hour the atmosphere of the pop-up shop will be changed to create a ‘hype’ and experiment with how an audience reacts to the change. We will be selling things like prints, posters, handmade earrings etc. Our event will be taking place at One Thoresby Street Nottingham, on the 18th of May. Our inspirations for What’s Our Worth? is ‘The Shop’ by Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas as well as hype culture. The idea of devaluing our work for the sake of performance and public interaction is also something that inspired us to create What’s Our Worth?

Paradise Complex

Paradise Complex is a project born from a desire to experience an ideal and eclectic space. We invite you to visit our residents’ rooms and take a peek at their personal utopias. We want to develop a contemporary paradise that allows our residents to explore their artistic license to the fullest, as here at Paradise Complex your imagination is the limit! Due to the current state of the world there has been an ever growing need for escapism, and here at Paradise Complex we offer you the ultimate form of fantasy. We have provided each resident with their own digital room and which has allowed them to create their own personal haven. This project has allowed us to exhibit the symbiotic relationship between residents and their space. Now for the first time we are opening up this intriguing digital apartment complex and we hope you enjoy your visit.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you and hope to see you again soon,

From the team at Paradise Complex™  

paradisecomplex.squarespace.com

The Inner Child

Fuel your nostalgia with ‘The Inner Child’, a child like environment for your inner self, utilising playful activity and mindfulness. A swing is at the centre fold of our childhood, a tool for carefree enjoyment, and how best to represent ‘The Inner Child’ than by using this motif. Additionally, this childlike activity is paired with a series of digitally painted landscapes imitating the peaceful atmosphere once found in our childhoods.

theinnerchild.co.uk 
Megan Thompson and Jacqima Rios
@theinnerchildexhibition

The Rock Creations X Inner Child Collaboration
Jenaika Rios and Orianna Garcia

@Rock.creations

Breakout

‘Breakout’ is a video that depicts four personal perspectives on the phrase ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ in correlation with the current circumstances. The video is a collection of four animations intertwined together. Our instagram page, @breakoutbymental, is also part of our online experience. It acts as a gallery space within a social media platform, exhibiting other work MENTAL have created alongside the video.

Journey Through The Everyday

Shakespeare Street, Nottingham Trent City Campus

Monday 17th-Friday 28th

Inspired by ideas around commuting, ‘Journey Through the Everyday’ is a walk-through experience taking place on Shakespeare Street. Three artists are exhibiting framed work on the Nottingham Trent City Campus that provides a new, engaging perspective on a journey through everyday life.

Unpleasant Delights

Our exhibition will be an installation in Forest Recreation Ground, painting on pieces of wood and hanging them from one of the trees like a baby mobile. We will be using unpleasant imagery to work with the subject of mental health, predominantly student’s mental health during the pandemic. Using an Instagram page alongside this to post the artwork up close so it is available to view for anyone to see and will link in websites for mental health support for anyone affected or struggling.

Forest Recreation Ground

Emily Asquith, Edie Greensmith, Jordan Illingworth, Hope Jennings, Izzy Stevens

Uknown Treasure

17-31th May on the marked route around Nottingham. 

The collections we establish from trash to create a new life, exploring the use of recycling and Covid-19 bringing the outside in and collaborating with new and familiar mediums we find, to give past trash a completely new value.  

Looking at the group’s strengths in different areas from painting to sculpture, we’ve created a walk to collect materials, stimulate ideas, record and explore visuals from the Nottingham area to bring back and work with. Using our surroundings as a basis for our final creation. The work will be exhibited on pinned areas marked on the routed walk around the inner city with artists feeling free to make what they think suits best for the site specific works that will be replacing the found material. 

Artists: @mortlock_art @frasermiller_ @bravesunday @eugenieellorart

Interconnection

One Thoresby Street 
25th-27th May

Summer Kirkpatrick, Lucy Blease, Neve Charley, Grace Sykes and Polina Paspata.

Our collaborative piece aims to present the connection between artists and its challenges during the pandemic.

Through using a combination of styles and media we will be portraying the importance of human interconnection and conversation. We highlight the idea of uniting and overcoming struggles cooperatively as a society.

Looking Through Red

One Thoresby Street (Attic space) 

Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd May

We are creating pieces that show an illusion when looking through red and blue acetate, to portray that things aren’t always as they seem. For this idea we are creating 3 pieces and each piece displays two figures overlapping one another. By using the acetate, you can then separate the two figures and see the motion illusion. 

Get.Involved.

We’re a team of artists inspired by the joy of community projects that unite people in hard times. We’re focused specifically on uniting young people to reflect on how we’ve made our way through lockdown. Our exhibition will include work from our own peers and from youth that we’ve been in contact with, and all the art will focus on themes of positivity answering the question “What Helped You?”. 

One Thoresby Street (Project Space) 

27-30th May 

Ella Van Der Straaten, Nellie O’Rourke-Stopka, Daa Al-Farsi, Lauren Carter, Maisie Stevens  

@get.involved_art

In Two Minds

One Thoresby Street (Auto Locus Space) 
24th-26th May
Kinesics (Hannah Stokes, Chloe Burns, Jade Moore & Maggie Li)
 
Our ideas for this piece is to express the frustration and loneliness over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic through non verbal communication. The lack of contact with others during this time has caused distress and loneliness. We would like to connect people from this experience from lockdown to encourage people to reach out who may be feeling similar. We are going to communicate this through moving image projection.

Rock Sticky

Our project is an exhibition that explores the feeling of nostalgia with events and shows that have been forced to a halt due to the Pandemic over the last year. It will feature an enclosed space where visitors will be encouraged to step inside and experience the bright lights and loud music, with hope of it feeling like a night club for just yourself. With Covid in mind, the structure will have space for 1 person inside and will be monitored and therefore sanitised in between each visit. The structure will be blacked out, with coloured lights inside to mirror a specific event, featuring decorations to add to the experience. We hope it will allow those who visit to be lost in another world for the duration and imagine what we have been missing.

One Thoresby Street (Auto Locus Space)

18th – 20th May

Hosted by Millie Welburn-Cowell, Grace Morgan, Claudia Tuvey and Georgie Innalls.

Human Interaction

Our project goal is to encourage social interaction between people who may otherwise struggle with starting one with a stranger. As a group, we know what it’s like to want to start a conversation but not know how to or what to say, and that is why we want to help others. This pandemic has put a strain on communication between individuals, and we aim to help by providing an online space that gives people a chance to talk to others with colouring as the icebreaker. We plan to host a live on YouTube where we hold a discussion about related topics. The colouring pictures will be designed by us and will be available to print via a link from our Instagram page.

Live on Youtube: 24th May 7pm – 8pm

Beth Dixon, Emmylou Kessler, Shun Yu (Zoe) Chu and Otilija Cepkauskaite

Small World, Big Place

Our group is made up of six individual artists who each have their own style, however we all share a common goal; to create one piece to reflect our visions. This will eventually be a collection of different artworks within the same space by artists who share a vision, that when together can create something in the style of a traditional, unconventional advertisement. Through the use of our responses to different surroundings, cultures, colours and thoughts, our aim is to transport you through a celebration of art and hope that the viewer feels the same amount of joy that we do from creating it. We will be using the light box at OTS to combine all our work so that we can present it 24/7. The print will be very colourful and so the light from the Light box will hopefully compliment this.

Rights For Flies

There are multiple species that have taken part in the creation of insect rebellion. We all have emptied our glasses in search for a representation of a bigger identity- one that pursues imperfection; one that pursues the enrichment of underground, lower class entertainment.
Witness life through the eyes of the bug that inhabits your pupil’s surface, then feel the light rays crawl under your eyelids. The detail of sound is a sensation that only the conscious can admire. Show the world your facets while knowing your template is shared. BEWARE THE BED BUG.

An Introduction to scrap music

Advertising for a new sound and visual art wave, exhibiting in the ‘one’ on thoresby street.

21st-24th May

Journey to Annihilation

 Every individual in our collective are making a piece of work from installation, sculpture, painting to illustration in response to our apocalyptic theme surrounding current affair issues such as the climate crisis, over consumption, nuclear holocaust and mass extinction

One Thoresby Street (Attic Space)

24th-26th May

Artists – Amy, Queenie, Inigo, Abigail, Fin, Jiawei.

DISCONNECT

Our exhibition is an accumulation of the practices of 6 artists. Our collaborative piece ties together our overlapping individual interests, including our relationship with the natural world and the value of being in the present moment. We have created an exhibition where with your eyes closed, you would presume to be standing within nature with grass underneath your feet, similar to in a garden, but with the aid of visuals you are then transformed into a room full of juxtaposed colours and textures. The exhibition is experienced through the floor and supported by the sounds of the natural world, to bring you to the present moment and help you to focus on individual senses.

One Thoresby Street (Attic Space)

17th-19th May 2021

Artists- Roisin Bourke, Connie Tugman, Hollie Betts, Yael Batour, James Fletcher and Viv Jones-Mills.