Generation Next: Ones to watch on the Scottish art and design scene

Rachael Cloughton
3 September 2019

All that can be seen can be adorned / Kate Lingard

With a world-class reputation for producing top-tier talent, we take a look at some graduates and rising stars from Scotland's art colleges who are making their mark

Edinburgh College of Art graduates scooped some of the top awards at Graduate Fashion Week (GFW) this year. Brian McLysaght was named the 'shining star' by judges, scooping three prizes at the GFW annual ceremony; the Conscious Design Award sponsored by Swarovski, the Christopher Bailey Collection of the Year Award and the Hilary Alexander Trailblazer Award. His designs confront the impact of fast fashion, offering an innovative, sustainable alternative with pieces made from entirely organic waste materials, sourced locally and which are completely biodegradable. Other big wins went to fashion graduate Alexandra Fan, who took the Womenswear Award and the David Band Textiles Award for her space age collection made of biodegradable latex, described as pushing 'fashion into the future,' and Rosie Baird, who won the George Catwalk to Store Award for her haunting collection of Scottish-inspired garments.

At New Designers, one of the biggest showcases of new design talent in the UK, Glasgow School of Art graduates stole the show, securing the event's top prizes for the second year in a row. Silversmithing and Jewellery graduates Harriet Jenkins and Eleanor Whitworth scooped both of the prestigious Goldsmiths Company awards. Jenkins won the Company's Silversmithing Award for a collection of pieces inspired by cabbage leaves, while Whitworth took the Jewellery Award for her intricate gold and silver jewellery adorned with bugs and insects. Another top prize went to GSA graduate William Sharp, who won the Hallmark Studio award for his Bauhaus-inspired designs, developed by applying Dieter Rams' 10 Principles of Good Design (often called the 'Ten Commandments' for design) to a collection of modular jewellery, made using 3D printing from biodegradable PLA plastic.

Sculpture and Environmental Art graduate Kate Lingard received GSA's highest award, the 2019 Newbery Medal, for her degree show work; a complex installation of casts created from structures of the inner ear, which were made in collaboration with medical and microbiological laboratories across Scotland and the medical visualisation department at GSA. Lingard was also selected to show her work at the RSA New Contemporaries exhibition in Edinburgh next year.

You can also catch some other rising stars on the Scottish painting scene at the RSA New Contemporaries next year, with Joseph Buhat, Naomi McClure, Jasmine Regmi and Leila Kleineidam all selected from Aberdeen's Gray's School of Art's small but prestigious painting department to show in the capital. Another painting graduate from the school, Kathryn Johnson, won the prestigious Gordon Brown Memorial Prize, awarded in memory of the Aberdeen-based painter who studied at Gray's in the late 1980s.

In Dundee, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design graduate Louis Peters won a 'One to Watch' award at the D&AD New Blood Festival this year. The Graphic Design graduates' degree show work was named Jam-roll and is a typographic publication about losing your virginity. Peters describes it as 'a humorous journey, uncovering the untaught, grey areas that surround sex education, only apparent with both time and experience.'

Other ones to watch from DJCAD include graduates Ana Hine, Steven Sheath and Cal Kaha McKeon, who are members of The Queer Dot, a new artistic collective formed in response to the lack of queer representation in the university library. The Queer Dot is a play on the term 'the year dot', meaning the first day of history, drawing attention to the fact that queer people have always been here. There are currently 13 artists in the collective working towards new projects, including an exhibition at Generator, Dundee, and a new outdoor painting, which will be unveiled during Dundee Pride.