Tilly Symonds is a recent graduate of the university and came in to speak to us today about her experiences and progression after graduating and the thoughts behind her work.
I found Tilly to be a particularly inspiring talker as her illustrative style and work is very unconventional; her work is based around music, sound and moving image, exploring a wide range of materials and processes. Her work took this turn in 3rd year and she ran with it which gives me confidence that at a time when my work is rapidly changing and progressing, it is not to late to find my true style and continue to explore working processes.
As Tilly only began working on moving image in February 2013 she felt it was a wise choice to go on to the Royal College of Art in September to study a Masters in moving image in order to gain experience working with other filmmakers and expand her skills.
The projects she is working on at the RCA sound very different to those that we cover as illustrators at NUA such as acoustic imagery, where they work with personally discovered sounds rather than already recorded music in order to create truly original and interesting imagery. Tilly says the RCA is about collaboration and bouncing ideas off each other rather than about grades and solo-practice; they aim to challenge what exists and to create their own jobs. The course seems to be quite fine art based as they focus on the ideas behind the work rather than the final outcome: 'thinking about practice in a wider context.'
'Moon', Tilly Symonds
This has encouraged me to think about the future of my own practice and whether I want to continue in education or not. I want to continue to learn and develop but I think that is something I need to do outside of an educational institution; I want to learn through experience, commissions and live briefs. Making this choice based on where I want to go, rather than the financial choice that it has been previously, has made me feel a lot more confident about my future and I feel excited to prepare myself for the working world rather than for a Masters.
'City', Feliks Topolski
The same applies for the Toplski residency. Two ex-NUA students who are part of a residency came to talk to us about their experience, learning and future after the residency. The Topolski residency is run by the family of Feliks Topolski, an Polish born painter and illustrator in the 20th century that created autobiographical paintings and colourful portraits. The studio aims to continue Topolski's teachings and refreshing approach through these resident artists. They are taught to have a looser, faster and less precious approach to their work, documenting their surroundings quickly and using unusual materials to loosen their work such as sticks. The experience sounds liberating and refreshing but again I feel that I don't want to continue to be taught theoretically and I want to learn through working as a freelance illustrator in the industry and making my own mistakes. However, this approach to working methodology is something I want to take on board and I plan to conduct a self-initiated project in the same style to loosen up my drawing and work on something fast paced and reportage based.
I am glad to have had the experience to listen to these previous NUA illustration students as it has really made me think about my plans after uni and making the right choices for me
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