Wanna Go For a Swim

Hattie Malcomson is a fine art student at Brighton University. ‘I found it really hard to stay inspired away from the buzzing creative atmosphere of university, but after turning the garage of my home into an art studio I quickly managed to use the isolation to my advantage. Before the pandemic my plans after university were to go travelling, but now this can’t happen, I will be spending the next year in Brighton and seeing where it takes me.’ Photograph: Hattie Malcomson

Dust It Off

Danbin Cao is an MA print student at the Royal College of Art. ‘I have always used printmaking to create worlds. After being isolated at home, due to the lack of machinery and equipment, I turned to new materials and methods. This unprecedented experience of isolation from the outside world, this sense of unreality, also provided a lot of inspiration for my work.’ Photograph: Danbin Cao

Chris

Weronika Wisz is a fine art student at the University of Gloucestershire. ‘This painting is based on a Chinese pattern, with which I have experimented with the idea of negative space, in order to achieve the effect similar to paper doilies. This portrait explores the idea of the shapes found within the face. The current situation hasn’t changed my practice much. The only thing I was forced to do because of the lockdown was sticking to a small-sized painting as there wasn’t enough room in my new studio space to make large-scale work.’ Photograph: Weronika Wisz

A Duet or Something

Evangeline Baldwin is a master’s student in fine art at Chelsea College of Arts (UAL). ‘This series was an exploration of finding spaces in between different categories of artistic mediums. The MA degree is only a year, half of which was spent in lockdown. We didn’t have the same artistic collaborative community and networking possibilities that usually comes from an art course. Our end of year show has gone online, which is hard for work that is context-based or participatory.’ Photograph: Evangeline Baldwin

Errigal

Catherine Eckersall is a painting student at Gray’s School of Art. ‘Errigal describes the moment in the Irish folk-tale, Sgiathán Dearg and the Daughter of the King of the Western World, when a great mountain splits open to reveal the strange land hidden in its depths. Coronavirus has had a huge impact on the making of my work. I have been able to continue working from home without a studio. Although this was not my original plan after graduation, I am taking some time to figure out how to navigate the changes coronavirus has caused in the art world.’ Photograph: Catherine Eckersall

Slouched Pair

William Fice is a fine art students at Leeds Arts University. ‘I wanted to present figures performing certain body languages as a result of boredom, accentuated through a bold and confident painted language. The closure of university meant I had no studio space to create large-scale works. I decided to make work that operates on a small scale, where the faster pace provided me with the opportunity to expand on my material and the painted language that was developing through each painting. Without the lockdown, I wouldn’t have taken this direction.’ Photograph: William Fice

Take Me Somewhere Nice

Henry Glover is a painting student at Wimbledon College of Arts. ‘I tend to work across multiple mediums at once on several works – 2D and 3D. Now that I have been working at home and not in the studio, I have been more efficient and structured in my process. Although the change is difficult, I’ve been able to adapt without the studio. My plans for after graduation have changed slightly but luckily I have still been able to work at the pottery Troy Town, where I’ve been making gardenware.’ Photograph: Henry Glover

Beer Drinker

Connor Tudor is a fine art student at Swansea College of Art. ‘I finished my degree in my parents’ garage, holding my degree show online with no graduation ceremony. I think the biggest change, though, was that my work was based on social interactions and places (like the pub), which were all locked down. So my angle had to change from something social to something much quieter and domestic.’ Photograph: Connor Tudor

Hope

Katie Eleanor Murphy is a fine art student at Manchester Metropolitan University. ‘I have still been working tremendously hard to continue my art practice. I had no studio space, so I built an outdoor studio in my back garden using wood and corrugated PVC roofing.’ Photograph: Katie Murphy

Salvation Prophecy

Hesi Glowacki is a fine art student at Central Saint Martins. ‘Everything became unpredictable, and all my plans had been suspended. Now, it is time to start over again.’ Photograph: Hesi Glowacki

Our World In Bloom

Lewis Deeney studies contemporary art practice at Duncan Of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. ‘My work is an exploration of the self combining abstract expressionist painting with interlocking geometric forms. I invite you to project your own narrative upon the work. I focused solely on my art and intended to flow with what came after the degree show – which did not happen. It has been tough, working without access to facilities, but it has allowed me the opportunity to re-evaluate my practice.’ Photograph: Lewis Deeney

Tendrils

Meri Croft studies fine art at the University of Leeds.‘Tendrils is based on contrast. The metallic aluminium panel counters the matte, fluid brushstrokes of acrylic paint, which are in turn opposed by the tightly formed grid behind. My paintings centre on the liminal and I used the waiting and liminality of lockdown to focus my work, rapidly creating large numbers of smaller scale pieces to identify which elements, techniques and motifs effectively created and captured my liminal spaces.’ Photograph: Meri Croft

The Lights Come On

Francesca Bleay studies fine art at Nottingham Trent University. Describing her work, she says: ‘Inspired by David Bachelors’s research into colour and the abstract expressionist movement, chance-based processes reveal the emphasis the use of black has on colour.’Photograph: Francesca Bleay

The Birthday Party I

Alice Miller is a fine art student at Loughborough University. ‘This painting directly references a personal archival 35mm slide photograph. Some subjects are familiar to me, some are not, but the scene’s specificity encourages the viewer to devise their own narrative. Lockdown gave me an opportunity to finish my final degree paintings completely uninterrupted, but to be deprived of the chance to showcase final work to friends, family and industry contacts has been detrimental.’ Photograph: Alice Miller

The Sacrifice

Malin Cederlund studies painting and printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art. ‘The painting is inspired by the film The Sacrifice by Andrei Tarkovsky, which is recorded on Gotland, the island where I was born. I liked the name and the fire relates to the current situation of the world. Since my practice is based on an investigation between humans and the environment, it’s been interesting for me to read about the changes in nature that have appeared since the start of Covid-19.’ Photograph: Malin Cederlund

Untitled 1

Olivia Longstaff studies fine art at Newcastle University. ‘Thematically, place is deeply rooted in my work, and has become increasingly important. As a result, I have found producing work in the last few months very distinctive. The lack of a physical degree show exhibition led to a questioning of the relationship between space and the painted object. Instead of looking at my paintings as simply 2D pieces, I began to consider opening up a dialogue between the paintings and their material surroundings.’ Photograph: Olivia Longstaff

Untitled (Captcha Series)

Molly Kent is a fine art student at the Edinburgh College of Art. ‘This work is an experiment in a different presentation of my textile works – I stretched this work over gallery standard canvas stretchers for ease of hanging. I am currently working in a small box room at home, so I’m not able to go as large with my work as I would have hoped for at this stage in my career. I’ll focus on smaller-scale sample works to trial ideas before being able to realise them on their intended scale.’ Photograph: Molly Kent