Fine art student's work gets a national viewing

Work by a University of Suffolk student is featuring on the national stage.

An installation by Belinda Downing, a third-year BA fine art student, is part of the John Ruskin Prize Exhibition, which is being held in London.

"I feel incredibly lucky to have been selected for the exhibition," she said, with 4,000 people applying to take part but only 82 being successful.

Her work is an installation made up of eight paintings, inspired by the ruined World War Two gun emplacements in the Suffolk coastal village of Bawdsey.

"It depicts the memory of a place through fragments, using the viewer's actions to see both sides of the hinged pieces," she said.

"It showcases the beauty of graffiti and brutalist architecture contrasted with its abandonment and decay."

Jane Watt, senior lecturer in fine art at the university, said: "It is testament to her skills, creativity and innovativeness as well as professionalism that her paintings have been chosen from nearly 4,000 works submitted by emerging and established artists from across Britain.

"It's been great to see her work, which is rooted in the Suffolk landscape, developing in our studios here in the Arts Building [and] now being recognised on a national stage and to a wide audience."

The exhibition, which has the theme "Patient in Looking, Truth in Making", is on at Trinity Buoy Wharf, on the River Thames, until 21 February.

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