Helen Billinghurst a former student from the BA fine art course joined us to talk about her practice and the residency she took at High Cross House. Billinghursts work is a seeming mixture of film, collage and painting. Either on their own or in a amalgamation of the three. In the talk Billinghurst spoke about how her style of painting developed during her time on the BA fine art course at the college. Her painting style could be described as abstract with the recognisable tendencies you would find from an abstract painter. The painting showed to us you would describe as a landscape but there are elements added into the piece that turns this piece into a style of work i would struggle to place in a certain style. Billinghurst went onto explain how elements like where paint had dripped and formed intercrossing lines would later give her inspiration with her latter abstract work both for her final year of university and her practice beyond that.
Looking at the pieces displayed both during the lecture and the time i got to see them in person during my first year, the majority of these paintings are very small in scale, yet there is arguably more detail in one of those squares than the majority of paintings i have seen. Through the use of layers Billinghurst has been able to produce several paintings that have the detail expected on larger scaled piece on a scale no bigger than a A5. By overlaying bits of canvas and layers of paint Billinghurst is able to make interesting paintings that make you move closer to see the details, from the way the paint is splattered to the brush marks which seem overscaled in comparison the the painting. Unfortunately the lighting by the projector made it quite hard to truly see the detail of the original photos and in some ways had ruined the quality of the lecture.
The talk itself was very well organised, Billinghurst had plenty of information to give insight into her own practice and how her residency at High Cross House went. The film pieces presented were a great insight into how Billinghurst has incorporated her interests of film,painting and writing all incorporated into one short film that makes use of inspiration gained from the residency and her time on the BA fine art course. It was insightful into seeing one of the many possible routes you can go down after completing the course.