This year, the wonderful Mart Gallery and Studios in Lower Rathmines play host to graduates who have come through the level 6 Higher National Diploma programme at St Kevin’s College. The work exhibited by our students this year, again reflects the broad demographics of the college itself and the diversity, energy and uniqueness that the college provides. Students have presented individual images and subject driven projects that represent a broad range of approaches, styles and strengths – from commercial portraiture, landscape and fashion imagery, to long term projects that deal with aspects of the social and personal world.

ANNA NOWAKOWSKA

"Waiting" | My work is a reflection on the time of waiting – those emotional and pensive days and moments leading up to the death of my Father. Grasping his fading presence in light reflecting on the surface of a frozen lake. Trying to find answers to questions that cannot be asked. The stillness of water and the colour of grass, the world fading quietly along with my fathers life.

MANDY KAVANAGH – “The last leaf”

This body of work deals with the very serious issue of suicide clusters in Ireland. My focus is on a very specific location in Clondalkin where many young men have chosen to end their lives – a hanging tree, which is commonly known in the area for being the place of sadness and loss. The last leaf refers to the fragments that I have collected at the last cycle of autumn of this tree, a leaf representing the individual who last took their life here. The land that the tree sits on is due to be rezoned - work on the site is due to commence mid-2015.

SHARON FLANAGAN

Sport can highlight and expose perceptions of gender and issues masculinity and femininity. Though a series of intimate portraits, I want to challenge some of the misconceptions of women's rugby and the individuals who play the game at all levels.

DIMITRI AVKHADEEV - ‘The Lonely Station’

WANDERLEY MASSAFFELLI

'La Barca' is an escape for some people. It is a house full of young people, from Brazil, living in Dublin, establishing relationships and human bonds – partying, living life on the edge, forming connections beyond their own culture and country and feeling a sense of home away from home.

At the start of each college year, students propose an idea, or a concept, which will be developed photographically throughout the year. The development of project-based and concept-based photography is crucial in students’ development and understanding of photography at this early stage of their careers. There is a necessity, within this process, of visual connection to a subject or theme. Students find their own topic, their own vision and to try to translate these effectively. My role has been to help students find their subject, their vision and translate it effectively. Together we explore traditional and contemporary approaches to given themes and subject matter and, further, find an aesthetic and conceptual solution to the individual’s own work. The process is supported on an on-going basis by a series of workshops and further refined through a succession of critical reviews, with the involvement of all tutors and peers. At these critical reviews we have established a close creative synergy between tutors and students which is part of the success of our course and the triumph of this year’s graduate exhibition. The exhibition is testament to the students themselves, to the investment they have made in their own work throughout the year and the efforts they have made to produce what is yet another very special exhibition for all of us connected to St Kevin’s College.

ARTURAS RACKAUSKAS

"Home" | My project deals with memory, identity and a yearning to connect with home. Since 2006, I have lived in Ireland - after spending my life on my family’s land in Lithuania. I try to merge images from my past and present life – from the beautiful place of my childhood, to the place that I live in now. Through a mental and pictorial reconstruction, of two places that I call home, the images represent a duality of characteristics and reveal the relationship between the reality of now and the memory of my distant home.

Martin Cregg

2nd Year Tutor

May 2015

'The Mirror' by Adrianna Deron c.

The self-portrait is always, in some respects, a mirror image. Through this assigned theme, notions of ‘the self’ are considered, explored and re-examined. First year students have adopted several creative and conceptual approaches relating to this theme and produced some engaging and thought-provoking work befitting the assigned task. Some are intimate and introspective accounts - conveying inner and private worlds through self-representation. Others use the task as an opportunity to perform and express an inner state. Here, issues relating to identity, morality and the body are addressed. Other work produced articulates self-affirming notions of self through relationships and family connections. What is presented, in this selection, is a broad expression of students’ present and past experiences, perspectives and perceptions. Well done to all.