'Then Again' is a collaborative exhibition by Loughborough University’s graduate artists, Coral Shaw Jackson, Lily Rees, and Aimee Mitchell. Following their 2024 graduation, this exhibition showcases the progression of their practices since returning to Loughborough. 'Then Again' alludes to this exploration into alternative ways of thinking and making and captures a moment in the development of their emerging art practices. The show invites viewers to experience the coming together of distinct mediums where a new arena is created that explores process, chance and new beginnings.

Shaw Jackson’s practice is concerned with narrative and image making, inspired by folklore, place and ancient stones. Her photography and printmaking explore bodily engagements with landscape as the point of departure of our understanding and experience of objects and the world. The work presented here delves into an ‘imagined aftermath’ of a previous body of work, situated in conversation with both Rees’s and Mitchell’s outcomes.

Rees’s work explores time, memory, and place through mixed media. Rooted in patience and process, her work is both meditative and meticulous - an exploration of how we preserve time through art. The work showcased here investigates our understanding of time perception. Using her own brain shown through magnetic resonance imaging, silk and cotton has been stitched by hand directly into the scans. 

Mitchell’s practice is a continual interrogation of the materiality and autonomy of paint, and its interaction with the surface of various materials in creating the illusion of light. The work is underpinned by an understanding of empiricism and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology; an understanding of the artist’s own consciousness and experiences, and how these manifest into gestures and intuitive marks to create emotional landscapes. The paintings exhibited here present her continued experimentation with materials, including a more recent use of polycottons and a recurring use of unprimed canvas.

There is a launch event for the exhibition on Thursday 10 April from 6pm-8pm, which all are welcome to attend.

Please note that the exhibition will not be open from Friday 18 April - Tuesday 22 April inclusive due to the University’s closure period over Easter.