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Student Showcase Archive

Shelley James

PhD Work

PhD work

  • Hybrid Form, from the Moire Matrix series

    Hybrid Form, from the Moire Matrix series
    Hot glass and print

  • Matrix 3

    Matrix 3
    Hot glass

Trained in textiles, at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, I worked in corporate design for international clients including Visa International, Shell and Habitat.

Keen to explore this theme of identity from a more personal perspective, I started to work with medical scans in the context of an MA in Printmaking at the University of the West of England. Research into the structures of the visual pathway led to an ongoing Residency with the Bristol Eye Hospital and experiments in glass, supported by the National Glass Centre in Sunderland. Awards from the Wellcome, Crafts Council England and the Helen Hamlyn Foundation have led to my current AHRC-funded PhD at the RCA in London.

My work combines the graphic range of print with the optical qualities of glass, to explore the fugitive nature of spatial perception and the shifting boundaries between appearance and experience, material and virtual space.

Info

Info

  • Shelley James
  • PhD

    School

    School of Humanities

    Programme

    Ceramics & Glass, 2009–2013

  • Trained in textiles, at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, I worked in corporate design for international clients including Visa International, Shell and Habitat.

    Keen to explore this theme of identity from a more personal perspective, I started to work with medical scans in the context of an MA in Printmaking at the University of the West of England. Research into the structures of the visual pathway led to an ongoing Residency with the Bristol Eye Hospital and experiments in glass, supported by the National Glass Centre in Sunderland. Awards from the Wellcome, Crafts Council England and the Helen Hamlyn Foundation have led to my current AHRC-funded PhD at the RCA in London.

    My work combines the graphic range of print with the optical qualities of glass, to explore the fugitive nature of spatial perception and the shifting boundaries between appearance and experience, material and virtual space.

  • Degrees

  • Diploma, Textiles, École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs, Paris, France, 1988; MA, Multidisciplinary Printmaking, University of the West of England, Bristol, 2006
  • Experience

  • Account Director, Imagination, London, 1996–2003; Research fellow, University of the West of England, Bristol, 2005–8; Artist in residence, Bristol Eye Hospital, Bristol, 2006–present
  • Exhibitions

  • Peter Layton Summer Show, London Glassblowing Centre, 2012; Illusoriamente, European Conference on Visual Perception, Sardinia, 2012; MRC Centenary, Inigo Rooms, Somerset House, London, 2013; Reciprocal Space project with the Opera Group and Physics Department of King's College, London, October 2012; Ignite / ReachOutRCA project with Bate Collection of Musical Instruments, Oxford, November 2012