Source: Graduate Photography Online - 2018 Selections

Each year as part of Graduate Photography Online we ask three professionals from the world of photography to review all the MA/MFA work submitted and make some recommendations. These are published both in a supplement in the magazine and here on our website. We hope this makes an interesting introduction to the project as a whole.

It has been a great opportunity for me to be involved in the selection process for Graduate Photography 2018. A significant concern for my publishing practise is to support and encourage young and emerging artists. This platform offered by Source has allowed me to access and contemplate a huge range of work that I would not usually have the capacity to see. It has been a rejuvenating experience to dedicate time to researching a distinguished collection of next generation work. The competence of photography and ideas coming out of these graduate programs is exciting, and I was reassured to see young artists continuing to experiment with the medium, as well as approaching subjects with honesty and certainty. The range of quality and approaches left me with a massive challenge - whittling down to a selection of just six names. In the end I considered carefully the relationship between synopsis and image, skill of application, diversity and subject matter. (Portrait Photo by John Spinks.)

Selected Photographers:

Selector's Comment: The immediate sense of awkwardness and cleanliness in Yushi Li's images remained with me for the whole selection process. Her photographs are peculiarly banal but with just enough disjointedness to make me reconsider what I am actually looking at.

Selector's Comment: Being from a village called 'Lover' - which is next to a hamlet called 'Bohemia' - is surely an unavoidable source for a body of work. I was pleased to read and then see, however, that Cheryl Newman approached the subject by addressing the myths, hearsay, brief encounters and dreams from her childhood, rather than with a bromidic humour. I couldn't help but consider my own fragmented memories of the man who lived in the house with the overgrown garden down the street, and the relationship I have with otherwise-insignificant brick walls where I might have hung out or climbed after school where I grew up.

Selector's Comment: Gibraltar is a place I have always been aware of, but never really understood or even attempted to conceive. A heavily fortified, massive piece of limestone on a small peninsula at the bottom of Spain, which remains a British Territory. People who live in Gibraltar are Gibraltans who are a majority mix of English and Spanish, and are bilingual. The subject intrigues me and Luke Archer's aesthetic exploration of the culture and landscape left me wanting to see and learn more.

London College of Communication - MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography

Selector's Comment: As far back as the to-and-froing of the Roman Empire, the area of Eastern Europe that we know as Poland has been a mysterious and contested ground. Quite simply, the story of the Lipka Tatars is one I know nothing about. Selim Korycki's beautiful and intimate photographs, supplemented by found objects, capture my attention initially by aesthetic and furthermore by accomplished image making. The work seems balanced in offering informative content, descriptive documentary and technical skill.

Selector's Comment: The phrase 'I came, I saw, I contoured' will probably stay in my head forever now. The subject of existential identity crises is a well trodden path in photography. I am usually sceptical of such works, as they often function with a similar pattern (Tomoko Sawada being my favoured artist from this canon). However, Jo Sutherst's 'Fractured Identities' seems quite open, fun and enjoyably outrageous. There is an expressive and positive vulnerability about the scenarios that make me smile.

Selector's Comment: I have always been a believer in photography being a form of emotional expression. Lauren Forster's poignant homage to her relationship with her mother is an honest and weighty subject. In particular I found the photograph of her mother's back pensive and affecting, accentuating the unavoidable cruelty of human nature.

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