My review of what I saw at the degree show in person in a quick one and a half hour visit after work.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/events/shows/2026-degree-shows/#1
Eva Delaney – BA/BFA 2026
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/events/shows/2026-degree-shows/ba-bfa/eva-delaney
https://www.instagram.com/eva.delaney
Eva explores science through art and a prominent motif of this exhibition was the sun, including a piece that commerated a recent space exploration mission near the sun. She works in metal and with exciting new technology such as a levitation device. One of the pieces shimmered and moved and merged together the flatness of two dimensional representation with a sort of animation. Another two pieces were about deconstructing the flat two dimensional picture to reconstruct it in metal sequins and again to reconstruct the flat space with the peculiar qualities of construction in metal. A piece on the floor covered with a glass pane investigated the primordial soup with round stones and a photograph of sand, again positioning the flat space in a relation to the three dimensional and therefore exploring different nuances of dimension.
Ruby Fogg – BA/BFA 2026
https://www.instagram.com/rubeefogg
An artist that has spent two years playing Nigella Lawson. The installation featured polaroid snapshots and small excerpts of videos repeatedly playing her being Nigella and making incomprehensible noises on a loop, perhaps indicating the repeated experience of being her every day for two years. Ruby wore a red dress, which makes me think that the performance is not just about playing the Other, but also playing the self, investigating how the Self is enmeshed in the Other, particularly in current celebrity culture. Even her business art cards featured herself as Nigella, indicating that performance is what structures identity and how we become ourselves through others.
Freya Wild – BA/BFA 2026
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/events/shows/2026-degree-shows/ba-bfa/freya-waddington-wild
https://www.instagram.com/freyamorgan0099
Along with a friend, I walked into a multicolored tent. Inside, we found a box made out of green tiles in which Freya (I’m presuming) was sitting. This green box explored the process of exchange. Something had to be given for something to be received. We put our hands inside, giving of ourselves. And in return, out came a coloured pencil and some little slips of paper with blue print outs. This is an investigation of concealment and exchange, perhaps how the artist’s body is hidden within the works, how it is the centre and the kernal of the works. And the giving? Is this a reflection on the economics of art, its consumption and exchange value? An interesting and immersive experience which prompts amusement and novelty for the viewer, and maybe for the artist too. Because it is the interaction that makes it what it is, the reality that art is created by the artist and the viewer.
Giorgia Insalata – BA/BFA 2026
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/events/shows/2026-degree-shows/ba-bfa/giorgia-insalata
https://www.instagram.com/insalata_art
Interesting arrangements of the female body in black and white photography, a beautiful photography gallery. The artist’s aim with the compositions is perhaps to explore the construction of the female body and its use as a building block, as a resource which creates art and abstract shapes and designs. Very striking and imposing works.
Alfie Carter – BA/BFA 2026
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/events/shows/2026-degree-shows/ba-bfa/alfie-carter
https://www.instagram.com/alfiejcarter
Retro-chic assemblage pieces by this Cockney artist that drew my eye. They had refined brown tones and had a very sophisticated aesthetic which explored the virtues of arrangement.
Hope Florin – BA/BFA 2026
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/events/shows/2026-degree-shows/ba-bfa/hope-florin-sefton
https://www.instagram.com/hopeflo_4
Beautiful paintings and lovely colours. My favourite was ‘According to the Map, the end of the Rainbow landed amongst some plant ponts and conch shells on the windowsill’ which caught lovers amongst the design of nature in flora and fauna. There was a kaleidoscopic quality to the work which was intriguing and it was reminding me dimly of Klimt.
Kianna Smalling – BA/BFA 2026
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/events/shows/2026-degree-shows/ba-bfa/kianna-smalling
https://www.instagram.com/kianna_paints
Anonymous figurine models of shackled slaves and lynchings caught my eye here. They were done in a simple art style so there was no beautification of these terrible happenings in history. The point of the art here? To represent the continuing atrocities of history. The figures are against the backdrop of a blue sky showing how the ugliness of human nature constrasts with the beauty of nature and the removed – and humanless – heavens.
diary of a lone man 