Former UAL student's exhibition at Bayswater hotel

by Francesca Cotton

A former UAL student has landed the opportunity to exhibit her work at an exclusive art gallery space in Bayswater’s five-star Hempel Hotel.

Becky Allen, a Camberwell BA Graphic Design graduate, chose to visually represent sleep and dreams in her ‘NOX’ exhibition.

The artwork, a culmination of nine months work, explores the aspects of sleep and dreaming, and transfers Becky’s interpretation of dormant brain activity data into a collection of artwork that aims to record the mysterious nature of sleep and dreams.

Using data from brainwave activity sheets and rapid eye movement records provided anonymously by Edinburgh’s Royal Hospital for Children, as well as information from UCL’s medical library, Becky’s creations include intricate quill line drawings, metal plate etchings and photolithography prints.

Becky’s work was chosen for the gallery by the owner Naomi Murtagh. Explaining how she wanted to present her ideas, Becky, aged 23, said: “I just wanted to illustrate them in a beautiful way to represent what dreams are, because they can’t physically be represented. A lot of my work tries to look at the surface of things, and tries to look beyond what can be seen.”

Among the inspirations for her work were a chapter about bed and sleep in a book by French writer Georges Perec as well as Becky’s own personal experience.

She said: “I was kind of having an insomnia moment, and it was fascinating for me to read about what other people thought about it, so it did come from quite a personal place and I tried to expand it so other people could understand it.”

Using work from both her current course and undergraduate degree from Camberwell College of Art, Becky said some of the newer pieces took weeks to complete.

She revealed: “Although it looks painstaking and boring and laborious, I do actually really enjoy it. Each piece takes such a long time but then when it’s done it feels really momentous.”

Becky is also involved in the Tate’s new life drawing research project called ‘Re-imagining the Line: Drawing Lessons for the Twenty-First Century.” She says the exhibition has given her ideas for the future, but does not know what her future work will bring. She said: “I’m a lot freer now to go on and do what interests me.”

NOX runs until 6th May in the Art Work Space, Lower Ground, The Hempel Hotel, 31-35 Craven Hill Gardens, W2 3EA