City and Guilds degree show

This was another exciting selection of student work, from delicate drawings to full-scale installations. I loved Anne Marie Taberdo’s utterly immersive installation: an ice chamber built from polystyrene that was enchanting and unnerving all at once:

But my favourite was Jemma Appleby’s enormous drawings, setting real modernist buildings into deep, dark fairytale forests. Glowing from the shadows, they could be peaceful retreats from city life, or something far more sinister: what’s going on inside them that has to be so hidden from the world? Beautiful, impassive, they give away no secrets, every one a mystery that lingers in your mind. I was reminded of Peter Doig; Appleby also cites Andrew Wyeth and James Turrell, whose latest extraordinary project was recently unveiled in Cadiz.