After successfully completing his FdA Illustration course at Camberwell, student Ruairi Fallon, continued his career at the college joining the BA Illustration course. His passion for crafts combined with the college’s creative environment has helped him explore and develop different skills and find his artistic identity. Here, he tell us about his experience from FdA to BA.
Did you always know that you wanted to study Illustration?
When I was in school I didn’t really consider the context or the concept of my work. I just loved making and pushing my skills, everything from painting, sculpture and animation so when I got into the Foundation I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do. The course started to tear apart everything I thought I knew about art, it was like starting from square one. I felt that my art could no longer be purely process driven and that I had to have a reason for everything. I ended up picking illustration as my specialism because it felt most suitable and seemed to encourage a craft element within it, such as book binding, printing and animation. Consequently, I fell in love with print and it has been the main focus of my work ever since.
Please tell us about your experience during your FdA course at Camberwell and how was it to ‘Bridge’ into the BA Illustration course.
I wasn’t accepted onto the BA illustration course after my foundation and subsequently chose to do the FdA course, this ended up being the right thing for me. The fast pace and industry elements of the FdA pushed me mentally but also showed me that in real life you don’t have months to come up with ideas when you are working in this industry. It also allowed and encouraged me to indulge my love for process and skills. The FdA helped me narrow down what kind of practice I wanted to do, and when it came to bridging I had a strong body of work and a strong project proposal. The BA has a very different feel to it, the pace is a lot slower, and there is more focus on creating a strong identity and direction for your work.
Do you have any exhibitions coming up?
We are currently putting together our interim show where we will be showing more work in progress than finished pieces by the sounds of it. I have made a concertina book full of pop ups and have created a series of dark woodcuts which I will be displaying.
What are your plans for the future?
I plan on staying in London until the end of august and then moving back to Belfast for four or five months working on a personal project that has been in the pipeline for a long time now. Once this project is finished I want to have an exhibition around Christmas time. I have a few prospective places for the show. After Christmas I intend to move to New York for a year but there is a lot of planning to be done.
You can view more of Ruairi’s work and contact him here
Applications for the FdA Illustration course are still open- for more information about this course and how to apply please click here