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Award-winning Caithness Talent Showcased At Gray's Degree Show 2009

10th June 2009

Photograph of Award-winning Caithness Talent Showcased At Gray's Degree Show 2009

Firmly poised for future success, two final year students at Gray's School of Art are anticipating the launch of their Degree Show this Friday (12 June 2009) basking in the knowledge that their work has already been credited by some of the major national players within their chosen fields.

Craig Shepherd (42), a painter who is originally from Ellon and now resides in Fordoun, has been named runner up for the prestigious Scottish International Education Trust (SIET) Visual Arts Award. Linzi Sutherland (21) from Caithness, who is also a Gray's student, has been nominated for the coveted Scottish Fashion Awards Graduate of the Year accolade and sits alongside five of the best Scotland has to offer in terms of emerging talent for the fashion design industry.

Linzi, who is about to graduate with a degree in Textiles and Surface Design, has firmly established herself as a talented creative during her time at Robert Gordon University. The capsual clothing collection she has developed for her final year project is inspired by a statement made by Coco Chanel; 'Fashion is architecture', combining exuberant digital prints with origami-like cloth shapes to make her garments striking and very unique.

Linzi explained: "I have been inspired by architecture since I was a small child and my designs focus on the manipulation of materials into three-dimensional forms. I started off by designing colourful digital prints inspired by my photography of buildings, such as the Scottish parliament, before manipulating these fabrics and embellishing entire garments with shapes I also made up out of the cloth. Silks and satins have a sparkle and shine reminiscent to that of the surface of modern buildings and my pieces have been designed to have 'attitude'. I have produced statement catwalk pieces to present alongside design solutions for the ready-to-wear market and I think my collection has the 'wow' factor - it is not afraid to be seen!"

Sponsored by Homecoming Scotland, the Scottish Fashion Graduate of the Year accolade, a new part of the Scottish Fashion Awards, recognises the work of outstanding Scottish students in their graduating year from further education fashion and textiles courses across the UK.

Included in a diverse group of rising stars who highlight Scotland as a leading producer of innovative fashion talent, the former Wick High School pupil hopes to triumph against Scottish rivals studying at some of the best known art schools in the UK. The finalists will be judged by an exclusive panel made up of professionals from the world's leading fashion houses, the most renowned and respected fashion publications and leading figures in style, before winners are presented at the Scottish Fashion Awards in association with Vogue.com, on Sunday 21 June at Stirling Castle.

Linzi added: "I am so honoured and over the moon to have been short-listed for such a prestigious award. I have a passion for fashion and a love and excitement for textiles and I hope this will stand me in good stead for the future."

Fellow Gray's student Craig Shepherd has received �500 as runner-up of the Trust's Visual Arts Award, an annual competition run which endeavours to highlight the cream of Scotland's emerging fine artists and support them in their future careers. Working in both traditional oil on canvas as well as india ink on board, Craig was acclaimed by the judges for an overview of his work over the past two years. He has developed from being a figurative portraitist to creating experimental abstract pieces concerned with time, memory, gestural handwriting, prayer and even 'doing lines' at school as punishment!

An initiative set up by Sean Connery in the 1970s, the SIET aims to support projects that give financial help to Scottish men and women who have shown ability and promise, as well as supporting projects which contribute to the cultural, social or economic well being of Scotland.

Craig explained: "I see relationships in all these things and have been seeking to express this in the way I actually draw the images. For example, I'm interested in the philosophy of repeating something in order to learn it - while a school child may learn their multiplication tables by constant repetition, the same child may be punished by being forced to repeat endlessly a seemingly pointless statement. I look to develop imagery which, through repetition, creates naturalistic, evolving forms over time."

Receiving the SIET award has been a terrific boost for Craig, especially coming so soon ahead of Gray's Degree Show. He added: "Being at Gray's has easily been the most rewarding and creative time of my life. I feel I have grown my skills in ways I would not have guessed beforehand and working alongside other students has encouraged an approach to creating art that has given me the tools, skill base and critical thinking which I could not have experienced had I been working alone. I leave the school empowered and confident in meeting the next stage of my development as a visual artist, wherever that might take me."

For its many thousands of visitors, Gray's School of Art's annual Degree Show, sponsored for the sixth year by BP, is the ideal opportunity both to see emerging talent and engage in discussion about the ideas behind the work. It gives the public the opportunity to see a range of final year undergraduate projects, spanning fashion and textiles, 3D and product design, graphics, digital media, visual communication, painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography and electronic media.

The Degree Show will be launched on Friday 12 June before opening to the public from 13 to 20 June (10-5pm on the 13th, 14th and 20th, and 10-8pm on the 15th-19th). For more information, visit: www.rgu.ac.uk/degreeshow