CHALLENGING and thought-provoking pieces of art created by students have gone on display.

The showcase of hard work has been produced for the Masters Degree contemporary art exhibition at the University of Cumbria.

Over the past year, students have been encouraged to break down conventional barriers in the art world and explore different disciplines.

The students have a wide variety of influences and the course has given them the chance to try new methods and mediums.

The show was held at the Brampton Road campus and each student had their own area to display their work.

Callum Eccleston, 23, is a performance artist who has just arrived back from Poland after taking part in a live exhibition. He said: “This is the most exquisite and oldest form of expression there is, it is beyond language, it is beyond everything.

“Assigning meaning to movement, it is the most incredible and heartfelt version of what, in my opinion, any art can be.”

Talking about his inspiration he explained: “I did these really physically taxing exhibitions, for the audience. They were quite ethically questionable.

“I was doing these very laboured and repetitive acts and seaming not achieve anything and it is an absolutely incredible way of approaching that field of research.”

Callum was part of his project and made his work come alive. He added: “It has been so enjoyable, I think it is the proudest I have ever been of a show, everyone has just really pulled it out of the bag.

“It is such an honour to be displayed beside everyone.”

The displays offered different views on the world and how each artist views their surroundings.

Hannah Walker, 24, has been exploring grids and how the world is designed.

She wanted to break it down and show how parts of the globe could look deconstructed.

She said: “It has been hard work putting this together but I have loved the course and working with some amazing people and has been great.”

As a mature student, Sue Thomas, 68, is a painter, from Dumfries and Galloway, and had wanted to take part in this course for a number of years, thinking she would be able to try different painting methods.

She found that within a week she was creating films and using this as a natural progression. Sue now hopes to take on a residency and interact with the new areas she is looking at.

Dr Katrin Joost, the photograph pathway leader, expressed her delight with the hard work and effort that the students have put into the projects.

She said: “I’m very pleased with the standard of work.

“The students have a very high conceptual engagement but it has underpinned the work one of our photographers.

“She has been looking at gender theory and thinking about the binary oppositions and that has been transported into the work she has also engaged with fairly conservative display options which I think is interesting.”