Saturday 16 February 2013

Manchester City Art Gallery Jan 13

Hello everyone! I'd like to apologise for my lack of posting recently, but sadly the day job has been rather demanding and robbing me of spare time/ energy!

I'm also gutted because I sat down to do this post last Saturday and couldn't find my notes anywhere! I've searched the house and can not find them at all- boo. I must have accidentally binned them in my January tidy- up. Soooo annoying because, when I visited Mancs City Art Gallery in Jan, I made tons of notes all about the pieces/ artists I saw and loved so I could do a really good, in depth blog post- and now that idea has had to go out the window! I did take loads of pics though, but its such a shame I don't have any details to go with them. So my sincerest apologies for that as well! Still, I hope you enjoy the pictures and what little info I can remember!

It was a lovely, sunny, crisp day in Manchester when I visited. More of this type of weather required! The big guest exhibit at the time was The First Cut.



All I can remember about these 2 pieces is that they are by a New York based artist! I really liked their simplicity (and the artists use of a Smith's single cover).

It really is a crime that I've lost my notes- I loved the paper birds by a female artist (one shown here) made out of maps and displayed as if they were specimens awaiting study. Without my notes I can't remember her name to look her up on the net and find out/ see more. Part of First Cut. If anyone reading this knows the artists name please get in touch and let me know!

 This is a skeleton made out of paper (mostly magazines and newspapers) that was displayed on the grand staircase. It looked fabulous close up. Part of First Cut.

This is the work of another female artist, who uses old books to cut out images of industrial scenes/ landmarks and tourist scenes/ landmarks and uses them to make this type of collage. They were a few on display and they were all really good, my favorite being this one showing a rock formation at Brimham Rocks, which I visited for the first time on New Years day this year. Part of First Cut.

 There are a few Lowry's at the City Art Gallery (rightly so!). This is just one of them. Lowry is one of my most favourite artists and the man himself fascinates me. I love his close up portraits like this one shown here- they're so dark and depressing. I really can't explain why I love them so much but I do. The Lowry down at Salford Quays once showed a number of his family portraits- all done in this style- and they were particularly good. They were quite scary looking actually. He painted the subjects low down on the canvas so when you looked the painting, you were looking down on the subjects- his father and brothers etc. Lots of family love there then! Not!

This painting is my beloved Chris's favorite in the whole gallery. He wasn't with me on this particular visit but I went to view this painting in his honor! Very Ben Hur. The detail is incredible. Chris much prefers this type of art to modern art.


The above two pictures show art work in the In Translation: Women, Migration and Britishness exhibit, which is still on until 31.05.13. The pictures I've taken actually show advertisement posters from colonial times- some of which are not very PC by today's standards! Well worth a look.

Again, due to not having my notes, I can not remember the artists name, but this piece- which juxtaposes fish flesh with human flesh- really caught my eye. Quite minging to look at close up actually!

A whole flock of the lovely map birds. Part of First Cut.

This piece of (paper only) art work was truly stunning. My picture doesn't do the incredible detail justice and I couldn't even fit all the piece in to one shot. It covered the whole wall, floor to ceiling. It was amazing.

There was loads more great art work on show too- I had a lovely visit. The City Gallery is still free and the facilities are excellent. To find out more about Manchester City Art Gallery and plan your visit check out their website at http://www.manchestergalleries.org.