Chorlton Arts Festival

John and I are very excited to be putting on an exhibition of our art from April 29th – May 29th, 2022 in Barlow Hall, Manchester as part of the 20th Anniversary Chorlton Arts Festival. We’ll be showing our work alongside amazing artists Pia Järvinen and Brenda Hird.

Somehow, Barlow Hall – which is hosting the exhibition and which is a Tudor building complete with half-timbered walls – has been tucked away two minutes around the corner from us the whole nearly-decade that we’ve lived in Chorlton! The lovely Chorlton Arts committee gave us a tour of the Hall and showed us some brilliant details like the fifteenth-century stained glass windows, not to mention the golf course and the very comfortable bar.

John will be exhibiting wet plate and gum bichromate images and I’ll be exhibiting some cyanotypes, anthotypes and a series of Polaroid lifts I made of Chorlton shop fronts during the Lockdown. The shuttered shop fronts were something that caught my eye every time I ventured out for a peregrination around Manchester. Some shop fronts acquired amazing graffiti during the Lockdown, whilst others were decorated with NHS rainbows and encouraging slogans or instructions to wears masks and wash hands. The Polaroid lift process, which I blogged about here a while ago, involves a paintbrush, some Polaroid peeling, a tray of water, some paper and a buccaneering spirit + luck. I’ve included a few example images from the exhibition below. If you’re in the area, pop along any day in May and say Hi!