Our Work.

Our work

I was eager to make a piece that was a positive representation of Leeds. The space that we were exhibiting in is going to be regenerated in the next year and I want to celebrate the cities changing landscape. I enjoy the old architecture of Leeds but I think the beauty of Leeds is the interaction between old buildings and new designs. I chose to work with the question “if Leeds was one road, what would be on your road?”

The buildings I chose were my home; the buildings on the Hyde Park corner; the Parkinson Building; my first home in Leeds; the Blackwell’s university bookshop; the Merrion centre (where our exhibition is being held) and the Corn Exchange.

Alongside my work I made a drawing board and invited people to draw either their home or their favourite building.

My hope is that people will enjoy my work and have fun thinking about their version of Leeds. I think that we each have a different city as our home even when we live in the same place. Our experiences shape that home and make our city personal to us.

When we first decided to collaborate, the five artists in the show all decided to work with the common theme of Regeneration and Leeds. Our work varies in mediums and we usually work with very different concepts so we decided that by working towards a common theme our exhibition would be more successful.

We were really keen to create a welcoming space and move away from the idea of a high art and somewhat unapproachable gallery spaces we have experienced. My work has a lot in common with Decca Mclaughlin who created tiny art works on chewing gum in the streets. We both were eager to make art from the everyday surroundings.  I hope that my work encourages the viewers to take in the beauty of the city and appreciate previously unseen features of the city. Decca’s work makes an ugly aspect of the streets into some appealing and worthy of being sought out.

Likewise, Katie Iveson’s work aims to celebrate Leeds although her more work is more specific to the venue we have shown in. Her works take the form of collage that is minimalist and geometric as well architectural style drawings. Although my work is more painterly I have also used photography to create collage and we have both played with the idea of manipulating photography to make our own, new images.

Ella Sergeant and Ali Noble have both explored the idea of space in a more abstract manner Ella has used series of automatic drawing machines that ‘tickle’ iron filings into intricate patterns. She has a described her desire to entice people to look into the small undiscovered places – a common them in our work.

 Ali has used the space to create textile pieces and paper cut outs that mirror popular culture posters from the home and, the case of the largest piece is reminiscent of a wall in a home complete with windows. The work divides the space and a domestic scene comes to mind through the use of found materials.

Our main desire was to raise the profile of undiscovered gems. Leeds is a beautiful and vibrant city and should be celebrated.