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Redressing the balance

Vicky Holman
7/11/2005


There’s a new gallery in town. Catch it while it lasts. For, like the shoes, it’s going fast.

As one of the last domestic trainer manufacturers left on our island, it’s fitting for New Balance to shun celebrity-pimping adverts in favour of much worthier home-grown promotional events.
‘Region’ is an exhibition of 25 Northern artists to be launched this Friday in a new gallery space, smack in the centre of town.

New Balance gave almost no brief to submitting artists. “The sole proviso was that their experience of life in the North West act as an inspiration in some way,” says Chloe Longstaff whose original idea sparked off the exhibition.
Selected artists could also work in any media. “The product is to be an exhibition of incredible diversity; traversing the artistic worlds of web design, sculpture, canvas, textiles and photography, and in doing so illustrating the striking originality and creative assets of the region,” she says.

Whatever the results – it sure brings a much-needed blast of colour and life to this tricky corner of Piccadilly. Here are some of our favourites.

Fiona Curran

Fiona Curran’s work explores complex notions of space - psychological, social, physical, claustrophobic, expansive and breathtaking. Earlier work using pattern and wallpapers to reference memory and domestic space has informed her latest pieces depicting expansive open space.
Curran uses layers of industrial felt, which she cuts into intricate landscapes. Her mountain motif can express awe in the face of nature, as well as the freedom or confinement of human psychology depending on viewer interpretation.
“In terms of producing artworks, you tap into something that has all sorts of associations and allow the viewer to create their own interpretations,” says Curran.

Ian Ketteridge

“It isn’t themed,” says Ian Ketteridge of his photography. “It is an explosion of images I have taken in and around Manchester over the last five years.”
Never having formally trained, Ketteridge’s photography has been developed through five years of night classes, travel and practice. The New Balance exhibition has given him his first opportunity to organise and showcase his work.
There will be some 1970s style photo cubes of the CIS building – at one stage Europe’s tallest building – and 20 images of people, buildings and beautiful abstract details. All of the images are presented in randomly selected charity shop frames.
“I want to present photographs in a different way,” Ketteridge says. “Not just stick them on the wall in sleek glass frames.”

Mr and Mrs Mclung

Husband and wife duo, Mr and Mrs Mclung combine screen-printing, drawing, map and photo transfers and rubber stamps to attention-grabbing effect.
“We use a mish mash of different things to open people’s minds to new things and new ideas,” Mrs Mclung says.
For the New Balance exhibition they have created a composite landscape. It combines six recognisable Manchester buildings, with other world famous buildings, war imagery of zeppelins and bodies and a couple of hostesses.
“We initially started off with ideas of acceptability of censorship,” says Mrs Mclung. “We thought it strange how everyday we are bombarded with images of war victims and nobody seems to learn, or even be shocked, but if there is a sexually explicit image, everyone is up in arms.”


Ben Cove

“My work deals with ideological things in culture, by taking found images and reworking them into a different context,” says North West Open prize winner, Ben Cove.
Having studied architecture and art elsewhere, Cove returned to Manchester four years ago and has had exhibitions ever since.
For New Balance Cove used his architectural drawing skills for a 1950s sci-fi painting of House of the Future, a plastic Disneyland house. “It looks really utopian, but actually it was sponsored by a chemical company which is quite a scary thing,” he says.
He is also exhibiting a drawing of a NASA boardroom meeting of celebrated white men in power. “Actually they are as much involved in designing missiles as they are in space exploration,” says Cove.

Andrew Bracey

After doing his MA in Manchester, Andrew Bracey saw no reason to head to London. “Manchester has a really supportive art community and being at the centre of the country, it is an ideal location for exhibiting everywhere,” he says.
His art is inspired by grubby day to day aspects of life. “I am quite inspired by pound shops,” he says. “I take company logos, album covers, anything to which people attach their own meaning. People select their own things and their own take on things.”
He has shown a different take on New Balance trainers by painting dozens of them and setting them up like a shoe store. “I painted a different image on each shoe, like a panda being operated on, or a snow drop,” he says. “It is about how you can expect to view something and about how it can change.”


New Balance presents Region, 1 Piccadilly Gardens, City Centre, from 4-18 Nov. Mon – Sat 10am – 7pm, Sun 11am – 6pm.


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