Posts in Uncategorized Category

‘Melt’ (2020)
Pat Flynn
Digital video

Part of the Spring micro-commission series

“My work for the micro commission takes its starting point from a body of work that I created a few years ago, the Cheese series, some of which is now in the University of Salford Art Collection. (I was somewhat uncomfortable using my own practice as a beginning, but equally would have struggled with the problems of using someone else’s work as a source or starting point.)

For some time now I’ve wanted to engage with new fluid dynamics software. And the micro commission afforded me this opportunity. The premise for my work for the micro commission was a simple one. Through the use of fluid dynamics software, to get a computer to simulate the melting of an object that I’d made in a previous artwork. (Original artwork, ‘Stacked Cheese’, 2015)

So, I got the computer to melt an assemblage of virtual minimal cheese.

My thinking was, in effect I would change the original artwork from a type of ‘east coast minimalist’ aesthetic to a ‘west coast minimalist’ one. From John McCracken to an outcome that would resemble something more like a Lynda Benglis.

Anyone who enjoys mainstream cinema will be aware of the 3D software and it’s accompanying fluid dynamics software that I use. (It is used in films such as the Harry Potter series or any of the recent Marvel films.) This software is fully capable of simulating the movement of all manner of fluids, from large body liquids like a sea, river, waterfall. To smaller scale liquid from a tap or glass, blood, paint or metal, to gases, smoke, cloud and fire.

In terms of the future and as a direct result of receiving the micro commission, I have already begun two new works that involve the use of the fluid dynamics software.” 

– Pat Flynn

Watch the new video below:
(click the arrows in the bottom right for full screen)
Duration: 1m38s

“The context of the pandemic is perhaps a good moment for pause and reflection of the reality – or surreality – of the world around us. For the Art Collection, Flynn’s re-interpretation is a mischievous and playful encounter, which highlights the fact that contemporary collections are not necessarily fixed objects but are living, moving, changeable things”

– Stephanie Fletcher, Assistant Curator:

Pat Flynn is an artist based in Greater Manchester. His realistic, digitally-rendered work focuses on “how we understand ourselves in light of mass media and commodity: the seduction, security, rituals and belief systems that transpire from mass production and consumer culture”. His work draws on ideologies, processes, themes and sentiments found in Hollywood films, computer games, consumer goods and advertising.

patflynn.co.uk

‘Unexpected Salford’ (2020)
Jesse Glazzard
Digital zine

Click here, or on the image below, to view the zine full screen.

Jesse Glazzard is an artist originally from West Yorkshire. His work deals with class, sexuality and gender politics; in an intimate reflection of the LGBT+ community.

He graduated from BA Fashion Image Making and Styling at the University of Salford in 2018. After taking part in our Graduate Scholarship scheme, he has gone on to a successful photographic practice – with clients including Vice, Dazed, and i-D magazines.

For this micro-commission, Jesse has revisited and reflected on his own body of photographic work made in 2018:

“The work aims to look back on how Salford changed my life, and how the struggles were over come from a present version of myself…this work gives me time to really reconnect with a place that pushed me to be where I am today.
“It felt good to feel completely free in this commission – often it’s hard for this to happen. I felt like I spoke some of my truths and my memories from Salford.”

www.jesseglazzard.com

Part of our Salford SPRING Micro-commissions programme, find out more & view other works here.

Read more about Glazzard’s work in our collection: LGBT+ Letters

Year: 2018-19
Medium: Film photography
Dimensions: variable
Brief biography: b. 1993, Halifax. Currently lives & works in London

Jesse Glazzard is an artist from West Yorkshire. His work deals with class, sexuality and gender politics; in an intimate reflection of the “LGBT+ community and way beyond that”.

In 2017, he founded Moist Collective, a space for queer womxn and non-binary artists to show their work. Up until now, he has focused on film photography and self-portraiture – in December 2019 he put on Porridge, an intimate exhibition of self-portraits taken with his girlfriend Nora Nord.

Glazzard graduated from BA Fashion Image Making and Styling at the University of Salford in 2018. After taking part in our Graduate Scholarship scheme, he has gone on to a successful photographic practice – with clients including Vice, Dazed, and i-D magazines.

The LGBT+ Letters series

Artist Statement:
Jesse’s own coming-out at secondary school was fraught with the fear, and harsh reality, of violent backlash. But it was also hampered by what Glazzard saw as a complete lack of queer visibility. He had simply no experience of how to become queer. Glazzard’s first cultural experience of queer romance was of a single ‘chaste, lesbian kiss’ on the popular soap opera EastEnders at the age of 9.

While LGBTQI representation in popular culture has improved, Glazzard describes still seeing many stale stereotypes, which this photographic work seeks to rectify. LGBT+ Letters is an attempt at providing, through portraits and texts, queer aesthetics for people who find themselves without meaningful representation in the world. In the photography series, Glazzard demonstrates a lack of self-indulgence rather a strong belief in accommodating to his subjects’ individualities, and ultimately to build trust, capture intimacy, educate and inform.

Selected images:

Jesse Glazzard, Blake, (2018-2019). Film photograph

Jesse Glazzard, Blake, (2018-19). Photograph

Micro-commission #1: Katie Tomlinson

‘The Wanderers’ (2020)
Katie Tomlinson
50 x 60cm, Oil on Canvas

The Wanderers (2020) is a response to Figures by a Fence (1922) by Adolphe Valette. Although, Valette created this painting almost 100 years ago, the painting holds new significance when reflecting on our current climate.

Adolphe Valette, Figures by a Fence, 1922. Photograph: Photography North West.

Once the government announced lockdown I found myself enjoying hobbies that I hadn’t had time for in years – baking, gardening, and most importantly, walking. For most, the ritual of a daily walk became a silver lining, and Valette’s painting depicts just this; A content and peaceful couple enjoying a moment with nature.

My response, ‘The Wanderers,’ is a depiction of one of the many idyllic Greater Manchester settings that I have immersed myself in, during my government approved daily exercise, whilst in lockdown. I especially enjoyed long walks along the banks of the River Mersey, whilst I filled my phone with amateur photographs of tall trees, wild garlic and cute dogs.

Part of our Salford SPRING Micro-commissions programme, find out more & view other works here.

Katie lives and works in Manchester, and is currently a studio holder at Paradise Works. Recent exhibitions include: Happy Ending at Bunker Gallery (Manchester) Spilling out with Castlefield Gallery at The Manchester Contemporary, and More T’North at the Harris Museum & Art Gallery (Preston).
https://www.katietomlinson.co.uk/info

We are pleased to announce the first in a series of new commissions with our key industry partners, as part of a wider programme of support for artists during Covid 19.

Open Eye Gallery and University of Salford Art Collection have commissioned two projects examining underrepresented repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic. The programme, How Will We Remember? seeks to identify gaps in the public consciousness around who is affected by the global health crisis, and create opportunities to document the lived experience of those who have found themselves especially vulnerable.

The two North West-based artists, Sarah Eyre and Kiara Mohamed, will respond to Covid 19 and its impact on creativity and wellbeing through their artistic practices. The resulting artworks will be accessioned into the University of Salford Art Collection.

Kiara Mohamed‘s commission will approach the personal impact that Covid 19 has had specifically on the lives of Black and brown people. Using video calls as a device, Mohamed will photograph these conversations as they occur, giving a view into how daily life and the way we relate to each other have changed.

Kiara is a multidisciplinary Muslim queer artist based in Liverpool. She works with photography, filmmaking, poetry. Her work is primarily concerned with addressing the intersections of race, gender, sexuality and self care, particularly in relation to forms of community and social responsibility. Open Eye Gallery encourages people to make a donation to help a queer, black, non-binary friend of hers move to safer housing; they are a low-salaried cultural worker who has been furloughed; they need to move out of the property they are living in because it is not safe for them. You can learn more and help out here.

Sarah Eyre‘s interest in presence and absence lends itself to the exploration of Covid 19 through a focus on how women are particularly affected by the virus. Eyre uses a cutout technique and layers images from a range of source materials. This could explore the absences that Covid 19 has left in women’s lives, as well as the gaps in provision or support that they might now be facing.

Sarah Eyre is Northern based artist working with photography, moving image and collage. Her practice often combines found imagery, her own photography, animation and sculptural artefacts. Her recent projects ‘Wigs’ and ‘Copy / Cut / Paste’ both explore the way that women’s wigs draw attention to the complex relationships between the body, its external
presence and our formation of self.

The commissions will be released initially online in July, and will be acquired into the University’s permanent collection.

How Will We Remember is part of a wider programme of support for artists during Covid 19, aiming to capture contemporary experiences during the pandemic as well as supporting artists who have otherwise lost work.

Further new commissions will be announced soon, in partnership with: Castlefield Gallery, Hot Bed Press, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, and AND Festival.

July 2020

Professor Jackie Kay CBE, University Chancellor and Scots Makar, is sharing a series of poems with colleagues, students and members of the public, reflecting on the current period of uncertainty that we are in.

This week, Jackie shares her poem ‘A Lang Promise’, which is a love poem, originally published in BANTAM (2017). Jackie describes this poem as being about ‘loving somebody under any circumstances’. 

‘A Lang Promise’

Whether the weather be dreich or fair, my luve,

if guid times greet us, or we hae tae face the worst,

ahint and afore whit will happen tae us:

blind in the present, eyes open to the furore,

unkempt or perjink, suddenly puir or poorly,

peely-wally or in fine fettle, beld or frosty,

calm as a ghoul or in a feery-farry,

in dork December or in springy spring weather,

doon by the Barrows, on the Champs-Elysees,

at midnicht, first licht, whether the mune

be roond or crescent, and yer o’ soond mind

or absent, I’ll tak your trusty haun

and lead you over the haw – hame, ma darlin.

I’ll carry ma lantern, and daur defend ye agin ony foe;

and whilst there is breath in me, I’ll blaw it intae ye.

Fir ye are ma true luve, the bonnie face I see;

nichts I fall intae slumber, it’s ye swimming up

in all yer guidness and blitheness, yer passion.

You’ll be mine, noo, an’ till the end o’ time,

ma bonnie lassie, I’ll tak the full guid o’ ye’ 

and gie it back, and gie it back tae ye:

a furst kiss, a lang promise, time’s gowden ring.

Published in BANTAM, reprinted with kind permission of Picador Publishers.

Don’t miss Jackie’s new weekly series of online literary and musical performances. ‘Makar to Makar’ will showcase a line-up of established talent and emerging voices from Scotland and around the world. Read more about ‘Makar to Makar’ here.

Follow Jackie on Twitter @JackieKayPoet to hear a new poem every Sunday.

During COVID-19, Professor Jackie Kay CBE, University Chancellor and Scots Makar, is sharing a series of poems with colleagues, students and members of the public, reflecting on the current period of uncertainty that we are in.

This week, Jackie shares her poem ‘Jemini Peaches’. This poem was written after Jackie read a moving testimony sent to her by Southall Black Sisters, about a woman who had suffered the devastating consequences of domestic violence for years.

‘Jemini Peaches’

 Somewhere you live, Jemini Peaches

As far as my eye can see,

Out by the sand dunes furthest reaches

At the side of a turquoise sea

And the wind still blows the barley.

You will forever be my Jemini Peaches,

If I will still be me,

A girl loved so hard she reaches

Another life entirely

And the wind still blows the barley.

You were only eight months, Jemini Peaches

Inside my young-old body,

When your father’s boots breached me

And I prayed for the soul of my baby

As the wind still blew the barley

Somewhere by that lost shore, Jemini Peaches

With the sun, high in the sky

You’ll be raising your arms as you reach for me

And I’ll be waving you goodbye

Like the wind waves over the barley

And all your friends, Jemini Peaches

Will be wherever you are,

And I’ll be there combing the beaches

Not locked up no more, not far,

And the wind will search the barley

I know for sure, my Jemini Peaches,

As I’m here with a lock of your  hair

You’re there, dressed in purple on Grenadian beaches,

And the wind combing your dark black hair,

blowing the barley there.

Copyright Jackie Kay. Reprinted with kind permission from the author. 

Don’t miss Jackie’s new weekly series of online literary and musical performances. ‘Makar to Makar’ will showcase a line-up of established talent and emerging voices from Scotland and around the world. Read more about ‘Makar to Makar’ here.

Follow Jackie on Twitter @JackieKayPoet to hear a new poem every Sunday.

Professor Jackie Kay CBE, University Chancellor and Scots Makar, is sharing a series of poems with colleagues, students and members of the public, reflecting on the current period of uncertainty that we are in.

This week, Jackie has shared the poem ‘Where’s My Keys?’, which is written in the voice of a woman in a care home who has dementia.

‘Where Are My Keys?’

There’s a man coming towards me with a mask on his face.

He’s got a green suit on. I don’t know what he wants.

My nose has been blocked for days. I need out of this place.

I need to get back home. Where are my keys?

There’s a man coming towards me with a mask on his face.

Do you know my address? I live near the Cross.

I’ve been here for days and days and days.

I’ve got things to do. I need to find things a place.

There’s a man coming towards me with a mask on his face.

I can’t hear a single thing he says.

I haven’t seen my grandchildren for an age.

They would come sometimes and kiss my old cheeks.

There’s a man coming towards with a mask on his face.

I can’t hear a single thing he says.

He wears gloves. He feeds me things I can’t taste.

Where’s my husband? He was in the human race.

There’s a man coming towards me with a mask on his face.

I saw a face at the window, wanting in – waves, waves.

Do you know how to get out of this place?

I want home. Where are my keys? Where are my keys?

There’s a man coming towards me with a mask on his face.

Copyright Jackie Kay. Reprinted with kind permission from the author.

Don’t miss Jackie’s new weekly series of online literary and musical performances which launched on Thursday 14 May at 7.00pm. ‘Makar to Makar’ will showcase a line-up of established talent and emerging voices from Scotland and around the world. Read more about ‘Makar to Makar’ here.

Follow Jackie on Twitter @JackieKayPoet to hear a new poem every Sunday.

Gordon Cheung will be in conversation with Mark Rappolt, editor-in-chief of ArtReview.  Their discussion will focus on ideas raised in Cheung’s recent work in which he witnesses and interprets the emergence of China as a twenty first century global superpower, framing current events in the context of the “Century of Humiliation” and the opium wars.

Date: Wednesday 19 February 2020, 7 – 8pm
Venue: Edel Assanti, London
Admission: Free, space is limited.  Register at Eventbrite or email eve@edelassanti.com

Artists include: Albert Adams, Claudia Alonso, Ruth Barker, Mike Disfarmer, Harry Goodwin, Joe Gregory, Gary Hume, Owen Leong, Rory Mullen, Wang Ningde, Alfonzo Padilla, Stanley Reed, Harold Riley, Jamie Wilson, Juliet Wood.

The In Focus series explores specific genres of work from the University of Salford Art Collection. In the second installment of the series In Focus: Portraiture explores modern and contemporary portraiture and self-portraiture from the University of Salford Art Collection.

Our Chancellor portraits tell the story of some of the individuals who have shaped the University. Like many institutions, we have a history of commissioning chancellor portraits. In 2015 we actively moved away from traditional painting and now invite students to propose more contemporary approaches to portraiture. Selected students receive a paid commission to make new work. Portrait of Chancellor Jackie Kay (2015) by Rory Mullen, for example, playfully deconstructs the usual formalities of the portrait process, with a hand-made backdrop and robes.

From the Collection, a range of modern and contemporary portraits explore the social, personal, and economic factors that can shape our sense of identity. In Hole (2006), Owen Leong borrows aristocratic costumes to question perceptions of class and power; whilst in Speech (2018) Ruth Barker physically erodes the printed image to represent a disrupted sense of self through the experience of motherhood.

Alongside the Collection, a selection of group photographs from the University Archives offers a window into changing student life throughout the years – from baking classes and sports clubs to a portraiture drawing class in 1928, attended by L. S. Lowry when he studied here.

Exhibition Dates: Extended due to Covid closures:
Monday 3 February 2020 – end December 2021 (closed bank holidays).
Opening hours: Monday – Friday 10am – 4pm
Admission: Free
Venue: New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery, University of Salford, University Road West, M5 4BR