Thursday 28 September 2017

On the Art Trail 2017




Among the strangest pieces made by Dave Pearson are the various assemblages created from painted chipboard and toy plastic animals. These were made in the late 1990s for the annual Globe Arts Christmas Market, that was something of a treat for those who knew about it. Here it was possible to pick up specially made, and often light-hearted, pieces of artwork from any of the Globe Artists for a few pounds. 

We've still a few of these at the Dave Pearson studio and, along with everything else, they'll be on show during the Rossendale Art Trail/Open Studios next weekend - October 7th and 8th. 

We're Venue C in the Art Trail brochure, along with our friends at Apna, who have a small exhibition of photographs by the award-winning Palestinian photographer Hamde Abu Rahma





Monday 18 September 2017

Spotlight


This week I'll be taking the self-portrait by Dave Pearson (above) to the Dean Clough galleries in Halifax. It will be on show in the Spotlight Gallery, a small space in which only a single work is shown at a time, along with information about that work. 

A work by Dave Pearson was chosen at this time because it coincides with 'The Joy of Seeing', the first major retrospective of work by Gordon Snee. Gordon was a colleague of Dave's at the Foundation Studies Department at Manchester School of Art, later MMU. Gordon died in 2013, and like Dave a large legacy of his work was discovered after his death.

I've chosen this portrait because its such powerful image. It's both a realistic portrait of the artist, but also, in the mysterious collection of objects that cluster around the mirror, it's an indicator, a kind of geocache box, to his inner landscape.