Manchester trip - Whitworth Gallery
On Friday the course held a trip to Manchester to visit some galleries. We got on the coaches and traveled to Manchester's Whitworth Gallery and spent the morning there. I was excited to visit because there was an Andy Warhol exhibit - an artist that I really like, and also an exhibit by Idris Khan whom I had researched in my sketchbook for the sense of place brief so seeing his work in real life was really exciting. The first exhibit however was by a woman called Deanna Petherbridge who I had never heard of. For her art she used the medium of pen and ink in drawing. Their were over 40 pen and ink drawings from 1971 to 2016 and her work responds to cities, landscapes and buildings.
What fascinated me about her work was how detailed and complex it was. On some drawing their would be thousands of straight lines that were so precise, I did not understand how she could draw all the lines so straight with no errors! Her drawings were complex and on a large scale so I imagine it would have taken her a very long time for each piece.
The next exhibit was by Idris Khan. His work is inspired by his religion and Arabic roots. It was mainly typography based for example the piece below is sheet music layered on top of each other. There was also a huge piece that was almost the same height as the wall that was English and Arabic words layered to create this huge piece that looked almost like an explosion. Their were also three paintings that were apparently words layered so much that it just looked like he had painted the canvas black with texture. I found this interesting because I did not realize it was words until I read into it but my first impressions weren't positive because I just looked like a black canvas.
There were some other exhibits such as a portrait room that was full of portraits done by lots of different artists. Another room had some contemporary art installations. My favorite piece from that room was a neon sign saying 'fucking beautiful' by Tim Noble and Sue Webster mainly because I love neon signs.
What fascinated me about her work was how detailed and complex it was. On some drawing their would be thousands of straight lines that were so precise, I did not understand how she could draw all the lines so straight with no errors! Her drawings were complex and on a large scale so I imagine it would have taken her a very long time for each piece.
The next exhibit was by the famous Andy Warhol. The work in the gallery was all made after he was shot in 1968 by a feminist author and member of his entourage Valerie Solanas and pronounced dead, but was the revived and lived on until 1987. When I walked in the first thing I saw was the large red and black screen printed portrait of him. The shooting changed Warhol's perspective and a lot of his work involved skulls, scars and shadows. There was a lot of screen printing work and some photography.
I liked the work shown above which was painted backgrounds with diamond dust on it in patches. I loved the way they glittered in the light and how the colours contrasted with each other. Below are some more examples of his work. Their were quite a lot of religious typography and I think that the gun piece definitely was inspired by the shooting.
The next exhibit was by Idris Khan. His work is inspired by his religion and Arabic roots. It was mainly typography based for example the piece below is sheet music layered on top of each other. There was also a huge piece that was almost the same height as the wall that was English and Arabic words layered to create this huge piece that looked almost like an explosion. Their were also three paintings that were apparently words layered so much that it just looked like he had painted the canvas black with texture. I found this interesting because I did not realize it was words until I read into it but my first impressions weren't positive because I just looked like a black canvas.
There were some other exhibits such as a portrait room that was full of portraits done by lots of different artists. Another room had some contemporary art installations. My favorite piece from that room was a neon sign saying 'fucking beautiful' by Tim Noble and Sue Webster mainly because I love neon signs.
