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‘Region’ is an exhibition of 25 Northern artists in a new gallery space, smack in the centre of town.
Trainer manufacturers New Balance, who ran the competition, 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.
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.
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.
Vicky Holman
[other artists featured in full article were Fiona Curran, Ian Ketteridge, Andrew Bracey.]
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