The Turnpike Gallery, Leigh
1st April – 11 June 2021
Tuesday – Saturday 10:00-4:00
Drawn in is an exhibition celebrating 50 years of wonderful art at The Turnpike gallery in Leigh. A show of drawings and works on paper, showcasing works by 50 artists including those who have exhibited there previously, are based in the north-west who have a connection to the Turnpike. Artists include Henry Moore, Lowry, Tania Kovats, Layla Curtis, Tony Bevan, Halima Cassell, Susie MacMurray, Naomi Kendrick, Masakatsu Kondo, Glenys Johnson, Suki Chan and Jill Randall.
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I’ll be exhibiting one of my One Minute works on paper in this exhibition, and as part of my involvement I thought I’d reflect on my own connection to the Turnpike Gallery. After I graduated in 2003, my second job as an artist was at the Turnpike Gallery. I’d seen promotion for the Art Factory exhibition, and my degree-show work of an office chair fitted with pens to draw on the floor seemed like it was a potential match for a show about using experimental processes for drawing. I think I got in touch with Martyn Lucas and his team after being encouraged by a mentor, and ended up leading some workshops in the gallery creating drawings using the movement of the office chair participants’ wheelchairs and probably some other processes. I went on to devise a number of workshops to connect to the Turnpike’s programme and that early career support was so valuable in building the practice I have today. The drive to bring quality arts programming to places outside of cities like Leigh and my base in St Helens, developing a process-based artistic practice with other people and using the platforms I have to support other artists, are all things that I can trace back to my experiences at the Turnpike in the early-mid 2000s.
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