For Space

20 May - 24 June 2017

Anna Barriball / Tom Baskeyfield / Jack Brown / Layla Curtis / Gerry Davies / Hondartza Fraga  / Jenny Steele / James Steventon / Simon Woolham
‘Space is the product of interrelations; thus we must recognise space as constituted through interactions, from the immensity of the global to the intimately tiny. Space is the sphere of the possibility of the existence of multiplicity; Space is always under construction; it is always in the process of being made. It is never finished; never closed.’ (Doreen Massey 2005)
The exhibition, for space, brings together a group of artists who emphasise and consider the exploration and excavation of space through various approaches to drawing. For each individual artist, drawing is processed through encountering, researching, and engaging with architecture and objects in the physical and virtual realms. Their works address the textural, sensory, and durational nature of psychological space, as well as the historical recording of plotted space. The exhibition also reflects on the social geographer, Doreen Massey’s seminal publication for space (2005), in relation to changing our perceptions of space and the importance of space as ‘the dimension of things being, existing at the same time: of simultaneity.’ (Massey 2005)
Tom Baskeyfield’s piece Ifan and Owen references Kate Roberts novel Feet in Chains (1936). Ifan has worked the quarry since he was a boy, a life closely connected to and affected by stone. These new works consider the relationship between the slate quarries of North West Wales and the remains of the industrial landscape in Manchester. Anna Barriball’s work Night Window has been created by placing paper on textured glass and covered in black ink and then bathing the paper in a solution of water and ink. This process, which she sees as akin to developing photographs with chemicals, leaves behind a strangely photographic trace of the original patterned glass.
Jack Brown has chosen a number of houses from his hometown in Stockport to draw. Once a drawing of someone’s house is finished it is delivered to them anonymously. Layla Curtis’ drawings are part of a larger on-going series of Index Drawings whereby the artist disregards all of the graphic information contained within a map, using only roads to delineate form. Named after the indexes from which they are taken, these stripped-back maps are still surprisingly navigable, with the bare patches on the page that are formed by the absence of street names in parks, woodland, rivers, providing as many clues to their whereabouts as the street names themselves. Gerry Davies’ drawings for the exhibition are the result of trips to caves, passages, and chambers in North Yorkshire. His interests lie in how the human body experiences these environments and how drawing might account for and communicate the many types of sensory knowledge we might gather.
Hondartza Fraga’s presents a life-size drawing of a section of Mars. Though we are accustomed to the vastness of the Martian desert landscapes, Hondartza was fascinated by these microscopic images, which made Mars somehow seem manageable and more real. These small spherules on the Martian surface are near Fram Crater, visited by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover in 2004 and photographed by the microscopic imager on Opportunity's robotic arm. Jenny Steele's screen print is a restoration of the demolished copper engraved doors of the 1930s Midland Hotel, Morecambe. Jenny Steele has explored correspondence designs and drawings of the hotel by the architect, Oliver Hill in the RIBA archive, London, and she is currently creating a body of work that revives aspects of the features, which have been destroyed or lost during the buildings life.
James Steventon’s piece 13 Hours with Weighted Vest (BST) prioritises drawing as a verb, an action, over drawing as a noun. The result of the private performance is a glimpse of an endurance experience, without which there is no drawing (noun). In his attempt to limit the spatial expanse of the drawing and without compromising the enduring length of the drawing, this activity took place by drawing each breath whilst wearing a weighted vest. Simon Woolham has an expanded drawing practice and sees his work as a ‘self-initiated residency of the mind’. His concept of creating a physical, virtual and psychological artistic residency, mixing live and digital platforms, encourages narrative associated with a multitude of spaces, and times. His artwork School (accessible as a downloadable App) is an interactive piece that grew out of a drawing from narrative of his secondary school in Wythenshawe, South Manchester.

This exhibition advocates the importance of space, that space is a process ever changing and never final, that we recognise space as, Doreen Massey suggests, ‘always under construction.’ for space presents an exploration and engagement with space as being integral to the process of making. 
The Artists

Anna Barriball
Night Window I
Water and ink on paper
71.5 x 55.5 x 3.8 cm (framed)
2013
£TBC
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courtesy of Frith St Gallery, London

Tom Baskeyfield 
Ifan
Graphite, Bideford Black earth pigment and acrylic medium on paper
22 x 23cm (approx)
2016/17
£150
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Tom Baskeyfield 
Owen
Graphite, Bideford Black earth pigment and acrylic medium on paper
23 x 16.5cm (approx)
2016/17
£150
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Tom Baskeyfield 
Ifan & Owen
Installation View

Jack Brown
Drawing someones house, then delivering the drawing back to them, anonymously. Part 1
pencil on paper
40 x 40cm
2017
£400
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Jack Brown
Drawing someones house, then delivering the drawing back to them, anonymously. Part 2
pencil on paper
40 x 40cm
2017
£400
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Layla Curtis
Paris Index Drawing (2 ème Arrondissement)  
ink on paper
24 x 28 cms
2013
£1600
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Layla Curtis
Paris Index Drawing (3 ème Arrondissement)  
ink on paper
24 x 28 cms
2013
£1600
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Gerry Davies
Alum Pot
Pen and Ink on paper
50 x 50cm
2009

Gerry Davies
Murmuring Deep
Pen and Ink on paper
50 x 50cm
2015

Gerry Davies
Dolly Tubs
Pen and Ink on paper
50 x 50cm
2006

Hondartza Fraga
Mars. Scale 1:1
Pencil on paper
20 x 25 cm
2017
£400
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courtesy of International 3, Manchester

Jenny Steele
A Sea Outlook
Screen print, pencil and watercolour on Somerset Satin
39cm x 34cm
2017
£120
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James Steventon
13 Hours with Weighted Vest (BST)
Pencil on paper
2017
£400
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Simon Woolham
The Runaround (Add it Up)
Biro on Paper
42 x 60cm
2016
£700 (framed)
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Simon Woolham
Up Against the Rule
Biro pen and paper on tree stump, ruler and rock
Dimensions Variable
2017
£600
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Simon Woolham
School
Interactive biro drawing, sound and text
Originally from 2004 but developed as a downloadable App in 2013

School is a free, downloadable hand-drawn App artwork by Simon Woolham. School enables you to wander around and get lost in an old secondary school in Wythenshawe, South Manchester that had been knocked down in 2001, you can then upload and share your own School narrative. The piece is an intimate portrayal of incidents and events that went on during break, a kind of friends re-united.

Download the App here

Artists’ Biographies
Anna Barriball studied MA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art in 2000, exhibitions have recently included new works at Frith Street Gallery, London in 2016, Drawing: The Bottom Line, a group exhibition at S.M.A.K., Gent, Drawing Now, a group exhibition at Albertina Museum, Vienna, Apparitions: Frottages and Rubbings from 1860 to Now, a traveling group exhibition at The Menil Collection, Houston and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and the Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, and Slow Looking: Contemporary Drawing, a group exhibition at Tate Britain.
Tom Baskeyfield studied BA Fine Art at Manchester Metropolitan University and MA at Falmouth University. He was recently commissioned for the Barnaby Festival in Macclesfield and exhibited with photographer, Mario Popham at Groundworks in King’s Lynn. 
Jack Brown studied BA Fine Art at London Guildhall University. Recent projects have included Vital Matters at The Parasol Unit, UNITS OF POWER, Saatchi Gallery, Constellations, Shonibare Studios, London.

Layla Curtis studied MA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art. Recent exhibitions include Heatscapes, at The Gallery/Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle, Antipodes, Cube Gallery/Phoenix, Leicester, Antipodes, Spacex, Exeter, Revolver (Part 1), Matt's Gallery, London (with Andrew Kötting & Juneau Projects) Traceurs: to trace, to draw, to go fast, Chelsea Futurespace, London, Ormeau Baths, Belfast, UK and The New Art Gallery Walsall, Walsall.                 
Gerry Davies is an artist and lecturer, he has had exhibitions 'Jenolan Caves' an inaugural exhibition of The Study Center for Drawing, The National Art School Sydney, N.S.W. Australia, SKETCH 2011 Drawing Prize Exhibition, Contemporary artist’s sketchbooks at the Rabley Drawing Centre, Marlbrough, the Usher Gallery and a survey of contemporary British drawing, Abbot Hall Museum and Art Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria.
Hondartza Fraga graduated from a BA Fine Art at The University of the Basque Country (Spain) and she completed an MA in Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University in 2007. She has exhibited nationally in Liverpool, London, Sheffield and Manchester and internationally in Portugal, Spain, Norway, and Italy.
Jenny Steele studied MA Fine Art at Goldsmiths, London. Recent exhibitions have included An Architecture of Joy, Grundy Art Gallery, Manchester and Looking Back/Moving Forwards, In Certain Places Project Space, Preston.
James Steventon is an artist and lecturer at the Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media and Design at London Metropolitan University, part of the 'A Place in Time?' Research Group, and he is the Education Officer for Fermynwoods Contemporary Art in Northamptonshire.
Simon Woolham is an artist and curator from Manchester. He has exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at the Lowry in Salford in 2004 and Chapter Gallery in Cardiff, as well as numerous national and international group exhibitions. Previous to moving back to the North West he was a studio artist from 2008 to 2012 at Wysing Arts Centre near Cambridge where the foundation of his recent practice-led research around the concept of an artistic residency of the mind was laid. His work was also recently shown as part of Soft Estate a group show at the Bluecoat in Liverpool and Spacex in Exeter.