O p e n e n d e d Exhibition 1
Bristol exchange – Rogue Studio Exhibition, Manchester


Openended marks the first in a series of exchanges initiated by the Manchester artist Maeve Rendle. Maeve has set up a series of exhibition exchanges involving artists based in other cities, for the Rogue Studios show five Bristol artists have exhibited their work in the city of Manchester. In line with the project’s title the process of exchange is set to continue with Manchester artists exhibiting in Bristol before other artists from other cities will be approached to participate in the exchange system initiating an openended network and threads of discussion. The exchanges will not only form a network of practitioners but will ignite a series of dialogues between the individual participants, their host cities and the works on show.

For the first foot of exchanges the Bristol based artist Rhys Coren was invited to nominate four artists from his resident city to participate with him in the Manchester show. Rhys’ artistic practice consists of playfully crafted objects that reference his personal history: “all my trainers what I can remember” 2007 and “my five most embarrassing CDs” 2008. There is an element of comic self doubt infused within Rhys work, a simple uncertainty of the art object and his place within the world of artists and makers, for example his piece “A poem what I wrote for New Contemporaries that isn’t in New Contemporaries [but is written because I am]” 2007 plays on the notion and status of the New Contemporaries exhibition and marks a direct engagement with the audience, issuing a quiet smile in response. The subtle humour imbedded within Rhys’ practice runs throughout the Rogue studios show. The collection of artists gathered to exhibit in the project space share an aesthetic of the hand crafted, a humorous nod in the direction of the ready made, and a contemporary play on product design and consumerism.

Rhys’ own contribution to the exhibition is his piece “Trainers” a series of roughly cut wooden blocks painted in different trainer designs. Snaking round the corner of the gallery floor they stand as both a naive reproduction of his trainer collection and a line into the other works on show. Between two battered window frames Rhys has placed “Loading” 2008; a framed pencil drawing of a TV set, with humorous change-it-yourself screen patterns which can shift between black and white fuzz or semi-tuned stripes. The framed drawing is cut across with a diagonal line that continues over the picture onto the surface of the wall, the work becoming both installation and painting. The stripes themselves recall commercial products like the stripes of trainers and advertising logos and the tri-colour dots of the TV screen. The stripes further lure the viewer to the colourful work of Milo Brennan placed on an opposite wall. Milo uses finely cut magazine, newspaper and flyer print to create geometric forms standing on a flat surface of colour, again recalling the mass of commercial imagery we are exposed to daily, but through Milo’s intervention the language of commercial design is subtly re-crafted into a delicate abstract form. The bright orange laminate plastic he uses in the “Collage on Orange” 2008 hums against the intricately placed collage and infuses colour within the gallery space.

The hand crafted, cut-out, and very clearly “made” aesthetic is further evident in the work of Hannah James and Sovay Berriman. Hannah James’s work consists of using free-standing wooden panels either covered with subtle graphic notations or naively painted imagery. The works rest somewhere between a functional and domestic piece of furniture, a street sign or sandwich board, and a graphic or painterly illusion. For Openended Hannah has exhibited a cut out cloud shakily painted in skyline blues and simply placed on the gallery floor. The “Cloud” 2008 sits in front of “Black Rock” 2007 by Sovay Berriman, a scrunched mass covered in a glittering black surface. Placed together the two works form a relationship as “Cloud” becomes a prop, part of an atmospheric sky scrape dotted with a “Black Rock”. Above Hannah’s “Cloud” the rock hovers as a meteorite, a heavenly body, and a very playful object. “Black Rock” recalls a romantic tradition yet one reformed and pasted together with paper maché, glitter and glue, perpetuating the subtle humour running throughout the exhibition.

The constructed object takes a further development in the work of Chris Barr, whose large-scale wooden alcove “ Untitled” is finely crafted with subtle lines of gold marking the rough wooden board. Placed beside his delicate ink drawing “Standard 19”, Chris’ works stand slightly apart from the rest of the exhibition. His carefully detailed drawing morphs animalist forms into a heraldic motif, whilst the alcove stands waiting for an iconographic statue or trophy, employing a symbolism that alludes to religious iconography and commemorative practice. Chris’ prominent use of wood, is an aesthetic device that runs throughout all the works on show, with wood either colourfully painted in Rhys’ trainers, or seemingly ‘knocked’ together in the work of Hannah and Sovay the material echoes the structure of the gallery space and the working studios housed within the building.

The exhibition space is part of Rogue studios, which houses a range of Manchester artists. In placing the exchange exhibition within the studio building the Bristol works sits within the heart of a Manchester art community, a position that presents ample opportunity for dialogue and critique. Similarly the placement could be perceived as slightly provocative as the Bristol works sit as a direct challenge to the neighbouring artist’s studios. There will unavoidably be an ensuing dialogue now that the work has been shown, seen and discussed in the neighbouring studio spaces. The potential for the exchange to create a solid network of practitioners with shared aesthetic or artistic concerns will prove to be an invaluable resource for future cross-city dialogues and burgeoning art practice. The project title Openended suggests the potential for continued discussion and debate integral to the success of the exchange network.

As part of the exchange structure the exhibiting Bristol artists will now select five Manchester based practitioners to show in their resident city. The selection of Manchester artists invited to show in Bristol will be both a reflection of the Bristol aesthetic and a response to the range of Manchester work they have seen. It is left open to speculate whether the Bristol participants will collect like-minded works, or diversify the exchange and introduce a different genre of work to the city of Bristol.

The Openended exhibition presents a section of Bristol art practice placed within the city network of Manchester. It is a show that is finely curated, playing with the exhibition site and the aesthetic evident throughout the diverse works on show. . Exhibited within a working studio building the art works provide a site for dialogue and debate, and a new network of practitioners to foster openended links with the city of Manchester.

Essay by Laura Mansfield



Laura Mansfield is a writer and researcher living in Manchester.

She has written on a variety of artists work for AN Magazine (2006), Situations Papers (2006), Spike Island Gallery (2007), Arty Magazine (2007) and Circa (2008).

In 2006 she produced and edited the publication Spike Island Journal 2 Currency and Exchange, an international exchange of texts exploring notions of local and global identity between the writers Axel Lapp (Berlin), Eddie Chambers (Bristol), Charlie Danby (London) and Yane Calovski (Skopje).

For the past year Laura has been working in close collaboration with the artist Daphne Wright. She has delivered papers on Wright’s work at the International Conference of Death, Dying and Disposal (University of Bath 2007) and The National Gallery of Ireland (2008).

Laura has further worked on curatorial projects including Intervention/Decoration Frome 2008 and Oh Dreamland, Greatstone 2007. She is part of the artist collective Club Shepway (www.clubshepway.com) and has been an instrumental member of this summer’s Folkestone Fringe curating events alongside the International Sculpture Triennial, Folkestone (www.folkestonefringe.com)

Laura is studying an MA in Cultural and Critical Theory at Birkbeck College University of London.