Further information: Colouring Outside The Lines - the exhibition

Running from Fri 26th June to Fri 24th July, 2009, Gallery II at the University of Bradford is to host a provocative group exhibition featuring British female artists working beyond the bounds of the cultural, or artistic mainstream.

The exhibition is the first curatorial venture of two young women, Rachel Kaye (Gallery II, University of Bradford) and Melanie Maddison (Colouring Outside The Lines zine), and seeks to open the discussion of who has access to art – in terms of both curators and artists.

The exhibition will feature work by established and developing artists – from a variety of ages and backgrounds, who work across a range of less conventional mediums.


26 June 2009 - 24 July 2009
Gallery II,
Located on the University of Bradford campus, Bradford, W. Yorks, UK
(http://www.brad.ac.uk/gallery)
Exhibition opening times [weekdays only, 10am-5pm, Thursdays until 6pm.] Or by appointment.
Free.

Colouring Outside the Lines: The Exhibition will feature artwork and installations by Morwenna Catt, Helen Musselwhite, Abigail Brown, Carolyn Mendelsohn, Heidi Burton, Louise Art & Ghosts, and Naseem Darbey. The exhibition aims to celebrate, highlight, encourage, and support female creativity in its diverse forms.

Morwenna Catt
Bradford based Morwenna produces work across a range of media including textiles, painting, drawing and installation. Playing with narratives and creating stories around the objects she makes she explores themes of childhood, family and innocence lost.
Morwenna will be exhibiting work from her ‘Phrenology’ series, including six hand crafted textile heads.
http://www.morwennacatt.co.uk/

Helen Musselwhite
Helen uses bold colour, strong graphic lines and handcut and scored paper to create highly individual work. Her art pays respect to all forms of mid-century design, folk and ethnic art as well as current and future trends. Influenced by the natural world each piece is manipulated to become an intriguing place, a glimpse into another world of fiction and fairy tale.
Helen will be exhibiting her work both as framed papercuts, and an installation of papercuts situated within glass domes.
http://www.helenmusselwhite.com/

Louise Art & Ghosts
Louise is a digital artist based in Manchester who works across mediums of collage and illustration. Her work immerses the viewer in an etheral sphere of spectres, dreams and childhood stories. Often gothic, sometimes disturbing, her work is strange and beautiful.
Louise will be exhibiting prints from her ‘Anomolies / Metamorphosis’ series.
http://artandghosts.typepad.com/

Abigail Brown
Textile designer and creature maker extraordinare Abigail uses colour, pattern and texture to create a visual language which is quirky and playful, reminiscent of a childhood that she holds very dear.
Abigail will be exhibiting a selection of hand created textile birds, and wall hangings.
http://www.abigail-brown.co.uk/

Heidi Burton
Tea-drinking freelance illustrator inhabiting the lovely, historical city of Cambridge, UK. Heidi works with both digital and traditional methods, producing illustrations and modified moleskin journals which are both charming and uncanny.
Heidi will be exhibiting a selection of her modified moleskin journals.
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5211919

Carolyn Mendelsohn
Photographer, film-maker, performer, and installation artist, Carolyn creates work that has been described as "enchanting" "haunting" "magical" and "moving", drawing influence from the moment before the curtain opens in the cinema.
Carolyn will be exhibiting work from her ‘Behind Closed Doors’ series, an interactive installation of images framed within curious cupboards that invite us to open doors into secret, strange and magical places.
http://www.carolynmendelsohn.com/

Naseem Darbey
Naseem is an artist interested in mark making using unconventional tools and means; primarily using her sewing machine as a drawing tool. Naseem utilises the sewing machine for freehand, fluid, and spontaneous drawings focusing primarily on portraiture and figurative drawing, incorporating the dynamics of the stitched line, tears and perforations.
Naseem will be exhibiting work from her ‘Tension’ collection, using colour, texture, and light to depict both traditional and reinterpreted fairy tales.
http://www.naseemdarbey.com/


Running from Fri 26th June to Fri 24th July, 2009, [weekdays only]

Opening night is Thursday 25th of June 5-7pm.

We can also arrange appointments to see the gallery outside standard opening hours, contact Rachel if you are interested in this.
R.Kaye@Bradford.ac.uk


Colouring Outside The Lines started life in 2003 as a self-produced zine. The publication interviewed female artists and included reproductions of their art, giving the women featured a voice over their own productivity beyond traditional art criticism and the meta-narratives of the art world alone. The zine focused on artists working in less-conventional forms; including comic books, poster art and textiles, and gave a platform to those artists whose feminist and queer agendas were less appreciated.

Based on the philosophy of the Colouring Outside the Lines zine the curators worked together to select work which departed from the 'traditional canvas' and conventional
mediums of creation and production - quite literally, work was selected which coloured outside the lines.

Melanie comments, 'The exhibition seeks to make an active comment about the cultural myth that art is reserved for the elite and privileged. By breaking down the barriers between creators and audiences, and including work in unconventional and populist forms which everyone has access to, we are asserting our belief that everyone can be creative in their own life'.

Rachel adds, 'the work exhibited is deliberately selected from a cross generation of artists and includes established and establishing practitioners. Although the exhibitors work is diverse in terms of form and media it is united thematically through reoccurring explorations of ideas of mythologies, fairytale discovery and surprise'.


(N.B: Issue 5 of Colouring Outside The Lines zine will also be launched at the exhibition)