Whitworth Art Gallery Visit

2/2/16

I took a trip into manchester to visit the Whitworth Art Gallery which is located on oxford road and is a part of the university of manchester.


The experience of the environment was a warm welcoming and charming feeling with the use of dark wooden flooring and beams in the walls etc and the warmly lit lighting throughout and gave off a more immemorial feel. However there was a slightly modern feel to the environment as well as some of the walls were plane white and had a fairly chic feeling to them so the contrast and eenvolvment between the two furnishing styles gave a sense of the art work displayed with older pieces and more modern pieces being displayed next to one another in certain points of the display. The first room i entered there was a large display of numerous pieces that were fairly small and this was repeated throughout the gallery. These pieces required you to go very close up to them in order to see them properly making the paintings more intimate and personal requiring that close observation and connection. The tiled layout of these paintings also reflect the tilting on the floor which were dark slate, again with relation to the dark wooden furnishings make the pale grey and white walls dotted through out stand out more and balance each other well.



One of the rooms in particular had a very warming and cosy feel to it with the glass house in the centre of the room being displayed, with light shining out of this house around the room and lighting up the warm wooden furnishings this room was by far the most welcoming and inviting due to its positive and warming energy due to the furnishings and lightings. The piece that was in the centre of the room was created by Marry Kelly and Ray Barrie and was titled 'Love Songs'. The glass walls of the shed were fogged with clear sections of the glass marked out with words all of which had some feminist relation. The piece may have been representing the warm glow of the strong positive energy of recognising sexism and standing against it.

While i was here in the whitworth i decided to use this time as an exercise for my context studies essay and see what pieces of work i could find that relate to my keyword for my essay in some way and to briefly write about them.
The first piece i came across was that of Richard Fosters 'Three Verticals' which were made using pencil to create the texture and appearance of waves over black sand.

The contrast between where the wave ends and the sand begins is strong due to the varying textures and the consistency of these opposing textures on either side. This image could be using this contrast to represent divide as each of the lines that dive the two textures is also in the appearance of a rip down the page and all almost cut the frame in half with regards to where the divide takes place. It is also a good representation of divide as we know that these two elements are actually not divided as the sand particles will be swept up into even the smallest wave and they will both intertwine and merge over and over however all that we see is this obvious line of divide so it could pose the thought of or represent a mental state of mind or opinion towards divide such as that of racism causing a divide due to appearances when really these people share more in common under the surface.

The next piece i came across that was interesting was Frank Aubach's 'Head Of EOW' which was made using charcoal and chalk on paper and used only dark monotone colours. The piece was edgy and rough and had a decayed style to it with some of the piece actually having been ripped of or worn into. i felt that this piece was representing the portrait of the man in a dark potentially disturbed manner creating a sense of intrigue and mystery as well has possessing a sense of horror to it also. It could be representing the mental state of the subject as it had a cloudy and destroyed feel to it.
The facial expression of the subject also back up these dark feelings and representations of sadness and lack.









Another piece that caught my eye was Richard Hamilton's Fashion Plate. Which was supposed to be a cosmetic study using photolithograph photo collage and silkscreen to create it.

The piece shows what appears to be a collage of photographs pieced together and arranged in a way to make up the the face and profile of one women. There is also lighting equipment present in the college of images. I decided that this image could be representing how the fashion industry is made up of a variety of fashion icons and styles and something new will always replace the latter to be idolised and adored as this is the effect of the fashion and beauty industry the use of black and white and then colour images could represent the old and the new.