On Wednesday 26th February, our group in University were taken on a tour of gallery and art spaces in Leeds.
Our tour began at the Stanley and Audrey Burton gallery at the University of Leeds, where the exhibition ‘Book-Space’ was being held. The exhibition focused on the presentation, layout and design of books and was focused on the work of James Joyce. The collection consisted of European (mainly British) works, and dated back to the 17th century to the present day. Amongst the books was also typography and drawings based on the work of Joyce.
Visiting the exhibition proved useful for research purposes, as viewing the layout and design of the books could be used to inspire our own photo book layout for another one of our University modules. I found that I could aesthetically appreciate the graphic design and illustration aspects of the exhibition, but that the exhibition would be better suited to artists working within these mediums. I plan to regularly revisit the gallery to see if any exhibitions could be used for research for future university modules.
After visiting the exhibition, we went to an independent book store named Village Books. The store sold various books and zines produced by both small and more established artists, and had a small gallery space used to host exhibitions and talks. I thoroughly enjoyed looking at the books/zines, and plan to return to view future exhibitions. What I liked most about Village is that they give smaller artists the opportunity to sell and exhibit their work, and I may choose to try and do this myself in future.
The next place on our tour was Serf- a studio and exhibition space used by a number of artists working across a number of different mediums. We were shown around the space by one of the artists based at Serf, and I found it interesting to hear about his journey as an artist. Like Village Books, the space gives smaller artists the opportunity to host exhibitions, so I may choose to try and display some of my own work sometime. Also, visiting exhibitions by other smaller artists would provide networking and potential collaboration opportunities.
Finally, we visited Colours May Vary, which is another independent book store and gallery space. Like Village, the store sold a number of books and zines, as well as art supplies. In addition, the store had a gallery space in which the exhibition ‘Fade to Z’ was being shown. The exhibition focused on the detoriation of a JPEG image, and the imagery was presented in a large scale format which gave the work an interesting amount of detail.
To conclude, the tour of galleries and art spaces proved useful for raising my awareness of spaces where I could potentially exhibit or sell my work, as well where future exhibitions will be held at which I could network and meet other creatives.
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