Closing the Stars in Stripes Rotherham exhibition

It's been an extremely hectic couple of months and already we've reached the closing date of our Rotherham exhibition at the Old Market Gallery in Rotherham. 

Here's a little retrospective on the exhibition which has now seen around 500 visitors in 3 weeks. We certainly observed a transformation of Rotherham's art scene and along with it some presumptions about this Northern town. Now we're looking at a sustained programme, with challenging and ambitious shows and events in this gallery space over the coming years as programmed by Peter Martin who curated this exhibition, and who even took these great photographs. 

More occurances like this please...Rotherham has grown on me.

Faram au fait - Iceream boxes / Bird Boxes / Hot off the Press!

Late in the proceedings of the Rotherham show setup, the Stars in Stripes flew with the idea that we could do more than just paint and draw on the windows / have a central wall built through the space to hang recent and brand new works, but that we could also paint / build things on the floor & walls. The epic floor size warranted as much intervention as possible.

So I started constructing bird houses for the exhibition space columns out of [tesco neopolitan icecream and frozen berries] cardboard boxes. 

It was a suprisingly rapid process - I knocked-up five in total onto which I selectively painted and illustrated. Menageries of birds inside the boxes were a dexterous addition at the last minute by Nick Deakin , for peering through I placed a little light inside each box.

 I'll make some of these again sometime it was great fun...amazing what you can do with a cardboard box.


The show in Rotherham has drawn a broad audience, do make sure you catch it before the show ends, it's extended until Friday 18 February.See the  Stars in Stripes website.

All pictures are courtesy of the witty top fashion blogger, Style Factory, who gave the show a cracking write-up - an interesting and flattering spin on the exhibition!

 

OTHER PRESS:

• 'Don't Panic' magazine - The Rotherham Renaissance 

• 'Ballad Of...' review