The Look Again team are on a roll with their new project space on St Andrew Street which recently played host to 'Staff Outing' a group show featuring members of Grays School of Art teaching staff.
With notable artist like Michael Agnew, David Blyth and Jim Hamlyn amongst others, the show was full of exciting work from traditional painting and print making, to exotic assemblage sculptures and performance pieces, the remnants of which could be viewed downstairs. An impressive selection of works from Michael Angew helped trace a progression in his work from ealry paintings to collaborative books and his distinctive owl etchings. It felt quite exciting to see these early examples of work and to see the building blocks which would inform his later work, his use of line and tone being particularly important. The whole space had a flow thanks to its curation and the Look Again staff were on hand to speak a bit more about some of the artists I didn't know like .
Over the last 6 months the Look Again space has provided some essential viewing for anyone interested in contemporary art in the city and has helped ground the festival into the annual calendar beyond the usual festival period. With previous shows like 'Oral Suspension' and the Creative Accelerator programme which saw the team mentor emerging creative and designers, the St Andrew Street space has been well utilised during this time. With the Art Gallery set to re open this weekend and a wide range of events, creative meet ups, studios and exhibition spaces appearing, 2019 has been a huge year for the city and its cultural reach. Although an outlier due to its location, its great to see a bit more of Grays School of Art coming into the city centre and to showcase the accomplishments of the staff in a physical space.
The 'Staff Outing' is all wrapped up now of course, I'm playing catch up on a lot of post's but the next Look Again show 'Embedding' runs til 10th November so be sure to check it out!
With notable artist like Michael Agnew, David Blyth and Jim Hamlyn amongst others, the show was full of exciting work from traditional painting and print making, to exotic assemblage sculptures and performance pieces, the remnants of which could be viewed downstairs. An impressive selection of works from Michael Angew helped trace a progression in his work from ealry paintings to collaborative books and his distinctive owl etchings. It felt quite exciting to see these early examples of work and to see the building blocks which would inform his later work, his use of line and tone being particularly important. The whole space had a flow thanks to its curation and the Look Again staff were on hand to speak a bit more about some of the artists I didn't know like .
Over the last 6 months the Look Again space has provided some essential viewing for anyone interested in contemporary art in the city and has helped ground the festival into the annual calendar beyond the usual festival period. With previous shows like 'Oral Suspension' and the Creative Accelerator programme which saw the team mentor emerging creative and designers, the St Andrew Street space has been well utilised during this time. With the Art Gallery set to re open this weekend and a wide range of events, creative meet ups, studios and exhibition spaces appearing, 2019 has been a huge year for the city and its cultural reach. Although an outlier due to its location, its great to see a bit more of Grays School of Art coming into the city centre and to showcase the accomplishments of the staff in a physical space.
The 'Staff Outing' is all wrapped up now of course, I'm playing catch up on a lot of post's but the next Look Again show 'Embedding' runs til 10th November so be sure to check it out!
