Manchester Art Gallery is launching crowd-funding campaign to secure anew commission for Emily Allchurch’s first solo show at a major public gallery in the UK which begins next April in Manchester.
‘In the Footsteps of a Master’
will see Allchurch use photography and digital collage techniques to create a dialogue between historical artworks and the present day.
The exhibition will showcase her acclaimed ‘Tokyo Story’ series, a recreation of Utagawa Hiroshige’s ‘One Hundred Famous Views of
Edo’ (1856-58), retold through a photographic lens and a 21st century
perspective.
Each image is a seamless assemblage of her photographs, carefully selected and collaged together to create a narrative about Tokyo today.
These will be shown alongside Manchester Art Gallery’s rarely seen
collection of Hiroshige original woodblock prints.
As a centrepiece of the exhibition, Manchester Art Gallery also want to
commission a new work by Allchurch based on a painting by Adolphe Valette, a French Impressionist painter working in Manchester.
Valette, whose works in the collection are much loved by gallery visitors,
are composed of atmospheric views of the city,capturing Edwardian Manchester in the process of transition to a modern city.
Allchurch will use her digital collage technique to produce an updated version of Valette’s painting of’Albert Square, Manchester 1910′, revealing the 21st century city it is today, but still resonating with echoes of its historic
past. The two works will hang side by side throughout the exhibition.
To commission and permanently acquire this new artwork by Allchurch,
Manchester Art Gallery has launched a campaign to raise £6000 through the
Art Fund’s crowd-funding platform, ‘Art Happens’.
To help inform the content of the new commission, the artist has invited
the people of Manchester to #tellemily what the city means to them in the
21st century. Here are a few of the submissions:
@artspired Manchester – my northern onion that reveals another layer every
time I visit. Always another hidden corner with a story #tellemily
@Black_Jack_B Manchester is a conflict of underground culture and
mainstream culture. Only one can live. Fight! #tellemily
With fundraising closing 26 November 2014, there is a short time to make
this happen, click here for further information on the project and to
donate.
