STUDENTS from the MA printmaking and photography courses at Bradford College have mounted the latest exhibition in the big Crossley Gallery at Dean Clough, Halifax – and there is some striking and varied work on view.
Take, for instance, the large, impressive baby photographs by Mary Loney which, unlike the rest of the exhibits, are painted in oils.
One of the babies is in the bath, another in a chair and the third in a cradle. These are powerful works.
Helen Wood unusually displays a moving pageant of images on a paper screen.
Jonathan Prendergast has delivered seven big photomontages set in woodland.
There’s a girl with a camera, a man and two girls on their mobile phones, a man asleep with his head on a rucksack, a man reading a paper by a lake and a man in a T-shirt simply standing with folded arms.
A J Yates has a glamorous picture of a dancer with the title Re-thinking Dance and 15-strong facial portraits of women, titled Women and Still Dancing.
Denise McCilroy has competed a book of interesting photocopies. She explains she is not a fan of art history – a process, she says, that excludes, classifies and categorises artists into the dominant fashion or fad.
She said: “I am for art that takes care, I am for art that saves the trip to Specsavers. I am for art that lets Cathy come home. I am for art you can throw up on.”
Sue Walker’s Absence series comes on a series of screen prints on Vilene stitch.
Jeff Sutton has three big digital prints in black and red which focus very much on themes of despair and titles include Desperate Moments 1936-39, 1939-45, 1950-53.
Julia Hemingway’s Bees (screen prints), Swarm, Beeline and Nectar Dancing have intriguing patterns and colours while Barrie Dean has produced some colourful abstract prints – random arrangements on Square – and he also gives us, on squares, images of a yellow cab in New York, water and birds and a raven.
From Maria Allen come six gorgeous Giclee prints of plants and flowers while Jo Billingsley invites visitors to take away one of her miniature, comic digital prints.
Julia Hemingway’s colographs, Cells, Chambers and Combs are well designed and presented.
One of the most novel exhibits is a comic sculpture by Hayley Mills-Sykes with a one-way traffic sign and a bollard made from wool.
And there’s a big, matching “one way” woollen blanket.
Yan Wan Preston has submitted a huge photograph of a disused Bolton quarry with a lone picnicker and a handsome inscription in Japanese, Mountains Are Wealth, Work Is Pride.
Helen Robinson’s floral imagery is colourfully and carefully executed, with a lightness of touch.
The exhibition, New Inc, runs until October 18 and is open 10am to 5pm daily.
