Two new exhibitions opened on Saturday at Contemporary Six in Manchester’s city centre.
Gallery Six is a small, privately owned (but very friendly) gallery in the city centre. This month they have two new exhibitions – Ghislaine Howard’s The Fragile Thread and the late Norman Adams RA’s Landscape in Colour.
Ghislaine Howard: The Fragile Thread
The main gallery is currently home to The Fragile Thread, a collection of paintings form the artist Ghislaine Howard. Howard was born in Eccles and studied fine art at Newcastle University. In 1983, her exhibition “A Shared Experience” at Manchester Art Gallery garnered critical acclaim for her depictions of pregnancy and childbirth, setting the trajectory for a career in which she has become known for her ability to capture the experiences of women – and particularly mothers – with honesty and empathy.
With this in mind, there are a few paintings – like the group of posed nude figures that comprise ‘Re-imagining Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon’ – that feel out of place next to the small, domestic moments that form the backbone of this collection.
Among the gentle depictions of mothers, fathers, couples and children, a small oil painting is tucked into the corner of the window. Entitled ‘My Mother on the Stairs’, it shows a woman hunched and clinging to the banister as she makes her way to bed. It’s these unseen moments of vulnerability – the sigh when no one is watching – that Howard is so good at capturing.
Norman Adams RA: Landscape in Colour
Make your way to the back of the gallery, and a set of stairs lead down to a small, basement gallery. The navy walls of the small basement gallery at Contemporary Six set a somewhat subdued tone for the joyful effusion of colour that characterises the paintings on their walls.
These vibrant watercolours are the work of the prolific painter and committed teacher Norman Adams (1927-2005), who was head of painting at Manchester College of Art in the 60s before becoming a professor of painting at the Royal Academy.
Adams has been described as a romantic visionary, and he cited both the spiritual intensity of William Blake and the work of German expressionists like Ernst Kirchner as inspiration – but you don’t have to be an art buff to enjoy his work. Smaller children will be inspired to see the parallels between the distinguished painter’s 1991 piece ‘Butterfly’ and their own burgeoning practices. All in all, a very welcome break from this week’s grey weather.
Both The Fragile Thread and Landscape in Colour will be running till 28 Sep at Contemporary Six, 37 Princes Street, Manchester. For more information, visit contemporarysix.co.uk.
