AIR Gallery CIC’s seventh annual AIR OPEN exhibition is currently showing at Rogue Artists Studios CIC in Gorton – and you have a week left to catch it!
AIR Gallery aims to provide opportunities from emerging and early-career artists through pop-up exhibitions in locations across the North West. AIR OPEN 2024 showcases the work of 43 artists selected through an annual open-call for submissions.
The exhibition is at Rogue Studios CIC, a collection of artists studios charmingly spread across the classrooms of a former school, while the exhibition space takes over what was once the sports hall. The result is a pick-and-mix of intriguing creations packed with visual and conceptual interest.
One of the first pieces visitor’s come across is a triptych of portraits by the artist ANDI, circus-theme of which is a timely meditation on the treatment of trans identities as political spectacle. In accompanying texts provided for visitors, ANDI describes painting the blood systems of their subjects, before building the skin with thin layers of paint – it makes for paintings that are well-worth squinting at.
Around the corner, Justine Lesage’s ‘World’s Best Dad’ is a frilly, cigarette-adorned celebration cake that rests on its plinth like an offering to the dregs of BRAT summer. Likewise ‘Scene’, a neighbouring sculpture by Kelan Andrews, is a Georgian-style dolls house has been pedantically transformed into a modern-day squat where Barbie has – quite literally – been put out with the trash.
The most interactive element of the exhibition was Hang Zhang and her ‘Llama Card Deck’. This is exactly as it sounds, a set of quirky, llama-themed tarot cards made by the artist in response to her experiences of Peru and completed by live tarot-readings for visitors.
It’s well worth pausing to take in ‘2423’, a video art piece by Bill Psarras in which the hands of one participant gently peel plaster from the hands of another. It’s mesmerising to watch and evokes a cumulative tenderness that is genuinely moving.
With such a diverse collection of works the exhibition could easily have felt chaotic, so the visual fluidity between pieces is a real credit the curators. If only all sports halls were like this.
Air Open 2024 is open to visitors on Fridays and Saturdays, 11am-3pm till Saturday 21st September. For more information, visit airgallery.space
All images by Róisín Kennan
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