A new art gallery has opened in an old space in Coventry city centre.
Roots gallery is in what people have known for years at the glass box or glass showcase opposite Browns and The Herbert in Earl Street. It was owned by the council and pretty much anyone could exhibit there as long as they paid the low hire cost.
The result was a bit of a mish-mash – some very good, some interesting discoveries, lots average and some quite poor.
A change of policy has resulted in the decision to support a Coventry University graduate, Sian Conway, in taking over the space for a year with a properly curated programme of exhibitions. Officially, the plan is to build on the gallery’s existing links with community groups, local artists and students, while adding a new vision and making it a “dynamic space for contemporary visual art”.
Coventry
Katie O brings scary monsters and robots to The Lock
AN ARTIST is holding her second solo exhibition in Coventry, telling a story familiar to many young women.
Katie O’s exhibition Minor Malfunctions, Psychology of the Machine, is on show at The Lock at the Canal Warehouse beside the Canal Basin. It tells the story of a young girl setting out through life, beset with worries and indecisions, feeling scared by the – in this work – scary monster looming over her, and then here getting some guidance from the friendly robot. Dreams seem out of reach, life is empty and she wonders if it will ever change.
Architects’ space makes a great gallery
Coventry University art students are exhibiting their work in an interesting if hard-to-get-to space until the end of March.
The IDP Architects Practice in Spon Street, Coventry city centre, is in an old building which has incorporated some outdoor space into a spacious glass-fronted entrance and staircase area – you can see in from the street.
John Burns from the university’s School of Art and Design met some people who worked there while dining in Browns Independent Bar in the city centre, and the idea of using it to show students’ art grew from there.
John held an exhibition of some of his own work there last year, and now work by 40 students from the BA Illustration and Animation course has gone up on the brick walls.
Coventry University gets prime spot for new Lanchester Gallery Projects venue
Coventry’s newest and very prominent art gallery has opened with a conceptual exhibition which makes a statement about how it plans to progress.
The Lanchester Gallery has moved from inside Coventry University’s Graham Sutherland building, which houses the School of Art and Design, to a space on the front of The Hub in Jordan Well. In such an obvious position the pressure was on, and before this first exhibition, ÉVASION, opened there had been a week of near all-night work to get everything ready.
George Shaw’s even gettting written about in CAMRA’s Pint Sides
In the last year, George Shaw must have been written about in many places. But now he’s really made it – one of his works has been discussed in Pint Sides, the newsletter of the Coventry and North Warwickshire branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).
It’s not your normal art criticism though. In Old Fred’s Corner, the writer says he spotted in a national paper in an article about the Turner Prize, a picture of a “derelict site that looked strangely familiar”. Of course this turned out to be a painting by George Shaw of a pub where he used to go.
Or, as ‘Fred’, told us, it was the Hawthorn Tree on Broad Lane, Lost Pubs No 36 in the Spring 2011 edition of Pint Sides.
Fred then goes on to reminisce about the history of the Hawthorn, the surrounding area and how it came to be lost, concluding “I must look out for more of Mr Shaw’s paintings of modern urban desolation”.
Luckily, the editor at this point tells us we can see the exhibition of George’s work at the Herbert until March 11, and I hope Fred has availed himself of this opportunity.
Turner miss is disappointing but George Shaw has already moved on
So George Shaw didn’t win the Turner Prize. The disappointment in the packed big hall at the Herbert art gallery was palpable, as many people left within a few minutes, spurning the after party.
But although it’s disappointing and he’ll miss out on some of the instant attention (and prize money) the win brings, it’s hardly like to harm his career or artistic reputation. George Shaw is already well respected in the art world, by the critics, by collectors and by a growing number of art fans and that will not change.
Google Turner Prize and flick through a list of the past winners and other nominated artists – the ones who’ve gone on to greatest artistic success/fame/richness aren’t always the winners.
EXCLUSIVE: Turner Prize nominee George Shaw talks about his first major Coventry exhibition
IN The Herbert gallery in Coventry the paintings are on the wall, and the final preparations are being made for George Shaw: I woz ere to open to the public.
It’s the first big home-town exhibition for George, born in the city in 1966, and he’s here overseeing the work and admitting to feeling a little anxious about how it will be received.
“It’s all right doing this, thinking about it before I came to do it wasn’t. Without Rosie’s [Addenbrooke, senior exhibitions and events officer] enthusiasm and commitment it wouldn’t have happened. It was something I was avoiding. You are always afraid of doing something you haven’t done before.
“I was slightly anxious the reality of the situation would take over from the work. In many ways it has but not in a negative sense.”
Write and publish your haiku for Coventry arts project
A Coventry-based artist is running a project this week, up to October 9, to tie in with National Poetry Day, which was today.
Lorsen Camps’s project is called Beauty in the Everyday and is being funded by Coventry City Council’s Small Art Grant. He is trying to get as many people as possible to write haiku, three-line poems, which will be uploaded to a Facebook page called Coventry Haiku Project.
Lock exhibition showcases photography students’ talents
STUDENTS from an evening class in Coventry are showing the high standard of their work at an exhibition in t.he city.
The Lock in the warehouse at the Canal Basin has an exhibition, called Through Our Eyes, of works by 16 adult students on a Level 2 City and Guilds course at City College, taught by Richard Pearce.
Meter Room is exciting new Coventry venture for city artists
AN UNUSUAL and exciting exhibition space has opened in Coventry – but you have to be very observant to find it.
The Meter Room is at 58-64 Corporation Street in the city centre – just round the corner from the bottom of The Burges, with the entrance in a side alley between the pub and a charity shop. It says Meter Room above the door and also the name of the building’s previous occupier – the CVSC.
Go up a couple of flights and the doors open into a corridor which at the moment has various exhibition spaces off it, and also studios for lots of local artists.
Private View II 