Read Annie Lennox’s Project Statement For The Glorious Manford Salchester Exhibition

GLORIOUS MANFORD SALCHESTER

As an internationally renowned artist, singer songwriter Annie Lennox needs little introduction. Her recent exhibition “The House of Annie Lennox” curated by London’s V&A Museum, at The Lowry in Salford Quays revealed however that there are many different facets to this legendary chameleon.

 

From her trips to Manchester and Salford earlier this year, Lennox became inspired to engage with and capture the vividly contrasting imagery she saw around her. Despite the fact that she does not describe herself as a “photographer,” Annie Lennox is an avid observer and captor of visual imagery.

 

Taken intuitively and discreetly by iPhone, she constantly records impressions of things she finds herself fascinated by and drawn towards, in and around the world of everyday life.

 

Earlier this year, Annie embarked on a photographic project, paying visual homage to Manchester and Salford.

 

As she struggled to accurately describe the actual location of The Lowry itself, Annie realised that a particular boundary tension existed between both places, and as she was drawn to freely create whatever lay between the form of those boundaries, it became clear there was only one title that could appropriately befit the work.

 

And so the notion of GLORIOUS MANFORD SALCHESTER was conceived, and we are proud to present this exhibition in collaboration with CCA and The Lowry Hotel.  Annie Lennox is fascinated by everything and anything…. especially things past. She is particularly drawn towards the Victorian era, a sustained period of unprecedented industrial expansion, development and growth, bleakly contrasted by pervasive poverty, exploitation and human suffering.

 

GLORIOUS MANFORD SALCHESTER explores the parallels and comparisons that lie between past and present time and space, through a series of constantly evolving visual landscapes. In this work she captures an almost mystical environment that is both literal and imaginary at the same time.  The title of the exhibition is therefore a genially ambiguous fusion of two demarcated places and identities. Both existent and non existent.

 

Lennox is drawn intuitively towards the things she sees, with no premeditated plan or design.  In this way she feels she can capture an essence of the infinite details, both visually and metaphorically. “I want people to feel connected and transported by familiar things that might otherwise be unseen or overlooked” she says.  In my view, everything is contradictory, mysterious, inaccessible, insignificant, and yet thoroughly meaningful and profound at the same time.  Beauty lies in strange places..like diamonds in mud. More than often we absolutely don’t see it.

 

Poignancy is also everywhere… It suffuses the harshness of urban wasteland, 70’s concrete architecture, ubiquitous graffiti, streets that lead to nowhere, civic parks, feral weeds randomly overtaking railway bridges, and bursting with profusion through the cracks of crumbling brick buildings that were once the solid bastions of industry.” I’m fascinated by all this…What’s been before..How it dissolves, and what’s replaced it.”

 

GLORIOUS MANFORD SALCHESTER was created as an homage to the vibrant poignancy of subjects past and present.  The results are imbued with a curious metaphysical fusion of what occurs between our perceived boundaries of time and space.  The resultant kaleidoscopic imagery includes everything from relics of past Victorian grandeur to the edgy profusion of overgrown nature, contrasted by the urban wilderness of spray paint graffiti, accompanied by the persistent beauty and gloom of what might be described as the ever changing “British sky”.

 

This exhibition is compellingly and synonymously poignant, gorgeous, jarring, memorable, and ultimately…thought provoking.  The photographic prints will be available to buy in three different sizes…. small, medium and large, and all the artworks will be available as signed Limited Edition Photographic Prints.

 

The exhibition opens on Friday 19th October 2012 at the Lowry Hotel and runs until Tuesday 27th November 2012

The Lowry Hotel,

50 Dearmans Place Chapel Wharf Salford

Manchester

M3 5HL