I don’t know if it was done on purpose but the juxtaposition of Paper’s quite mental collection of collage and transient artefacts against the simple yet stark stand-alone photography by Mark Adam’s really stood out to me as a cool collision of artistic styles.

I couldn’t make the preview in Manchester last Thursday so by visiting on Saturday it meant I was more likely to get a proper gander at Paper Gallery’s latest concoction. And I say ‘concoction’ to quite aptly describe the eye poppingly, legs going weak at the knees moment I saw the crazy assemblage of art packed inside their compact venue. You definitely get your money’s worth (handy that its free to go to anyway!) with the dizzying array of paintings, sculpture, decoupage, assemblage, paper mache objects, posters, drawings and books made into a ‘reconstructed shrine’ embodying the spirit of art by the Sheffield based art collective ‘Totaller’.

Anyone that’s familiar with my art (please check out my website if you haven’t yet!) or read my blog before will know that this is right up my street. Chock-full of mentalness. Haha I can’t wait for my own collaborative efforts to work this well and if they can come to any kind of fruition like Totaller then I’ll know I’m on the right track.

So in complete contrast Mark Adam’s ‘Third Space: Landscapes and Windows’ was a more subtle show consisting of a specially selected body of photographic work. I liked his idea of taking an impulsive act of walking in the landscape becoming a source of narrative focus. Recording the banal and the beautiful, the historical and the contemporary, the natural and synthetic in a kind of voyeuristic manner that is refreshing. I really love his series of inquisitive ‘curtain twitching’ series of images. Spotting people, capturing moments which would be missed in so much of a blink of the eye, yet he makes those fleeting non-descript moments come to life… ‘Man with Plastic Bag’ ‘Couple Kissing’ Two Policemen’ ‘Man Asleep’ and ‘People Walking in the Rain’ are just a few to mention within the fifteen photographs.

Both of the shows use architecture in interesting and different ways which naturally brings about questions of how we can use a space and I like the way they collide aesthetically, in sensibility and in visual language… let’s continue to see more of this!

Thanks to Totaller and Mark Adams.

Both exhibitions are open on Saturdays.

Totaller 15″ Deep Pan Stuffed Crust Portuguese Man O’ War
Lesley Guy, Dale Holmes & Lea Torp Nielson
Plus more artists!
Paper Gallery
Mirabel Street
Manchester, M3 1PJ
www.paper-gallery.co.uk

Mark Adams Third Space: Landscapes & Windows
PS Mirabel Gallery
At the same address
www.psmirabel.co.uk