Meg's FMP Blog

I have always wanted to visit the Manchester Art Gallery, they always have such a variety of interesting exhibits. The interior of the building itself is almost stepping inside a painting.

Here are some of my favourite pieces that I found interesting..

Albert Square, Manchester (after Valette) 2015 by Emily Allchurch.

This piece is presented on a LED lightbox, Emily was inspired by the French Impressionist Adolphe Valette’s painting of Albert Square from 1910. She then took hundreds of photographs in Albert Square and digitally collaged them together to re-create Valette’s cityscape. I found this piece interesting as it represents the technology advances from the original picture its also to show that art is more than just a painting or sculpture. You can take the same picture from Valette’s original painting and still have the same effect to this day.

Work No.88: A sheet of A4 paper crumbled into a ball by Martin Creed

Creed crumbled up a piece of paper up in frustration and dubbed it Work No.88. I actually laughed out loud when I saw this piece, its the typical example of “anything is art” idea. To see an actual ball of paper inside a glass box amongst these amazing sculptures and paintings that very talented artists worked on for months even years was deeply disturbing. However, maybe thats the idea, I reflected on how frustrated I was to of seen that in a gallery but maybe thats what Creed wanted from this piece to feel the frustration of his own when he “created” this.

The Sirens and Ulysses (1837) by William Etty

This piece was inspired by the Greek poem “The Odyssey” It represents the scene from Homer’s narrative where Ulysses leads his men past the monstrous Sirens. In mythology, these creatures lure sailors to their island with songs so enchanting that men die listening. Etty apparently modelled the dead bodies in the foreground on real corpses which he had sketched in morgues. This picture struck me at not just how large it was but the attention to detail, it told me a story before I even read about it. This particular painting wasn’t very well accepted by critics by its use of nudity and death.

“I’m obviously first and foremost a British filmmaker on a global scale, but when it comes to narrowing it down, I really feel like my voice is in the Midlands and outside of London.”

Shane Meadows is a self-taught, British film-maker who hails from the Midlands in the UK. He was born in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, UK on the 26th of December 1972.

After dropping out of school before reaching his O-Levels, Shane originally had his sights set on becoming an infamous, criminal mastermind of legendary proportions.
Things did not go to plan.

After being caught buying a set of stolen, limited-edition John Lowe darts, and later admitting to stealing and eating an egg-custard tart from the local Sainsbury’s, it was clear that he just wasn’t cut out for the hardened criminal underworld.
The final straw came when the latest criminal charges against him were read out in court.
Laughter could be heard from both the gallery and the judge’s bench when it was revealed that Mr Meadows stood accused of stealing a breast-pump from Boots the chemist.
After this final humiliation, Shane put his breast-pump pilfering days behind him and began to put his energy into film-making.

In 1994, Shane’s first step into the world of film making was to volunteer his services at the Nottingham based Intermedia Film and Video Ltd. The arrangment was that he would be allowed to borrow camcorders and use editing equipment in return for working there for free. Shane asked friends and family to get involved in his video experiments, but they were understandably quite wary at first.After Shane had put together a couple of short videos that he had made entirely on his own (with the only actor in the films also being himself), many of his friends watched them and became sufficiently impressed to want to become involved in future video shorts. As their enthusiasm for film-making grew, they were soon making nearly one new short film every month.
With a growing catalogue of short films under his belt, Shane and friends tried approaching local festivals and venues in an effort to get their films screened to an audience. This effort soon turned to frustration as they discovered that nobody accepted films on VHS, so instead of giving up, they set up their own local mini event.
The event was called ‘Six of the Best’ and was held every couple of months in an old local cinema. Anyone could bring along a short film they had made, and for a small fee have it screened to a small audience. The event grew in popularity and eventually became an international video festival called ‘Flip Side’.

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