Exhibition: 25 June – 10 September | Open Thursday – Saturday, 10am – 4:30pm
Launch Event and Artlink 40th Anniversary Celebration: 24 June, 6-8PM
2022 marks the 40th anniversary of Artlink Hull. In celebration of this milestone 87 Gallery has commissioned artist Ailish Treanor to respond to the organisation’s extensive archive. Treanor has explored the archive physically and digitally, seeking out evidence of live events, workshops and performances. Traces of these ephemeral happenings have been captured in photographs, posters and publications. Treanor has pulled motifs from this material to produce a new body of work that references the value of everyday human experiences and decision-making. Sportswear logos, drawn from the fashion of the day, are translated into ceramic sculpture. Butterfly collages, the result of community workshops, have grown into textiles sculptures that pose theatrically in the space.
Tableau Retro also seeks to acknowledge Artlink as a workplace, recognising the presence of members of staff within the archive. Treanor found that these photographs often appear staged, creating a tension between history and fiction. The work reminds us that the making of an archive is a conscious act, one that can be altered to fit different times and agendas.
Ailish Treanor is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work sits at the cross-section of sculpture and printmaking. Treanor uses a wide range of materials to present objectified and ambiguous ‘bodies’. She adopts repeated pattern, motif, and reproduced imagery to create highly composed objects which take inspiration from various sources, including clothing design, folk art, and film.
Graduating from Newcastle University in 2018, Treanor was awarded the 4th year prize for studio practice and a month-long residency at The BSR in Rome. Since then, she has exhibited in various group shows around the UK, including The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. Treanor was recently commissioned by Barnsley Metropolitan Council to create a public sculpture as part of their ‘Love Barnsley’ campaign, which launched in February 2022 in Barnsley town centre.
