During the last year I was honoured to have many of my paintings used as part of the Moving Manchester (Mediating Marginalities) project organised by Professor Lynne Pearce, (Project Director), Dr Robert Crawshaw, Dr Graham Mort, Dr Corinne Fowler (Researcher), Jo McVicker (Administrator), PHD students and a Management Advisory Group at Lancaster University. The project deals with how the immigrant experience has influenced literature in Manchester and the North West. The novelists Muli Amaye and Zahid Hussain, and the performance poet, Shamshad Khan are also involved in the project, the launch of which was at Manchester Central Library in June 2006 where they read extracts from their works. I also attended the launch and exhibited two of my paintings including one, The Midland Hotel, painted especially with the project in mind. More information about the Moving Manchester Project can be found at it’s official website at: www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/projects/movingmanchester/news.htm
Five paintings, Peveril of the Peak No. 4, St. Anne’s Square and War Memorial No. 2, St. Patrick’s Day Parade No. 2., St. Peter’s Square (Looking West) No. 2, and Manchester Town Hall and Albert Square, have been made into postcards by the Marketing Manchester organisation associated with www.visitmanchester.com These were sold from the Manchester Visitor’s Centre situated in the Town Hall Annex building in St. Peter’s Square, but have now all gone and are no longer available.
In June 05 as part of an art project, the children at Mill Lane primary school in Stockton-on-Tees were encouraged to paint local scenes in a style similar to my own and Jon Lymer, their teacher, sent me images of some of the paintings and I have included them here.
Some of my paintings have featured in a poll organised by the BBC at their website www.bbc.co.uk in which people were asked to vote on which of three styles of paintings depicting various scenes in Manchester they preferred. A link to that poll can be found here
