SALFORD-BASED ARTIST BRINGS FIRST SOLO EXHIBITION TO THE CITY

This summer Salford Museum & Art Gallery welcomes a new exhibition by the internationally recognised, Salford-based artist Rachel Goodyear.

Co-commissioned by University of Salford Art Collection and Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, Stirrings is the artist’s first major solo exhibition in Salford, which includes new large-scale drawings and a new animation.

Rachel has been an artist in Salford for 20 years and is based at Islington Mill studios where she is a board member, and co-director and strong advocate for the wider artist community across the city.

The exhibition runs from July 15^th 2022 until 26^th February 2023 and there is a launch event and opportunity to meet the artist on Thursday 14^th July 5.30-7.30pm at a free event attended by the City Mayor Paul Dennett and John McCarthy, Associate Chief Operating Officer, University of Salford.

For Stirrings, Rachel has experimented with scale, making her largest and most detailed drawing to date. With heightened detail, bodies contort, a wolf-pack is tangled into a single entity of snarls and fur and figures explore sensations that hold an ambiguous balance of pleasure and discomfort. The exhibition also includes a new animation exploring structure, space and sound. With nods to mythological journeys into the Underworld, Dante’s levels of Hell and our continuous scrolling through social media, Hole takes the form of a never-ending descent. With a specially commissioned soundtrack by Matt Wand, Goodyear’s frozen moments are locked in time to be repeated forever.

Rachel Goodyear said:

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“There are so many aspects of this commission that have been very special for both me and my practice. It has given me the opportunity to push the boundaries of my drawings - exploring a larger and more immersive scale than ever before - whilst realising and producing the animation Hole which has been a vision running through my mind for a number of years. It has been so meaningful to produce this exhibition with the collections, curators, collaborators and writers who have all been a part of my 20+ year journey as an artist in Salford at different points over the years. It is incredible to have the support to create such significant new works, and also for them to be showcased in the city where they were created and the place where I have grown both as an artist and a person.”

Claire Corrin, Exhibitions Manager at Salford Museum & Art Gallery says:

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“We are delighted to be working with Rachel, the University Art Collection and the Grundy Art Gallery to bring Stirrings to Salford Museum & Art Gallery. It is really important for us to promote Salford based artists and display high quality contemporary art, and we are excited to be showing work by a national and internationally recognised artist who is based in our city.”

Tickets to the launch of Stirrings are free and people are asked to book tickets online before they arrive. For free tickets, which include refreshments, please go to https://salfordmuseum.com/event/opening-goodyear/.

Image Captions:

Left: Spectre (Hyena), 2021, 90cm x 125cm, pencil on paper. Image courtesy Michael Pollard 

Right: Rachel Goodyear: Trance, 2021. Courtesy and copyright the artist. Photo: Michael Pollard