The Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool shows a year round programme of contemporary and visual art exhibitions and events. Including solo and group displays together with talks, events and educational activities. Take a look at what’s coming up in Spring 2024.
Opening Times
- Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4.45pm.
- Please note: last entry to the gallery is 4.20pm.
- Closed Sunday, Monday and Bank Holidays
- Admission is Free
- More about facilities here
Autumn at Grundy Art Gallery…
STIM CINEMA / COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT / the pARTnership
Official opening Saturday 28 September 2-4pm – Exhibitions continue until 14 December
Aligning with Blackpool’s season of light, Grundy Art Gallery presents a programme of exhibitions and events that explore light and the moving image as well as digital and analogue mark making.
Bringing together artists with and without lived experience of disability and neuro-divergence, the programme takes an inclusive and intersectional approach to showing how we individually and jointly experience, and respond to the world in which we live.
STIM CINEMA: THE NEUROCULTURES
COLLECTIVE AND STEVEN EASTWOOD
28 September (official opening) runs to 14 December
Stimming is the practice of physical repetition as a way of taking sensory pleasure in recurrence, or of expressing and alleviating anxiety. It’s a common trait of autistic experience.
The Neurocultures Collective* was formed through participation in the Autism Through Cinema research project, funded by Wellcome Trust, and led by Steven Eastwood and Janet Harbord.
Co-created by members of The Neurocultures Collective – Sam Chown Ahern, Georgia Bradburn, Benjamin Brown, Robin Elliott-Knowles, Lucy Walker – through years of co-development with artist-filmmaker Steven Eastwood and Curator Gilly Fox, STIM CINEMA takes the action of stimming as its starting point, connecting delight in repetition to the birth of cinema and to contemporary fascination with GIFS.
Including zoetropes (early moving image / pre-cinematic devices), a 16 minute looped video, and props and ephemera from the production process – STIM CINEMA invites the audience to take pleasure in discovering hidden repetitive movements, and the ever-stimming details of the everyday world. STIM CINEMA encourages us all to remember the joy we share in seeing actions rock and loop, and revealing that such stimulation is not only common to autistic experience but it is in the DNA of the moving image.
The pARTnership + COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT + STIM CINEMA
28 September (official opening) runs to 14 December
Connor Gavin and Candice Swallow make work that is visually dynamic. It is saturated with colour and imbued with explosive energy. Their works are the result of hundreds of repeated mark-making gestures using their chosen tools of watercolour crayon, graphite, soft pastel, digital drawing tablet and stylus pen, paint, felt-tip pens, and oil pastel.
For this exhibition, the artists will be presenting new drawings in the form of works on paper and digital animation. Joining this work will be three screen-based pieces made by The Neurocultures Collective and two moving image works from Grundy’s own collection by Nicola Dale and Rachel Goodyear. Common to all these works is the use of repetition, and in the case of the screen based works, repeated actions and looping images, that remind us of our contemporary experience of GIFS, memes, and infinite scrolling.
Connor Gavin and Candice Swallow are founder members of the pARTnership, an ongoing creative and professional development project for artists with a learning disability. The pARTnership is led by Grundy Art Gallery and delivered in partnership with lead artist, Tina Dempsey, The New Langdale (Blackpool Council’s daytime service for adults with a learning-disability), and support from Venture Arts, Manchester. The pARTnership is funded by Arts Council England.
COLLECTION SPOLIGHT: LIGHT
Tony Heaton OBE and Amy Ellison
28 September (official opening) runs to 14 December
This display is part of Grundy’s ongoing series of exhibitions and activities that draw attention to artists and artworks held in the gallery’s permanent collection. To align with the season of Blackpool Illuminations and Blackpool’s Lightpool Festival, this autumn Grundy is pairing two works from the collection that use light as their medium and have been made by artists with lived experience of disability.
Raspberry Ripple, 2018 is by Tony Heaton OBE a disability rights, artist and activist who is currently showing work as part of Crip Arte Spazio at La Biennale di Venezia 2024 curated by David Hevey and produced by Shape Arts and. Cocktails, 2020 is by Amy Ellison, who is a Venture Arts, Manchester studio artist. Both of these works were acquired into Grundy’s collection with support from Art Fund’s New Collecting Award.
GARTH GRATRIX: MUMMY’S BOY
Extended until 14 December
As part of Grundy’s autumn light focus, Garth Gratrix’s 2024 neon work, Mummy’s Boy, will remain installed above Grundy’s front door until the end of the Autumn season. Mummy’s Boy was commissioned by Queer Amusements for Gratrix’s recent Grundy summer exhibition, Flamboyant Flamingos. Taking the form of flamingo pink flashing neon triangles, this work uses the system of Morse code to communicate the phrase Mummy’s Boy.
Referencing personal history, name calling and recent loss – this work is visually striking and thoughtful addition to Grundy’s autumn programme.
The autumn exhibition programme will be supported by a series of exhibition tours, events and workshops. Please see www.thegrundy.org for updated information.
*WHO ARE THE NEUROCULTURES COLLECTIVE?
The Neurocultures Collective is a group of emerging autistic filmmakers consisting of Georgia Bradburn, Benjamin Brown, Sam Chown Ahern, Robin Elliott-Knowles, and Lucy Walker. It was formed through participation in the Autism through Cinema research project, funded by Wellcome Trust, supported by Queen Mary academics, and led by Steven Eastwood and Janet Harbord.
STIM CINEMA has been co-created by members of The Neurocultures Collective through years of co-development with artist-filmmaker Steven Eastwood and curator Gilly Fox. The collaboration offered opportunity, inclusion and visibility for neurodivergent creatives, who are often obliged to explain their identity to audiences rather than play a central part in how representations are formed.
The collaboration takes a progressive approach to moving image production, playing to the individual strengths and aspirations of the group. This production method seeks to create new ways of working and explore how currently inadequate models evolve to empower neurodiverse artists, audiences, and communities.
Grundy Art Gallery’s work recognised by increased funding
In November 2022, Grundy Art Gallery announced that it’s to remain part of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio programme 2023-2026 – to the value of £249,000 over the three years.
This funding will support the development and delivery of an exciting year-round programme of relevant, meaningful and high quality contemporary art exhibitions and events, taking place on and off-site.
Image credits, left to right:
- Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Blackpool Light of My Life (2021), Grundy Art Gallery Co-commission with Blackpool Illuminations and Lightpool Festival Photo: Jonathan Lynch, © the artist, Courtesy Grundy Art Gallery
- The pARTnership exhibition banner at Grundy Art Gallery, 2022. Photo Matt Wilkinson. Courtesy Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool Council
- Chloe MacFarlane, copyright the artist, Private Collection, Photo Matt Wilkson. Courtesy Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool Council
Grundy will continue its founding mission to show the best art of the day to the people of Blackpool and beyond. The programme will enable the gallery to enact its vision to be a beacon for contemporary art in the North West.
Grundy Art Gallery is also delighted to receive an uplift on previous years’ NPO funding, specifically to support the development and delivery of the pARTnership.
It’s delivered via a collaboration between Grundy Art Gallery, The New Langdale (Blackpool Council’s daytime service for people with a Learning Disability), Venture Arts in Manchester and Fylde-Coast based artist Tina Dempsey. This project provides bespoke professional development to artists with a Learning Disability to enable them to develop their own individual creativity. The project also presents this work in professional contemporary art settings. Recent exhibitions of this work have taken place at Grundy Art Gallery and Abingdon Studios in Blackpool. And at The Horsfall and The Manchester Contemporary in Manchester.
Grundy newsletter
To keep up to date and find out more about the Grundy’s exhibitions and events sign up to the Grundy newsletter via the Grundy website www.thegrundy.org. Also keep an eye on the website and watch out for posts via Grundy’s social media channels.
Grundy Art Gallery celebrates 110 years
Grundy Art Gallery unveiled an exciting calendar of events to commemorate its 110th anniversary in 2021.
The gallery and its collection established in 1911. It came via a financial gift and donation of over 30 paintings by local brothers John and Cuthbert Grundy. 2021 therefore marks the 110th Anniversary of the gallery opening its doors to the people of Blackpool and beyond.
The Blackpool coat of arms – emblazoned with ‘Progress’ – is embedded in brickwork above the front door. Guided by this motto, the gallery continues to honour its founding ethos. It shows a year-round programme of high quality contemporary art exhibitions and events. Despite the ongoing challenges of COVID-19, 2021 was no exception.
110th Anniversary Logo
Grundy Art Gallery’s 110th anniversary logo was inspired by an ink stamp, historically used to identify items brought into Grundy’s permanent collection. It also echoes the design of Blackpool’s world famous sticks of rock.
Curator of Grundy Art Gallery
Paulette Terry Brien became the gallery’s curator in November 2017.
Paulette has more than 25 years of experience working within contemporary visual art. She’s well known for raising the profile of the North West region, on a national and international level.
Paulette is co-founder and co-director of The International 3, a contemporary art gallery based in Salford. There, she delivered a year round programme of exhibitions and events. Plus being instrumental in developing projects such as Manchester’s annual contemporary art fair, The Manchester Contemporary.
Paulette comes to the Grundy with a strong track record of identifying and nurturing emerging talent, commissioning and curating high quality contemporary art exhibitions for both gallery and non-gallery settings. Over the years, her wealth of experience has supported hundreds of emerging artists. Many of whom have gone on to achieve regional, national and international recognition.
As well as providing peer support, Paulette has also been successful on many occasions in brokering the acquisition of work by regional artists into major public and private collections, such as the Arts Council Collection and Whitworth Art Gallery’s collection.
Paulette is thrilled to be the new curator of the Grundy. She’s keen to continue to champion regional artists from the North West.
More about Grundy Art Gallery
Grundy Art Gallery is Blackpool’s art gallery. It offers a year round programme of contemporary and visual art exhibitions and events. There are solo and group exhibitions together with talks, workshops and educational activities.
Brothers John and Cuthbert Grundy founded The Grundy Art Gallery in 1908. Now displayed in a Grade II listed Carnegie building. It’s been at the centre of cultural and artistic life in the town for over 100 years. It began with the ambition to show the best art of the day to the people of Blackpool. This sentiment remains at the heart of today, as a leading contemporary art gallery in the North West.
Today it includes works by established artists such as Martin Creed, Tracey Emin and Laura Ford. Gilbert and George, Brian Griffiths, Augustus John, Haroon Mirza and Eric Ravilious. It also has works by regionally based emerging talent such as Joe Fletcher Orr and Louise Giovanelli.
The Grundy aims to inspire audiences through an ambitious and varied year-round exhibitions programme. It draws on the unique and invigorating context and heritage of Blackpool. For instance exploring the space between contemporary art, entertainment and popular culture.
The Grundy Collection
Exhibitions and displays frequently incorporate pieces from our collection. It began with a bequest by the founding brothers and contains an eclectic range of art and other items. From furniture to ceramics, to netsuke ornaments to Victorian oil paintings. Artists include Craigie Aitchison, Ruth Claxton and Martin Creed. Laura Ford, Augustus John, Eric Ravilious and Gilbert and George amongst others.
Grundy is part of Blackpool Council’s Arts Service. It develops and delivers arts projects which engage Blackpool’s residents, communities and visitors in the arts. The service supports the town’s arts community, placing the arts the core of Blackpool’s unique and important cultural environment.
The gallery is an Accredited Museum. It also receives funding from Arts Council England as a National Portfolio Organisation and from the John Ellerman Foundation.
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