Nigel Haworth photographic visual art

16/11/2024

Very happy to be at Manchester Contemporary Arts fair. Did a shift on the Manchester College stand which included fantastic work by our students and staff. Last day tomorrow (Sunday), may well go back for another look around as there is so much amazing creative work to see I couldn't take it in all in one go!
https://www.themanchestercontemporary.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/McrContemporary

30/10/2024

FILM RECOMMENDATION

Perfect Days directed by Wim Wenders
A beautiful example of 'slow cinema'. Don't expect any car chases or special effects - this is one for when you fancy something warming and philosophical.

Avaliable on Amazon Prime, Mubi and other platforms in UK, other areas will need to check.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/BpxSgZhzkw2MXFpf/

Wim Wenders, Kōji Yakusho & Aoi Yamada on the set of Perfect Days.

20/10/2024

Over the last couple of weeks I've introduced 'photograms' to the Foundation Art & Design students, working in the darkroom casting shadows by placing objects onto photographic paper. Over the coming weeks we will be taking the process further and looking at some other 'cameraless' photographic techniques.

As part of the introduction to cameraless photography, I showed the students the work of Yoichiro Nishimura, whose excellent 'Light trail' exhibition I saw this summer. It features images capturing the light trails of fireflies directly onto photographic film. Details of the process can seen here:
https://www.yoichironishimura.com/news-en
https://www.gallerynayuta.com/2024/06/06/西村陽一郎展-光跡/

The exhibition was held at Gallery Nayuta, a little gem of a gallery in Ginza, Tokyo who show consistently high-quality work.

Links:
https://www.yoichironishimura.com/about-en
https://www.gallerynayuta.com
Gallery Nayuta

18/10/2024

Small selection from the 'Margins' series I made.

The series looks at the areas on the edgelands of the Manchester conurbation and explores places which have an ambiguous identity; not part of the countryside but not what we would call 'urban' either. The project aims to portray these often mundane or unattractive areas in a way which romanticises them in contradiction to their reality.

www.nigeljhaworth.com

16/10/2024

FABULOUS FINGER-PAINTING

Naho Hayama produces the most wonderfully expressive images of sports persons using acrylic and finger-painting. Often painted directly onto Japanese lacquerware surfaces, these simple forms wonderfully embody the athleticism of the figures being depicted.

I was lucky enough to stumble across her work at Gallery Kobo in Ginza, Tokyo this summer gone and a pleasure it was to see.

https://nyseikatsu.com/gallery/project/020hayama/
Instagram @ nahohayama https://www.instagram.com/nahohayama/

07/10/2024

This is a small selection from a series of images I did a while ago which looked at natural forms from plants & flowers placed within the household environment. I was looking to contrast the organic shapes against the straight lines and stark angular nature of the 'boxes' we live in.

I often wonder if our home environment would feel more relaxing if architects were able to design houses with more curved lines and organic shapes. Like everything I suppose, all comes down to practicality and cost!

Images shot on Black and white 5X4 film on large format camera.

06/10/2024

While at Rogue Artists' Studios & Project Space CIC open studio day, I was chatting to photographer Jan Chlebik about his work. While looking at the mixture of New York / Manchester images I felt to recognise some of the photos, a vague bell was ringing in my mind.

Sure enough, when I got home and looked through my books / exhibition catalogues etc. there it was! I have in my possession an exhibition catalogue from 2008 at Artland Gallery, Manchester (which as far I can tell has since closed). Well, there you go!

It was a pleasure to meet you Jan and see your great work and talk about your working methods, good stuff!

- Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/janchlebikphoto/co.uk

06/10/2024

Great afternoon today at Rogue Artists' Studios & Project Space open studios event. A huge abundance of fantastic work - too much to mention every artist individually, but special mention to Jan Chlebik, Martin Nash and of course ex-colleague the fantastic Rachel Addis.

Rachael Addis Paints - Facebook
- Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/janchlebikphoto/
.nash - Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/mjsb.nash/
Rogue Artists' Studios & Project Space CIC

05/10/2024

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

'Obsolete & Discontinued' edited by Mike Crawford.

I had this book kindly gifted to me by a work colleague, and what a joy it is! Editor Mike Crawford was given a large amount of old photographic paper, which he distributed to a variety of artists to explore what they could do with it. The results of the project are compiled in this book.

Looking through the book it becomes clear what a collection of outstanding creativity this project has produced. Some truly inspirational and fascinating work contained within the pages which will expand most people's concept of what 'photography' can be.

It's certainly inspired me to get into the darkroom and have a good 'play'.

Artists whose work is featured in the images on this post:
Melanie King, Jaden Hastings, Claus Dieter Geissler, Ky Lewis

Obsolete & Discontinued, Edited by Mike Crawford, Brovira Press, ISBN 978-1-9164507-0-7

&Discontinued

05/10/2024

LOOK BACK

Back in 2019 I visited the Okuno building in Ginza, Tokyo. The building dates back to the 1920's and now is home to a variety of independent shops, boutiques, small art galleries etc. and is well worth a visit. Of particular interest was Gallery Nayuta, which when I visited was holding an excellent exhibition titled 'Blue', with works fitting that theme.

During a conversation with the gallery owner I learned that one of the artists, Shigenobu Yoshida, was from Iwaki - the area where I stay with relatives when I visit Japan. This led me to look further at his work, which is well worth investigating and incorporates a variety of different mediums and forms.

It's hard to pick favourites from Yoshida-san's work but along with the ones from the 'Blue' and 'The Light of the Presence' exhibitions, the ones with spectral light cast onto surfaces and objects deserve a special mention. He's even been over to the UK and conducted workshops in Blackpool in my home county of Lancashire, so there's a bonus!

Links:
https://shigenobu-yoshida.com/en/
https://www.gallerynayuta.com

30/09/2024

Hard to believe it is now over 10 years since the photo collective [(6)] which I was a member exhibited at Bank Street Arts, Sheffield, UK. The accompanying book is shown in the images in this post along with some of my images featured in the book.

My own work for the exhibition focused on the seaside towns of Usuiso and Toyoma in Iwaki, Japan. The area was heavily damaged by the 2011 tsunami and the images I took were a response to that event. When visiting Japan, I stay with relatives in Iwaki, so was very familiar with the area before it was affected by the disaster. It was a truly shocking experience to witness the devastation caused.

Returning there this summer for the first time in 5 years, it was clear that the area was well on its way to getting back on it's feet, though at the same time it is apparent that re-population of the towns featured in my work still has a long way to go.

30/09/2024

Shot taken in Hamarkyu Gardens, Tokyo, on the Rolleiflex on Rollei Retro 80 film. Experimented with some toning from the scan of the image, with a view to making silk-screen prints using inks, probably onto fabric or my home-made paper. The digital prints were just initial experiments to get ideas, but I quite like them as a set here and will experiment with the layout and make a sort-of pseudo-typology from them.