Bradford Open

bradford open

Guest blog post by @JacquiPybus

Firstly, in the interests of full disclosure, I’m not originally from Bradford. I’m a Lancastrian – but I’ve now lived here for over 20 years and am often dismayed by the tendency of many Bradfordians to bemoan the lack of “anything good” in the City.

If you’re looking for something good, you could do a lot worse than start at Cartwright Hall, in Lister Park. Particularly at the moment, as it hosts the 2011 Bradford Open exhibition. Now, I love a good “Open”. You get to see such a wide range of work, many different styles, materials, subject matters – and there’s also the almost tangible excitement that for some of the artists this is their first time in a public exhibition and the first time their work has a little price label or maybe even a red dot next to it.

This Bradford Open is no exception to this – the pieces on show run from water-colours & oils, through photography, ceramics, textiles, linoprint, mixed-media, stained glass, copper piping, poppy seeds . . . Subject matter and style cover a similarly wide spread. As is often the case in a local Open, many artists have drawn inspiration from the city & surrounding area. Having been to the Ferrans (Hull) Open recently, I’ll be happy if I never see another image of the Humber Bridge – but the locally themed works here were much more varied.

As you enter Cartwright Hall (the building itself is worth a view), the Open Exhibition is split into the two large rooms at the extreme left and right of the Ground floor (with one or twopieces you might miss just outside each). Part of an Open is the competition element – the prize winners were in the room to the left, though overall I seemed to prefer the room on the right (which probably means I know nowt!). I’m not saying that it’s ALL of uniformly high standard, but there are some excellent and interesting pieces, & the judges have shared the rationale behind their chosen 1, 2 & 3, which was good to see. I’m not usually as concerned with the prize winners, though it’s interesting to see whether you’d have picked the same ones . . . in this case, I’m with the judges on some of their choices, not all – I loved the first prize winner, a tiny (4” high) ceramic bust “African Head” and just gorgeous.

All in all, the show gives just a small sample of the wide range of artistic effort and talent in the local area – so get along and give them some support. The Open is on till 5th June, and if you wait till 9th April you can also get to see the Young Open . . .

Oh – and there are interesting exhibitions upstairs too . . and the park itself is pretty good (great playground) . . if you’ve ever been guilty of moaning “there’s nowt good” – please don’t . . ?!