The Long Journey Home 2

Art SpeQ Gallery at Quiggins Centre, School Lane
10 – 31 August

Reviewed by Kenn Taylor

The Long Journey Home 2 is the second showing by the new Liverpool based exhibition group, The Long Journey Home, which is a follow up to their previous show in July, with the number of exhibitors increased from 19 to 28.

The group brings together artists from Chicago and Italy to exhibit in Liverpool, as well as local artists, and the work is as varied as the artists locations.

The variety of media used range from a video installation to paper-mache sculpture, although the majority is canvas based, and there is also a great mixture of styles from the documentary-style photography of Shumon A. Farhad to the surrealist paintings of Luke Barker.

Despite the exhibition’s title, only a few works point towards journeys, including Amy Morris’s photography book, which follows a line of red tape through a hospital, which I found interesting.

Another exhibit that was impressive was Maxine Powell’s work in stained glass, with a table style sculpture surrounded by glass beads and a window panel.

Other noticeable pieces for me were Louise Taylor’s black and white images of organic interconnected shapes,which was eye-catching, and Martyn Pope’s computer- generated shadowy images with quotes.

On the photography side, Natalie Torpey’s images of someone with their face and hands covered, reminded me of Derek Jarman, and Johana Hartwig’s Stark photographs, including industrial scenes, were also notable.

Few of the exhibits were titled, but I found this quite refreshing, as I believe it lets the work speak for itself and makes the viewer make up their own mind about what a piece means to them

The variety in this exhibition made it quite hard to review but that could be a plus point because most visitors are likely to find at least a few pieces they like, and it’s good to see such a mixture of artists on show together. All in all the work is of a good standard, and hopefully the group will continue to flourish, with another show being possibly planned before the end of the year.

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