An Architecture of Joy, a solo exhibition by Jenny Steele

External News

28 June 2016

Private View: 2.30pm-5pm Saturday 2nd July 2016
Tuesday 5th July - Saturday 13th August 2016.
(Open Tues- Sat, closed Sundays & Mondays)
Grundy Art Gallery, Queen Street, Blackpool, FY1 1PU

During 2015, Manchester based artist Jenny Steele researched into existing examples of 1930s modernist seafront architecture in the North West of England and Scotland by site visits, researching related documents in the RIBA and V&A archives, and conversations with local inhabitants. After the trauma of WW1, there was a social focus towards health and wellbeing at the seaside, and new architecture was built during 1930s to accommodate the mass swathes of people.  Subsequent to World War II, the British seaside never again saw the time of unprecedented growth it experienced in the 1930s. However, since our most recent recession in 2008, there has been a resurgence in holidaying at the British seaside and tourism has looked to refurbishing 1930s architecture to turn around its fortune. You can read more about Steele’s research on her blog - https://lookingbackmovingforwa...

Jenny Steele has made a new body of work in response to this research which considers the legacy of this ‘Seaside Moderne’ architecture, such as the Midland Hotel in Morecambe and Pleasure Beach Casino in Blackpool, built during the 1930s British leisure boom. This work will be presented in a solo exhibition ‘An Architecture of Joy’ at the Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool (2nd July- 13th August 2016).  Steele will turn the Grundy’s Rotunda gallery into a stage-set of sorts, incorporating abstracted and repeated motifs drawn from the period, reviving the utopian optimism and restorative properties of seaside leisure.  Steele clearly references the interior objects of everyday life within her practice, with an intention to blur perceived borders between fine art, applied art, furniture and interior design.

This project was supported by Grants for the Arts, Arts Council England, University of Central Lancashire and Blackpool Council.

For more information, please contact the artist Jenny Steele via email jennysteelestudio@gmail.com Mobile: 07870701339

Website: www.jennysteele.co.uk

Project blog: https://lookingbackmovingforwa...

Twitter: @jennycsteele       Instagram: @jennycsteele