‘Four Contemporary Watercolour Artists’ (in collaboration with The Whitworth Art Gallery) – Norman Adams, Elizabeth Blackadder, William Crozier, Barbara Rae

The forthcoming exhibition at the Castlefield Gallery offers an opportunity to compare the old with the new.

In collaboration with ‘From View to Vision,’ an exhibition of eighteenth and nineteenth century British watercolours at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Castlefield has brought together work by four artists who drew their source material from the rural environment which they live today and express it through the watercolour medium.

From the simple charm of Elizabeth Blackadder’s ‘Flower Pieces’ to the striking, often bleak landscapes of Rae, through to the vividly colourful paintings by Crozier and Adams, their use of watercolour as a medium is varied. Yet, their outlook is the same. They all delight in capturing a spontaneous response to their natural surroundings.

The idea here is an old one yet can it stand up to the demands of art-making today? Is there an underlying fear in liking work, if only for its imagery? Modern art should surely be more ‘difficult’!!

While fads in the art world will inevitably come and go, this is one tradition, a passionate and invigorating medium, that could well out live them all.

A programme of events, including painting workshops, will complement the two exhibitions.