A Different Viewpoint - Bradford Print Collection 2025
Firstly here’s a little introduction to the project, for those who aren’t aware, this year is Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture and as part of that South Square (a great little gallery in Thornton) launched OUR TURN arts festival. The festival will run alongside the amazing looking Turner Prize, now on at Cartwright Hall, to celebrate Bradford’s cultural scene and give opportunities to local creatives through a series of grants, commissions and open exhibitions and events.
OUR TURN commissioned six artists to create prints, Bradford Print Collection, that honours our city’s print heritage, with work that represents the vibrant printmaking sector in Bradford. The collection features work from six local printmakers, Harriet Cash, Laura Slater, Laura Alice, Ken Woods, Fizah Afzal and myself. Each print has it’s own unique style, inspirations and themes, responding to OUR TURN’s ambition to be bold, daring and authentically Bradford.
You can see the the whole collection and learn about everyone’s inspiration here. It’s a wonderful mix of work that goes across the mediums of screen print, letterpress, linocut and pochoir. Each artwork is hand printed and limited to an edition of 50 prints.
Artwork by David Hockney, image from Goldmarket
This project also slotted into my two personal hopes for the City of Culture, one was for the British International Print Biennale, held in the city from 1968 to 1990, to be relaunched, and this very much felt like a nod to that. The other was for the return of the Bradford Festival, circa 1990s. It was a series of brilliant community events that culminated in the Bradford Mela, where the whole city gathered in the best possible way. Even though neither of these have fully happened I think there have been events inspired by both.
Image and artwork by Chihuahua
For my print I proposed the concept of an inconspicuous view. With Bradford being the highest city in the UK, sitting at an average of 1,065 feet above sea level (according to ITV), there are many outlooks that are just part of our daily life. Rarely do you see people stopping to appreciate them and that’s why I really wanted to draw attention to and celebrate them. To me these views say a lot about our city, geographically, socially and tell the story of our industrial heritage.
Over the years I have done lots of Bradford prints, featuring places such as Saltaire, Shipley Clock Tower, Shipley Glen, the Cow and Calf, Haworth and Top Withens, but never of somewhere more central. This felt like the perfect opportunity to celebrate my city, as someone who has grown up here.
To begin the project I spent some time exploring different views across Bradford, with helpful suggestions from my social media followers. Some of these were familiar, some were entirely new…actually a lot of new places for me. For those who are interested, here’s where I went to :
Peel Park (the view point above the BMX track) new although I’ve been to the park for the Mela
Undercliffe Cemetery, which is always amazing, a grade II listed cemetery, was lacking in views but might be better in winter
Bolton Road, new to walk on, the path away from the road that overlooks Canal Road
Carr Lane, one of my favourite local views
Strawberry Fields (the car park on the moor road above Baildon), new passed many times but never stopped
The Brow and the footpath above this (Baildon), these footpaths were new but my friend lived here so I’ve grown up going to this area
Shipley Glen, better in winter
Baildon Bank, new… how have I’ve never been here before?
Bolton Woods, new but a hill I always look at…had to avoid the horses
Bowling Cemetery, new
Bowling Park, new
Beck Road, new
Gaisby Lane, new even though it’s just opposite the Carr Lane views but not been to this spot
Clayton, Thornton, Queensbury and Mountain were also on my list, but I realised I preferred the nearer viewpoints. I really want to feature a cross section of the city showing past, present, being a post-industrial city, how green a place it is, but also a feeling of height and distance.
I decided on the view from Wrose Brow off Carr Lane (A.K.A Top of the World), which was one my favourites when proposing this concept. This view really highlights Lister Mills (or Manningham Mills), which is such a dominating presence in many a city view, with its distinctive local yellow sandstone and now topped with zinc covered pods, I felt it should really be the main focus of the piece.
Lister Mills is not only bold in it’s architecture, at one time being the largest silk factory in the world, and the most imposing mill in the city but also has an interesting social history. In 1890 the mill suffered from reduced profits after the US imposed new tariffs, Samuel Lister insisted workers take a 25-30% pay reduction. This started a long campaign for better worker’s right and a strike began, the local authorities tried to stop hundreds of workers attending the mass meetings, eventually the infantry were even sent in and this resulted in a riot where several people were seriously injured. The workers were forced back to work after the strike fund ran out, but any were still angry and this resulted in the establishing of the Independent Labour Party, which later help found the Labour Party.
Going back to Bradford Festival, in the centre of the image is Lister Park, you can see the white bowling pavilion, the park for many years was home to the vibrant Bradford Mela, which was also the first Mela to be held in Europe. Although held elsewhere in its first year was this was its home for many years before it was moved to Peel Park.
With this piece I also wanted to bold and daring with the outcome, which felt a bit crazy at the time to experimenting needing to finalise the print in a week, not always the best time to experiment…but I was determined to at least give it a go.
Placefirst commission for Boltworks in Halifax
Sometimes the work I have been doing prior impacts the next artwork I create, that can be both similarities or to go another direction completely. This time it was a bit of a mix.
The last prints I had worked on was another commission for Placefirst for their new building, Boltworks in Halifax (pictures above and below). This also had a view based print which and I was quite true to what was there and my usual style and I was really pleased with the outcome as I thought it suited the modern vibe of the interior. Having done that project which was quite structured and perspective heavy also meant was ready to try something less so.
Placefirst commission for Boltworks in Halifax
I initially sketched out my composition on the hillside at Wrose, then I sketched this out further back at the studio. The composition was more of an artist impression than I would normally do, I also slightly stretched the view to allow more of the Lister Park Keighley Road Memorial Gatehouse to be seen (the Norman Arch, that looks like a castle). All the layers for this print were created by hand straight onto Tru-grain-grain with paint and Posca pens, and this allowed the layers could be to be more expressive and textured.
After my previous Halifax prints, where I also layered the colours to create the green, I decided to try out printing with process colours for the first time, these have more transparency than the usual Daler-Rowney acrylics I use and are quite vibrant.
GF Smith Papers were also generous enough to be involved in the project, they supplied us with some Cambric paper which has a slight texture, almost like a woven fabric, perfect for a textile giant that Bradford was. It’s the first time I’ve printed on textured paper and I’m really pleased with the effect.
My first two test prints didn’t have the impact I wanted, and the depth of the view wasn’t there. So I’d really put myself up against it time wise and had to rework the layers for the third time, including a lot more drawing on the black layer, then had cross my fingers. Luckily the final print came out and I was really happy with it, I would just have preferred that I wasn’t printing the first prints on the day of the deadline. I must like being down to the wire but part of me also thinks the journey to get to the final version, with the intensity of meeting this deadline, gave this print freedom and energy.
Bradford Print Collection 2025 is now on display at various venues across the district including The Ginnel and Keighley Creative.
You can also own a special piece of Bradford’s visual arts history by purchasing limited editions of the prints online and in the Cartwright Hall Art Gallery shop and online. Postcards of the prints will also be available soon.
