Jen Orpin – The Architecture Of Connection

Motorway bridges, slip roads, and the edges of our everyday routes rarely get a second glance. Jen Orpin wants you to look again. From 29 November to 21 December 2025, Saul Hay Gallery in Manchester hosts her second solo show at the space, The Architecture of Connection, turning overlooked infrastructure into objects of quiet fascination.

Born in Surrey in 1974 and now firmly rooted in Manchester’s art scene, Orpin studied at Manchester Metropolitan University and is a long-standing member of Rogue Artists’ Studios. Her work has been collected by Manchester Art Gallery and New Art Gallery Walsall, and she has a knack for pulling attention toward the things most of us rush past without a second thought.

In The Architecture of Connection, Orpin’s small-scale paintings and drawings invite viewers to linger. There’s a subtle poetry in her lines and colours, a way of capturing the tension between motion and stillness. Bridges, slip roads, and overpasses are depicted as quiet witnesses to our daily journeys, holding traces of memory, passage, and human stories that unfold around them.

Alongside these works, Orpin opens up the correspondence she’s received from viewers, adding a personal, almost whispered layer of dialogue. For much of the exhibition, she will also be working live in the gallery, offering a glimpse of her studio process in real time. It’s a chance to see an artist in action while surrounded by the structures that have captured her imagination.

If you’ve ever found yourself staring at a motorway bridge and wondered what stories it might hold, this exhibition is for you. It’s thoughtful without being heavy, intimate without being formal, and entirely compelling. Entry is free, and the gallery is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00–17:30.