Saturate

Saturate is an art and photography exhibition focusing on colour, held in the fast-growing Greater Manchester town of Tyldesley, curated by Mosley Common artist Aaron Pearce. The Hop-art Gallery space is based at the much-loved Hop & Hazlewood bar.

This event is set to coincide with the Tyldesley Arts & Heritage festival art trail around the new Common Lane street mural, examining colour in all-new ways. Saturate looks at the varied use of vivid colour by two exceptional local artists.

Carl Skull is a musician and photographer from Leigh whose current project explores the unseen. Using homemade infra-red tech, Skull reveals the world in a new light, literally. Through landscape and nature, his photographs transpose this hidden world into one more familiar.

Chantelle Sandland is straight out of Salford uni after completing a fine art degree, and a leading exponent of the colour blue and all the emotions and connotations it brings. Using scale and texture she brings her abstract pieces to life with emotional intelligence, aiming to build a personal connection with the audience.

Visitors can enjoy the artwork with a high-quality craft ale from the bar in this unique and independent gallery space project. This exhibition is part of the Tyldesley Arts & Heritage Festival, with funding from Historic England’s Heritage Action Zone.

Ahead of the exhibition, we spoke to one of the artists, Carl Skull, about the ideas behind his work:

What’s your experience in terms of photography?

I’ve been working with cameras for about 15 years, mostly based around black and white imagery. I learned what I was doing through developing colour film with coffee and examining the unique results.

What was the process behind creating these images through your homemade infra-red tech?

It’s better described as modified rather than fully homemade – some digital sensors are easy to modify by removing a filter and either replacing it with another or shooting in full spectrum. I tested both methods, with two different cameras, and I found being able to control the light with filters stuck to the front of my camera with glue dots was a much better solution for what I wanted to achieve with this project.

What are you hoping people take away from this exhibition?

This is my first exhibition, so I’m just hoping as many people as possible just enjoy both mine and Chantelle’s work, as we’ve both worked hard on this.

What are your plans for the future?

I’m not used to working with models but needed to on my final shot, and they were amazing. I’m looking to do more surreal stuff in the near future, as I’ve chatted to the girls in my shoot about some ideas I have and they’re keen to get involved.

Saturate is free entry and runs from 8th September up to early November.