May Exhibition - Mill Town Artists: New Work
Tuesday 28 March - Monday 8th May 2023
Mill Town Artists host their first exhibition of illustration, paintings, and photography ahead of their Artists’ Summer Show in the Waterfront Hall on Saturday 29th, and Sunday 30th July 2023.
Mill Town Artists is a collaboration between three local artists: illustrator Francis Charlton, painter Phil Taylor, and photographer Robin Mauric Barr. Their exhibition “New Work” takes inspiration from the characters and culture of the local environment.
Francis is an artist and writer living in Mytholmroyd, and is continuously creating new artworks.
He is the author of the bestselling London Boulevardier series of novels available from Amazon.com. His character ‘The London Boulevardier’ stars in 9 novels, with the most recent titled ‘Words of Wisdom’ limited edition, which was published in Spring 2023. They have been described as deeply satirical and laugh-out-loud funny. Predating these books and recently republished is ‘Roger X, Life, and Crimes’. Described in one review as a “Surreal masterpiece,” this will be available along with ‘My Life in Art’ a collection of poems, prose, and short stories. These special edition hardbacks come signed with a mini print.
Francis provides workshops on creative techniques and organises Random Acts of Culture, from Pop-up exhibitions to creative writing and poetry groups to Drive-By Graffiti initiatives. He curates exhibitions via his (not-for-profit) studio Xpresso Arts and is one of the co-founders of ‘Mill Town Artists’, a diverse group of creatives working in and out of the valley.
I am a self-taught photographer based in Cragg Vale, West Yorkshire. I like taking creative photographs of architecture and other aspects of the urban environment in order to highlight abstract elements.
I have taken part in several exhibitions since April 2019, in London, Halifax, and Hebden Bridge.
A set of my photographs at this exhibition were taken in October 2022 at Withens Clough Reservoir, West Yorkshire. The area is moorland and is open to the elements. The scenery is dramatic at all times of the year. The reservoir was constructed in the 1890s and the derelict stone building in some of my photographs here once housed an instrument for recording water leaving the nearby valve house that has since been replaced. It was probably last in use during the 1960s.
These photos were exhibited at The Original Gallery, Hornsey Library in Crouch End, London as part of ‘The Grid’ exhibition in February 2023. 13 photographers took part and were given a grid reference close to where they lived in which to take photographs. We were encouraged to take photos in our own style, so you will see some double-exposure photography, abstract shapes, and intentionally blurry lines.
Two further images, in the cafe area, are blurred photographs of people behind opaque glass.
Phil Taylor
Phil Taylor is a self-taught artist. He recently retired to concentrate on his lifelong passion for painting and creating. Phil now lives and paints on a houseboat on the Rochdale Canal in Hebden Bridge. He spends his time working from his ‘Wheelhouse Studio’ and walking in the surrounding countryside. The moorland and the sea remain Phil’s main sources of inspiration, and he specialises in atmospheric landscapes and seascapes. He uses a range of acrylics and mixed mediums to create an emotional response to the landscape, evocative of the senses and memories of places visited. Phil’s usual mediums are gouache, pencils, and acrylics, but he likes to diversify and use a wide range of mediums including his own handmade paper and texture boards, and more recently, photography.