Colouring Outside The Lines: The Exhibition

Gallery II at the University of Bradford hosts a new collaborative exhibition of female artists working beyond the bounds of the cultural mainstream, which opens tonight.

Is sewing art? Do you see the ‘best’ art in galleries? Whose interpretation is more valid: the artist or the critic? Is having an exhibition of all female artists exclusionary or important? What’s stopping you from being an artist?

This exhibition is the first collaborative curatorial venture of two young women, Rachel Kaye (Gallery II, University of Bradford) and Melanie Maddison (Colouring Outside The Lines zine), and seeks to open the discussion of who has access to art – in terms of both curators and artists.

Colouring Outside the Lines: The Exhibition will feature artwork and installations by Abigail Brown, Heidi Burton, Morwenna Catt, Naseem Darbey, Carolyn Mendelsohn and Helen Musselwhite.

Colouring Outside The Lines started life in 2003 as a self-produced zine. The publication interviewed female artists and included reproductions of their art giving the women featured a voice over their own productivity beyond traditional art criticism and the meta-narratives of the art world. The zine focused on artists working in less-conventional forms. Based on the philosophy of the Colouring Outside the Lines zine the curators worked together to select work which departed from the 'traditional canvas' and conventional mediums of creation and production - quite literally, work which coloured outside the lines. Visitors are invited to actively participate in contemporary debates on galleries and power, the differences between DIY and applied art, feminist art discourses and the possibilities of subverting institutional spaces.

Opening times.
Mon – Fri, 10am-5pm,
Thursdays ‘til 6pm.
Free entry

Special opening, Sat 4 July 11 – 4pm.
To coincide with the University of Bradford open day. At midday there will be a picnic and story-telling session with the opportunity to discuss the exhibition with the artists and curators
involved in the project in a relaxed setting. Meet up at 12 noon in the gallery.

Let us know if you make it along to the exhibition - we'd love to have your reviews in the comments.