Bankley Studios & Artists Gallery

Bankley Open 2024 presents works from 21 artists selected from our Annual Open Call + on the opening weekend, all three floors of our artist studios will be open to the public, a chance for you to see what goes on behind closed doors and enter the weird and wonderful worlds of our artists.

Opening Night + Award Ceremony
6-9pm Friday 4th October
Open Studios Friday 4th 6-9PM + Saturday 5th October 12-4PM

Exhibition Continues
12-4pm Saturdays + Sundays until 20th October

This year's judges: Amina Aaliya Beg, Jack Doyle, Rebecca Halliwell Sutton

Bankley Open 2024 Artists:

Kamil Duda
Andrew Jenner
Joseph Goddard
Lewis Robinson
Megan Luddy O'Leary
Anna Brass
Ellie Towers
Izzy Osborn
Alida Kuzemczak-Sayer
Jona Mae Ballena
Dorry Spikes
Caroline Lambard
Tom Motley
Cara Macwilliam
Keziah Thomas-Mellor
Libby Gallagher
Kelan Andrews
Kayla Yazdi
Safi El Dardiry
Sunshine Child
Marc Allgaier
Carpet Tooth


Image Credit:
“In the Ground, in the Rot”
Sunshine Child, 2024

Blackwater Polytechnic bringing the best of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk to Bankley Gallery
• Opening Friday 6th September 6-9pm. All welcome.

Exhibition runs until 21st September, open Saturdays & Sundays from 12-6pm.

@blackwaterpolytechnic is an imaginary educational institution in Essex, based in a tangible sixteenth-century barn. The campus’s old-world charm belies its cutting-edge focus on ‘the technology of enchantment’. The local artists who comprise the faculty and present their applied research are highly qualified in hands-on innovation, meeting real-world challenges. These artists are set to unveil a diverse collection of art and artefacts. Each piece holds the potential for immeasurable value and could be the key to unlocking the Secrets of the Universe.

As with an ancient hoard of artefacts, it can be hard to disentangle straightforward literal meaning in our presentation. There is no right answer. Better to let the mind and eye soften into poetic associative freedom. There is no need to be distrustful of enjoying sensations and emotions filtered only by our senses. As we are adrenaline junkies for new ways of thinking visually, so we like these chancy visual conversations.

Bankley's annual Open Call show is back! We invite artists to apply to exhibit in our headline exhibition, Bankley Open 2024.

Artists at any point in their career and working in any discipline can apply.

Approximately 15 artists will be chosen by our panel of judges to take part in the group show in October.

First prize: £300 cash prize, a solo exhibition at Bankley with a £200 production fee.

Second prize: £200 cash prize.

Deadline: 16/08/2024

To view the Entry Guidelines and
Submit your entries here:
https://www.curatorspace.com/opportunities/detail/bankley-open-call/8478

Our Open Call 2023 winner Haydn Albrow exhibits their solo show ‘Monster Truck Museum’
Join us Friday 21st June 6-9PM for opening night!
Show continues weekends Sat + Sun 12-4PM until 21st July.

Haydn Albrow (b.1993, London) is a London based artist whose practice explores tangible and textural works spanning across multiple platforms including sculpture, installations, poetry and sound. Her work is inspired by dreams, language and the ways in which we interpret the two. Using reoccurring motifs throughout her work such as teeth and the body, Albrow’s practice straddles the grotesque and humorous.

Albrow’s work addresses themes of the conscious and unconscious mind; thinking of our brain as a machine that manipulates and interprets memories, language and dreams into sensical thoughts. In particular their work explores the ways we attempt to share our dreamed experiences and the difficulties we face in conveying their ephemeral sensations and sentiments. There are gaps in our language that cause us to struggle to articulate these unique and deeply personal experiences and the artist tries to use physical materials to create a new form of dialogue for when words fail us. @haydndoesart

DE-VICES Opening Night 7-9pm Friday 19th April 2024 Exhibition Continues 12-4pm Saturday 20th April

Bankley Gallery presents DE-VICES, a launch exhibition for the inaugural issue of CWYR zine @cwyrzine. The exhibition showcases a selection of pieces from the nine contributing artists, exploring the relationships between art, digital technology, and queerness. Anna Billany, Bobbie Wilson, Charlie McGee, Ella Warren, Fiona Glen, Gwenda Evans, Hannah Cash, Owain McGilvary, and Talulah Thomas.
All Free, No Booking Required

Terrain Unravelled Tales: A collective exhibition from four artists at Manchester School Of Art @mcrschart
Opening Night: Wednesday 27th March 6-9PM
Exhibition Continues: Friday 29th- Sunday 31st 11-4PM Terrain
Unravelled Tales seeks to explore the complex tapestry of stories embedded within the Northern rural landscape. Artists Ellie Anderson, Liz Llewelyn, Cain Casson and Rio Darwin have worked individually and collaboratively to embody the concepts of physical refuge, ancestral connection and isolated experience. The featured works reflect a synthesis of traditional folk processes, providing a dynamic landscape that encourages viewers to consider our lasting relationship with ancient, sacred sites. As a collective, the artists experiment with found and gathered materials, working both in the field and the studio to bring the environments that inspired the work into a conflicting gallery setting. Terrain Unravelled Tales nurtures a collection of personal perspectives kindled by a shared landscape.

Opening Night 7-9pm Thursday 16th November 2023

Exhibition Continues 12-4pm Saturdays + Sundays until 3rd December

Bankley Exchanges is a series of exhibitions bringing together artists from studio groups in neighbouring cities, and exploring their work in relation to one another. The third edition features Jeffrey Knopf (Paradise Works, Manchester), Anisa Nuh Ali (S1, Sheffield) and Freddy Francké (The Royal Standard, Liverpool) After conducting group visits to each of the artists' studios, we began to develop an idea for an exhibition that recognised the various crossovers in their works, and also the things they explore uniquely. Our conversations and research has been presented as a Venn Diagram, which can be used as a tool with which to encounter the works.

Bankley Exchanges #2:
Gwen Evans, Jill McKnight, Laura Spark

Opening Night
7-9pm Friday 20th October 2023

Exhibition Continues
12-4pm Saturdays + Sundays until 5th November

Bankley Exchanges is a series of exhibitions bringing together artists from studio groups in neighbouring cities, and exploring their work in relation to one another. For the second edition, we present three artists who all explore untold, overlooked, and ambiguous stories from influences including folklore, gender, working-class communities, and contemporary anxieties.

All Free, No Booking Required


Access Information

Bankley Gallery is situated on the first floor of an old mill building, which unfortunately is
currently only accessible by stairs. The building is located just off the main road, with regular bus services from Manchester and Stockport, and is around 450m from Levenshulme train station. The station has no lift and both platforms are only accessible by stairs.

About

Bankley Studios + Gallery is a cooperatively run artists’ studio group, home to over 30 artists
across three floors, with an art gallery on the first floor. The gallery is regularly open to the public and welcomes you to a wide range of free exhibitions and events. Public opening times vary so check our social media platforms and website, or contact gallery@bankley.org.uk. For more information on studios please contact studios@bankley.org.uk

Bankley Open 2023 + Open Studios

Bankley’s annual Open Call exhibition returns this September with 17 exciting artists from all over the country. The selection, made by Jessica Bennett (Director at Paradise Works), Xhi Ndubisi (Artist and Curator) and Chris Alton (artist and Secretary at Bankley Studios + Gallery) presents a snapshot of some of the most exciting artists working today.

+ On the opening weekend all three floors of Bankley Studios will also be open to the public.

Opening Night + Award Ceremony + Bankley Open Studios: 6-9pm Friday 8th September
Exhibition Continues: 12-4pm Saturdays + Sundays until 24th September
Bankley Open Studios: 6-9pm Friday 8th September + 12-4pm Saturday 9th September

Marie-Thérèse Ross, Luke Vinnicombe, Alice Kin, Rowland Hill and Darren Nixon, Yejin Oh, Hunky Dory, Octavia Inns, Wenhai Ning, Anya Wang, Kofi Perry, Grace Clifford, Fierce Fine Art, Errol Theunissen, David Orme, Lucy Roberts, Haydn Albrow, Will Farmer

All Free, No Booking Required

Access Information
Bankley Gallery is situated on the first floor of an old mill building, which unfortunately is
currently only accessible by stairs. The building is located just off the main road, with regular bus services from Manchester and Stockport, and is around 450m from Levenshulme train station. The station has no lift and both platforms are only accessible by stairs.

About
Bankley Studios + Gallery is a cooperatively run artists’ studio group, home to over 30 artists
across three floors, with an art gallery on the first floor. The gallery is regularly open to the public and welcomes you to a wide range of free exhibitions and events. Public opening times vary so check our social media platforms and website, or contact gallery@bankley.org.uk. For more information on studios please contact studios@bankley.org.uk

A solo show from Bankley Open Call 2022 winner Laura Bygrave

Opening Night
7-9pm Friday 4th August 2023

Exhibition Continues
12-4pm Saturdays + Sundays until 20th August

Bankley Gallery is very excited to present Bullhuman, a debut solo exhibition from Laura Bygrave. After being selected as the Winner of Bankley Open 2022 by judges Ruth Murray and Matt Rettalick, Laura has been working on a series of new works, which will be shown alongside paintings made in the last three years.
‘Lying in bed reading a story about a great big bullfrog, my son asks why ‘a frog could be a bull-frog when it’s not a cow-creature?’. I explain how the word bull can be used to describe a hot headed, puffed-up, huge version of a species - bullfrogs, bulldogs… It can also describe a clumsy person, someone who might thrash around in a china shop.
As I’m saying this it strikes me that this idea of ‘bull’ could describe my primary feeling when I’m in the studio - a bull-headed, thrashy feeling. A feeling of being too quick to catch up with a rational voice in my head. At this point the studio is a place to be without elegance, my physical hand and envisioning head are not in step with each other. A bullhuman is present, as material disruptions, as heavy-handed simplification, mess, and speed’.
All Free, No Booking Required