Museum Collection Inspires Artist Hannah Leighton-Boyce's Latest Work

Hannah Leighton-Boyce's latest solo exhibition Dreaming of Dead Fish was created after the Manchester-based artist carried out research in Warrington Museum and Art Gallery's archives; it consists of a series of newly-commissioned works using un-accessioned items in the museum collection, through glass, soot, slide film and projection.

She said: "It has been a fantastic experience spending time within Warrington Museum, exploring the archives and working with the collections team, it's a wonderful place".

"The experience has informed my studio practice and decisions in the development and installation of this new work."

This new body of work, commissioned by Warrington Contemporary Arts Festival with funding from Arts Council England, has been inspired by items in the museum's ephemera collection.

She added: "Encounters and conversations with Warrington Museum's collection led me to explore themes of visibility and reflection, translated through the relationship between the works and their considered display within the gallery environment. The materials and processes I chose to use act like a series of extended moments and pauses."

Hannah's works range from site-specific and ephemeral actions, to drawing, sound and installation, and her working methods combine material and process-led exploration with present day and archival research.

She explores place, object and body relations through themes of surface and erasure, embodiment and connectivity.

Visibility, separation and embodiment have fed into Hannah's research and studio practice.

Accompanying the exhibition is a newly commissioned essay by Dr Craig Staff.

- Hannah Leighton-Boyce lives and works in Manchester.

- She studied at Winchester School of Art (2005) and completed the MA at Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University, in 2012.

- Recent works include: a series of sculptures exploring salt as a metaphor for the body, developed through a residency at the Glasgow Women's Library and exhibited at Castlefield Gallery (2018); a collaborative live sculpture made with residents of Helmshore, Lancashire (2014) set within the context of the area's industrial heritage; and a sound installation at Touchstones Rochdale (2016) funded by a New Opportunities Award (New Expressions3), which explored ideas of disembodiment and labour through the resonant properties and work history of objects within the museum's collection.

- Recent group exhibitions include Ruth Barker & Hannah Leighton-Boyce, Castlefield Gallery (2018); Excuse Me While I am Changing, Rogue Projects Space, Manchester (2016); New Work, The Manchester Contemporary (2016); Women Artists from 1861 - 2015, Touchstones Rochdale; For Posterity, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester (2015); and People and Process: A History of Salts Mill, Salts Mill, Saltaire.

- She has works in private and public collections including Salford University Arts Collection, Touchstones Rochdale, and Salts Mill and Ackworth Quaker School, both in West Yorkshire.

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