Ex-Hopwood student exhibits in Touchstones Gallery

Ex-Hopwood art student Martin Jenkins

1 More Image(s) In Gallery

Martin Jenkins, who completed a one year course at Hopwood Hall College aimed at mature students, has his own exhibition called ‘Landscape & Light’ at Touchstones Gallery.

The exhibition has several large pieces of sculpture constructed (or you could almost say engineered) from corrugated cardboard.

Martin invites observers to look at his work and to touch it too. The first piece the observer encounters when entering the gallery is a large screen constructed from slices of board that allows the observer a changing view as they walk across the piece.
Martin invited his former Hopwood Hall College art tutor Ian MacKay to the opening and by coincidence, Mr MacKay’s Fine Art students had just started a six week project on the theme ‘Landscape’, so the invitation came at just the right time.

The ‘favourite’ piece with the students was a large round tubular construction; the viewer entered the sculpture through a ‘door’ and closed it behind them. The viewer was then in an environment in which, if they moved backwards and forwards, they could see out into the surrounding gallery, but - to the delight of the students - could not be seen by the other people in the gallery!

Mr MacKay said: “The exhibition gave the students lots of food for thought. It provoked much discussion within the group and, better still, it was produced by an ex-student of Hopwood Hall College.”

After completing his course at Hopwood, Martin went on to gain a BA and MA from Bradford University and has had a lot of success; he’s had exhibitions at Townley Hall (Burnley) and Ashton-Under-Lyne Galleries and has also had many exhibitions with the Lister Group.

Martin has kindly agreed to visit the College and talk to the students about his own work and view their own landscape-themed works.