halftone, second half
solo exhibition, April – May 2023, ARC Stockport
‘Halftone, Second Half’ was a solo exhibition of five, large-scale print and textile works exploring the menopause. Funded by GMCA and Stockport Council, it was inspired by the simple printmaking designs used on mid-century matchbox labels. I also used images of women from vintage public health campaigns and wrote a series of ‘rants’ about my own experience of perimenopause (spoiler: it was bloody awful).
Since the exhibition in May 2023, selected works from ‘Halftone, Second Half’ have been shown at The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester, Stockport War Memorial Art Gallery and On The Rag gallery, Chorlton.
For the show, I made a series of large scale screen printed works on paper and wool. Each artwork used stylised, enlarged halftone patterns (hatching, dots and dashes) and was created using simple stencils made from recycled plastic. The prints are combined with written rants – either hand stitched or stamped.
Alongside the exhibition I ran a workshop in which we screen printed wooden jewellery with halftone dots. I also made and sold show several smaller, more commercial textile artworks using motifs from the show. In the ARC shop we sold a hand printed zine featuring the written ‘rants’ from the work and I sold out several print runs of Menopause Flash Cards (‘Signs to hold UP, when you feel DOWN’).
This was my second solo exhibition and was very kindly funded by a micro-commission from the wonderful ARC, Stockport’s leading arts and mental health charity. It was funded by Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and Stockport Council, to whom I am extremely grateful.