Category: News

Continuing The Horsfall’s exhibition partnership with Pool Arts, we present the work of Manchester based artist, Akinyemi Oludele in his first solo exhibition.

Perhaps Manchester’s best known artist whose name you haven’t yet heard, this is a rare chance to experience his extraordinary abstract and documentary work from the last 10 years.

Oludele is a familiar figure on Manchester’s arts and music scene and if there is a gallery event, jazz concert or a poetry reading, Oludele can often be seen mingling in the crowd with sketchbooks in hand, capturing the event in his own inimitable style. He is also a prolific sharer or work on social media based; delivering political satire just as succinctly as capturing the atmosphere of a jazz concert.

Encompassing his vibrant and expressive abstract painting, drawings and digital work, the exhibition is a window into the movement and rhythm of Manchester. Oludele’s work expresses a world where art and human interaction are intertwined and where music is vital to life.  

Curated by Pool Arts Artists Alison Kershaw and Lisa Risbec, the exhibition is presented over three floors with rhythm as the central theme; whether the captured movement of a live sketch or the marks made in an abstract piece. Visitors will be led through abstract paintings, live dance and music drawings and digital art posters by a soundtrack of the very music that inspired Oludele’s work.

“Drawing is about developing a relationship between myself and other people – connecting through the medium of art. I realised there was so much division, racial and in other ways around the city and drawing helped to break down some of the barriers, helped me to relate more and to feel safer. Later, drawing at live music performances, I began to use the rhythm of music to guide the mark making process, for me, art is about feelings, expression and connection” Akinyemi Oludele

Oludele’s work will be for sale at the exhibition. See www.onashileart.gallery