Josh Sutton, who now resides in Otley, owes much to his time at Bradford College in the 1980s. Several years employment as a housing support worker for a Bradford-based charity strengthened Josh’s affinity for Bradford and built a lasting appreciation of the city.

He says, “My experience as a teenager on the Art Foundation course at Bradford and Ilkley Community College back in the early1980s continues to influence my work today. It was a time for experimentation and personal development.”

After the course, his attention began to wander from the world of fine art towards live music and other distractions, in particular New Model Army, a band he references in the poster for the exhibition. From that point, his career as an artist went on hiatus.

However, the techniques he learnt at the time have stayed with him and more recently, he has chosen to revisit and develop them. He pays tribute to course leader Grant Devine who suggested he turn to self-portraits. The portraits themselves were naïve. But the special application of paint and the use of collage, became an important part of his practice.

He says, “My current work, which often materialises in series, reflects both lived experience and passing obsessions, as well as images which evolve through experimentation and humour. In choosing to apply paint with a Stanley knife blade rather than a brush, I deliberately limit capacity for pinpoint precision which presents a struggle and challenge that I enjoy. I like to include found objects, photocopies of images and other ephemera in my work. As well as a reflection of past practice from my art school days, it often provides a stimulus for the direction, development and progression of new work. I chose Leaving Bradford as the title for this exhibition because for me it conjures the feeling of leaving home for the first time, a time where new adventures lay ahead but a nostalgia for the familiar remains.”

Visitors to the exhibition will see a range of paintings, drawings and prints across subject matters ranging from the artist’s fascination with vintage typewriters through an appreciation and understanding of the Arabic language to a series of abstracts and some time humorous political observations.

Josh Sutton is an artist and award‑winning author working from UpCo, a collective studio space in Otley, West Yorkshire.

More Info:
https://www.joshsutton.co.uk/
https://whatsupco.uk/