COMME CA ART X AWOL OPEN CALL EXHIBITION

Comme Ca Art X AWOL Studios Open Call Exhibition

Comme Ca Art Gallery, 5th Floor | Hope Mill | 113 Pollard Street | Manchester | M4 7JA

Exhibition Dates: 30.05.25 - 28.06.25

Now in it's fourth year, the Comme Ca Art X AWOL Studios Open Call Exhibition is well on its way to becoming a highlight of the Manchester visual art scene.

This year, 18 artists were selected from the long list by three incredible judges who in their own right are revered within the Manchester art scene and beyond.

THE JUDGES

Jessica Bennett - Director at Paradise Works and Independent Curator

Fiona Corrin - Content Lead and former Senior Curator at the Manchester Art Gallery

Mike Chavez-Dawson - Artist Curator, Lecturer and Mischief Maker in the age of AI

The exhibition includes ceramics, paintings, photography, printmaking and video art.

THE ARTISTS

Julie Cassels, Smart Barnett, Gordon Dalton, Craig Delaney (we_are_farmed), Emma Donald, Susan Gunn, Peter Hanmer, Rowland Hill, Peter James Houghton, Florian Houlker, Charlotte May, Mahrokh Mofid Nakhaei, Finn O'Rourke, Amy Russell, Angela Tait, Ruby Tingle, Fleur Yearsley and Fiona Young.

Every year the judges select a winning artist, who is awarded a £2,000 prize and a highly commended artist, who is awarded a £500 prize. This year the judges selected:

WINNING ARTIST - ROWLAND HILL

HOLY PROTOTYPE

Two-channel Video (Approx 15 minutes)

13cm (w) x 14cm (h) x 5cm (d)

NFS

by Rowland Hill

"Growing up in the 1990s I developed a kind of romantic devotion to Eurotrance music, which I first encountered at the local fairground in my hometown of Loughborough (which has operated in the same market square since 1221). On its pilgrimage around Europe, the fair anachronistically tours paintings -- illuminated signs depicting famous female faces spray painted onto steel tableaux, which mysteriously fold out of lorries in the night. Each year I look up at them in the way you might a familiar wayside shrine or a Byzantine icon, a form of image making believed to conjure a direct channel of communication with the divine. Holy Prototype invokes these fantasy worlds in the form of a devotional object: a two-screen video diptych. Using video collaging techniques, the work presents female singers uprooted from Eurotrance music videos and isolated from their backing tracks, relocated within the form of the illuminated fairground sign. Played independently of one another, the two screens present a perpetually evolving chorus of singing voices, giving presence to the often anonymous women featured as voice samples in trance music."

Rowland Hill

Rowland Hill is a Manchester-based artist working across the visual and performing arts.

Her practice explores the role of desire in an increasingly mediated reality. Her works address a broad spectrum of reference, drawing on popular entertainment and the everyday in an attempt to re-work established systems of language, representation and power.

Rowland initially studied Drama and English and worked for ten years as an artist film curator before graduating in 2018 with a Masters from the Slade School of Fine Art, where she received the Clare Winsten Memorial Award.

In 2024 she presented her debut institutional solo exhibition “Logical Song” at Castlefield Gallery (Manchester), which she transformed into an ambiguous attraction.

In recent years her work has been supported and commissioned by Jerwood Foundation, Raven Row (London), Turner Contemporary (Margate) and Pase Platform (Venice), amongst others. In 2024 she was shortlisted for the prestigious Jerwood & MAYK Bursary for artists working in radical live performance.

Rowland has also directed and performed live work by world-leading artists including Samuel Beckett, Yvonne Rainer, Deborah Pearson, Vito Acconci, La Monte Young, John Cage and Rosa Johan Uddoh, for events at the Queen Elizabeth Hall (Southbank Centre), Tate Britain, London Contemporary Music Festival, Splendor (Amsterdam) and the Lowry (Salford), amongst others.

HIGHLY COMMENDED ARTIST - SMART BARNETT

PUPPET / SELF PORTRAIT

Cotton, Dried Lavender, Dye, Ink, Swarovski Crystal, Digital Artwork & Marionette Controller

87cm x 22cm x 17cm

NFS

by Smart Barnett

"This piece thinks about a past, long-term relationship I was in with a guy. After 17 years with a coercive and controlling partner, I was left lost and with no sense of self. This piece is completely stuffed with dried lavender. Lavender has long been a symbol of queer empowerment and identity.

My work sits at the intersection of textiles and digital art. Traditional textile and embroidery techniques are at the core of my practice, more recently I have been concentrating on developing my drawing skills. The main inspiration for me is drawn from web/screen-based intimacy and online exhibitionism. Having witnessed the explosion of the internet over the last decades, this is a subject that fascinates me. I’m interested in exploring how these cultures have expanded the range and familiarity of erotic imagery. I am also starting to question where this online world will take us, how will it affect us personally and societally. As my creative practice develops my work is becoming more personal and subjective, leading me to explore my own obsessions, struggles as a queer guy and my own exhibitionist tendencies." Smart Barnett

The majority of the artworks in exhibition are for sale so if you are looking to start your own art collection or add to your existing collection gallery director, Claire Turner will be happy to show you around the gallery and discuss the artists in the exhibition.

The exhibition is open for visitors on Saturdays throughout June from 11:00 - 14:00.

All other times are by appointment. Please see Gallery contact details below.

PLEASE CONTACT COMME CA ART DEALERS FOR ANY ENQUIRIES.

CLAIRE TURNER | claire@commecaart.com | T: +44 (0) 161 273 5495