With Reyt Good Illustration on our cover just weeks after the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) announced funding worth £1m for the arts, culture, and heritage sector in South Yorkshire, unLTD’s Beth Burley, Joe Food and Jill Theobald caught up with a host of award-winning and emerging artistic talent who are putting the region on the UK’s cultural and creative map.
Major funding for Arts, Culture & Heritage Sector in South Yorkshire announced.
The arts, culture and heritage sector in South Yorkshire is set to receive a boost with the announcement from the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) of funding worth £1m.
The Fund is part of South Yorkshire’s ARG (Additional Restrictions Grant), which has so far provided South Yorkshire businesses with over £45m of support during the pandemic.
This is the first time that the Mayoral Combined Authority has made specific funding available to the arts, culture and heritage sector in recognition of the value it has to the local economy, by creating jobs, enriching the lives of local people and reinforcing South Yorkshire’s reputation as a tourism destination.
Mayor of South Yorkshire, Dan Jarvis, said: “There is no doubt that South Yorkshire is home to a wealth of creative talent. The arts, culture and heritage sectors have been hit hard by the impact of the pandemic and investing in these areas is an essential part of their recovery and renewal. The fund will go a long way towards creating more sustainable communities, vibrant places and enhancing our strong local identities, as well as contributing to our economic recovery.”
The £1m Funding will be managed by South Yorkshire’s local authorities, who will distribute the fund through the commissioning of cultural events, activities or projects, with some businesses potentially eligible for micro grants.
Dan Jarvis adds: “If supported and nurtured, the Creative Industries can help drive growth and realise untapped potential. Because, in its truest sense, levelling up is about more than just the economy, it’s about improving how people feel about where they live. Culture adds colour to people’s lives and makes a place somewhere people want to live, study, work, visit and invest in.”
The funding announcement comes at a time when the spotlight is shining on South Yorkshire with the worldwide film release of the Sheffield success story, Everybody’s Talking about Jamie. To mark and celebrate this, the authority, in partnership with the Showroom/Workstation Sheffield and Sheffield Theatres, are hosting a Cultural and Creative Industries Summit, with Mayor Dan Jarvis opening the event.
Arts, culture and heritage is a major industry and employer in the UK that generates £115.9bn in GVA (Gross Value Added) per year and 3.5 million UK jobs prior to the pandemic.
Darren Henley, Chief Executive, Arts Council England said: “As we emerge from the pandemic the creative and cultural sector will play a vital role in our country’s recovery. Culture is essential to our economic growth, as it revives our high streets, creates local jobs and most importantly builds a sense of belonging and pride in our communities.
South Yorkshire is a hub of creativity and I very much welcome the opportunity to join the discussion about how we continue to nurture and grow the creative talent of the people living and working across the Sheffield City Region.
The fund will be available soon through the local authorities in South Yorkshire.
From western Australian museum walls to South Yorkshire garage doors!
Stalwart of the international street art movement Kid Acne has swapped wheat-paste art in North America and museum walls in Western Australia – for garage doors in South Yorkshire!
The Sheffield-based artist, illustrator, printmaker, and emcee was invited by Steel City Marketing to replace the graffiti on the garage doors of their city centre HQ with some mural art.
MD James Biggin said: “I was getting a bit down when coming into the office every day and seeing more and more graffiti on the garage doors. So I decided to share my feelings with my LinkedIn community on the off-chance someone would have an idea or suggestion of what to do about it.
“The response was considerable. So many people gave ideas and a couple of names kept coming back a lot. Kid Acne was one of those and I just felt his style was great. After speaking with the team, it was unanimous – we all wanted him to create something for us.
“I wanted to give him a blank canvas to do whatever he wanted and not be limited by our brand and concepts. He was happy with this and said that was just a perfect way to do it.”
In the end, Kid Acne painted several from his signature ‘Stabby Women’ motif – female warriors who are typically a fusion of Norse mythology and South American and African heritage.
The artist has previously said of the strong female characters – of which there are several around the city centre: “Ultimately the Stabby Women were me trying to present an alternative to the very misogynist characters you’d see in graffiti.”
James added: “I didn’t expect it to go as well as it has, and I am really touched and surprised by the interest it has received in terms of being noticed by people and online sharing.
“It now makes me smile when I arrive at work. All the team are really pleased too and have even likened themselves to the characters Kid Acne has created. I still think they all need names!”
Breaking new ground for regional art – on national TV
From the Site Gallery – to Sky Arts.
Sculptural designer and artist Steve Anwar is representing Sheffield on Sky Arts and competing to represent the north in a national final that will see a new landmark piece of public art installed.
Steve, who is also a member of Sheffield Property Association, said: “I’m feeling extremely proud to be representing my home city in the northern heat of Landmark, competing against two other very talented northern artists – Sadie Clayton and Saad Qureshi – who are already well established in the art world.
“Sheffield is in the blood – the steel city represents a big influence on my identity and my work. As a kid I lived in the Brutalist block called Kelvin Flats, the little brother of Park Hill that still stands today like a concrete fortress overlooking the city.
“My artwork is made from steel, with blade-like panels that signify the city’s reputation of high quality knifes and cutlery production that put Sheffield on the map.”
Steve studied design at Sheffield Hallam University aged 22 as a mature student and worked in the graphic design industry before that. After university he worked as a soccer coach across the US.
“The arts scene in Sheffield was really in its infancy but there has always been a real underbelly, an underground scene with places like Site Gallery, Bloc Studios, S1 Artspace. But even then, the city wasn’t very good about shouting about itself. Yes, we have the biggest village mentality – but that is not to say Sheffield isn’t ambitious. Plus we also have traditional galleries like Millennium and Graves, too.
“The Site Gallery has been instrumental in my career. After returning from the US, I was bed-ridden for five years. But all that time being severely ill gives you a real perspective as to who you are. I was living internally and creating whole fantastical architectural worlds in my head.
“It took a lot of effort to get back on my feet but once I did, I started exploring lots of different opportunities. I volunteered at Site Gallery where there was a lot of cool, contemporary art and artists.
“I was also really into meditation as well and ran a live art participation show at Site with the theme of meditation. I was bricking it, but 50 people showed up! It was all about flipping art on its head and that place and space where art overlaps with mediation. Both take time and have a similar process.”
Steve describes Yorkshire Sculpture Park as a ‘massive influence’, adding: “My first visit blew my mind. To have that just a short drive from Hillsborough where I live is amazing – I have been so many times over the last ten years.”
Two years ago Steve re-imagined the business, changing from Anwar Studio to Sapien, to focus more on art.
“Anwar was more freelance design and bespoke furniture and teaching meditation through University of Sheffield. Sapien is bringing them together – the fundamentals of what the meditation world calls ‘space’ or ‘no noise’.”
Steve believes strongly in the value of public art, so a sculpture on display at Yorkshire Sculpture Park was a huge step. ‘Mantra Machine’ has now moved on to its permanent home with a private collector.
Mind your Manors
Sheffield Hallam University graduate Conor Rogers won first prize at the UK Young Artist of the Year award held at Saatchi Gallery, London in 2019. He works primarily in painting though his work also translates into sculpture and poetry, as seen in his latest solo exhibition, Manor Boy, which debuted at Yorkshire Artspace earlier this year.
“Manor Boy is a narrative I’ve compiled of the Manor Estate in Sheffield, where I lived. I’ve drawn inspiration from all the events that occurred and the cultural identities we carried through that time. In a way, it’s like a homage but also an investigation into my own identity, into the relationship with the spaces I was in back then.
The whole series was essentially a response to seeing my mate, Mike, in a paddling pool with some tinnies. I’m very much inspired by momentary events.
“I wanted to use the paddling pools as a sort of badge, an emblem of the estate, which came to represent certain aspects of council estate culture – a sense of momentary joy and abandonment, discarded after being used, then left to fill up with trash and leaves.
“There was a connection between that and how we felt abandoned and demonised on council estates – I felt that particularly strongly coming into the arts sphere as a student.
“It brought up a lot of questions about identity and class, which I’ve been investigating through art since. I applied for a fine art course but ended up on a course called Creative Arts Practice, which was not quite as conceptual and a bit more craft-based.
“However, I found myself being more academic and conceptual in my approach to that course, and through that I started understanding my relationship to painting. I went on a painting workshop and saw that people were painting on canvases, but I didn’t feel like that was genuine to my work. So I started painting on crisp packets, and through that saw my relationship to materiality, to things, to objects. A lot of these paintings are self-portraits as well as portraits of society.
“I used to draw on the back of betting slips when I was younger, and obviously that has now been recycled in my practice as I’ve got older. I’d get hold of those little blue pens you see in bookies, take them to the boozer with me and start drawing people playing snooker or the barmaids or whatever.
“‘Manor Boy’ is essentially me taking ownership of a demonised name or what could be seen as a slur. It’s not about denying it, the fact that people do see it as a negative environment, a place of crime. But I experienced the good stuff too, like a sense of community and humanity that taught me to be humble.”
Mapping out a creative sales success story
Urban Illustration is a design and print house that create map-like illustrations of towns, cities, and locations around the world. Each location is reimagined by a group of designers to create a bold and bright geometric illustration.
Dan Jackson, business development manager at Urban Illustration, said: “Motivated by our collective passion for urban environments and architecture, we were inspired to collaborate on a new design concept.
“A period of creative style experimentation led us to developing a flexible but consistent design system that could be applied to any city across the world.
“All our city designs are built using an isometric grid, and each design starts with intensive research of each city. Making sure we’ve got the right buildings and landmarks, with elements of culture and atmosphere, highlights the historical importance and captures the soul of the location.
“Sheffield was one of the very first designs we worked on and helped to inspire and lay the groundwork for every other city that has followed from there.
“The process of creating the layouts for each city is highly collaborative – by adhering to simple but clear design rules, each one of us has a chance to participate in providing illustrations and contributing ideas toward a final city design.
“Each design is carefully reviewed to make sure that it is as consistent as the last design, and that every key feature of a city is included to make it more identifiable.
“We put together various colour schemes, consisting of six complementing colours, which can be applied to the design. However, we can also make a bespoke colourway to customers’ preferences and add any icons or landmarks that are important to their brand or business.
“We first focused on printing bags and soft furnishings, but now Urban Illustration offers a far broader range of products and accessories, including fridge magnets, coasters, notebooks, and keyrings.
“It was important to us that everything is designed, printed, and made in the UK. Supporting local printers and manufacturers in Sheffield and the UK meant we are supporting homegrown talent.
“We are currently stocked in Birds Yard, The Great Sheffield Shop, and Museums Sheffield.”
Sheffield artist is the real McKee
Painter and commercial artist, Pete McKee, was born in 1966 and raised in Sheffield by steel worker dad, Frank, and mum, Marjorie, who worked in a bakery.
Pete spent his childhood consumed by comic books such as Whizzer and Chips and The Beano, which highly influenced his work as an artist.
As he grew up, his fascination with subcultures and passion for music also influenced his creativity and interests such as mods and rockers as well as musical icons like David Bowie especially took shape within his art.
The self-taught artist has used his working-class upbringing on a council estate to aid the development of his minimalistic signature style over the years. Pete’s artwork projects themes such as nostalgia, the working-class and humour into his internationally followed artwork.
His distinctive and unique style bagged him work as a professional cartoonist for The Sheffield Telegraph’s sport section before he started exhibiting with his first show at the Winter Garden. Later exhibitions were held at Magna in Rotherham. He has collaborated with bands such as Oasis and local legends Arctic Monkeys, as well as global brands such as Disney and even international designer, Paul Smith.
Pete has produced work for multiple charities such as The Teenage Cancer Trust charity and is also a patron of the Sheffield Children’s Hospital charity, Artfelt. His Bear of Sheffield was outside Sheffield Hallam University during the bears trail this summer.
In 2011, he opened his first art gallery on Sharrow Vale Road which has since seen thousands of visitors. Successful exhibitions include the ‘6 Weeks to Eternity’ show in 2016 and ‘THIS CLASS WORKS’, in 2018. Eight New Paintings is now available to view until Sunday October 17. Originally intended to be exhibited at Sheffield’s Millennium Gallery in 2020, it had to go online due to COVID-19 restrictions. The show was still a huge success – however, Pete always wanted the work to be seen in person.
Pete said: “I’m so grateful to have been able to display my show digitally. For me, however, there’s something way more personal, intimate and revealing about looking at paintings up close. The brush strokes, marks and pigment are more evident, revealing more about the process behind the work, so I’m really chuffed I can share that.”
The man of many talents doesn’t just fuel his creativity into his artwork. Pete is also a dedicated ukulele player in Sheffield-based The Everly Pregnant Brothers, known for their parodies of well-known hits. The band often put on gigs around South Yorkshire and can be found performing at Sheffield’s Tramlines Festival each year.
