The Holden Gallery at Manchester Metropolitan University hosts Stranger Skies this Spring, a captivating new exhibition by Pippa El-Kadhi Brown created during her 12-month Freelands Studio Fellowship at Manchester School of Art.
This thought-provoking collection invites visitors to step into realms where the boundaries between the real and fantastical dissolve, and where art becomes a portal to otherworldly experiences.
Through shimmering, shapeshifting forms and fractured planes, El-Kadhi Brown reimagines ethereal landscapes, hazily remembered and beautifully transformed. Soft pastels and sugary horizons extend a hand to visitors, leading them into dreamy, otherworldly dimensions. Her work delicately captures the interplay between the ‘thingness’ of being and the ‘beingness’ of a thing, challenging perceptions of the human form and its emergence in abstract shapes.
A standout feature of the exhibition is the multi-planed Where the Wings Wander, where a candy-dotted sky and inverted realities coalesce into a nostalgic, sumptuous vision. These larger works, described as visual Möbius strips, invite viewers to bend and stretch their perspectives—both physically and imaginatively. Whether gazing at amorphous forms morphing into arms and wings, or immersing themselves in the scene of Monkberry Moon Delight, a summer dusk envisioned in four dimensions, audiences are encouraged to explore the endless possibilities of El-Kadhi Brown’s imaginative cosmos.
Drawing inspiration from the sixteenth-century manuscript The Book of Miracles, El-Kadhi Brown seamlessly merges human and celestial forms, creating anthropomorphised comets and clouds that blur the line between reality and the phantasmagorical. In these works, human and non-human elements slip into one another, hinting at the deeper, atomic truths of existence.
From larger canvases with kaleidoscopic brushstrokes reminiscent of atomic collisions to smaller, fiery plumes melting into whipped clouds, each piece feels alive with movement and energy. Paintings like Carousel pulse with chemical reactions of greens, blues, and zaps of light, while works on paper provide a more intimate, earthy perspective. Through oil pastels and charcoal, imagined landscapes oscillate between charming simplicity and an urgent depth, as though El-Kadhi Brown is racing to capture fleeting memories before they dissolve.
The exhibition invites us to transform how we perceive the everyday. El-Kadhi Brown’s sweeping forms and intricate worlds inspire us to reimagine grey skies, mundane landscapes, and the boundaries of possibility.
Join us from 31 January to 27 February 2025 to experience Stranger Skies for yourself. The exhibition preview on Thursday 30 January, 5:00 – 8:00pm, offers the perfect opportunity to explore this extraordinary body of work and meet the artist.
Stranger Skies is made possible through the generous support of the Freelands Foundation, London, and Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University.
