Gallery Research : Macclesfield.

On thursday myself and the rest of the class went into Macclesfield town centre to have a look at some different gallery spaces, We wanted to get a broad scope of different spaces ranging from coffee shops to high end bars and restaurants. Walking round Macclesfield town centre I was definitely surprised at just how many places had gallery spaces, over all I got Pictures from 13 different potential gallery spaces plus a couple of others that I did not get a chance to photograph.

"TONIC"

"Tonic" was the first place to grab my attention as I thought it looked like a trendy bar that would possibly welcome the idea of exhibiting our work. Inside looked ideal, with plain walls and plenty of space for hanging our work.

"fresh"

"Fresh" is a club that looks quite nice from the outside, but the trouble is the fact it is a club, although we did not look inside we decided that a club would not be the best place for us to exhibit our work as any work on the walls could easily get knocked down and damaged.

"The Art Yard"

The Art Yard is a very cool little place which is located down a quirky little ally way that leads to a small cafe area and then a little 'bits and bobs' sort of shop. But it is the upstairs of this little cafe/shop that impressed me, there is a really nice gallery space which has plenty of room to hang up a few pieces of work each.

"Macclesfield Library" 

We first found out that Macclesfield Library had an exhibition on thanks to the numerous posters around the town centre, so we definitely thought it was worth a look. The work inside was of mixed quality and other parts of the gallery space were better presented than others, giving parts of the exhibition rushed looked. While the gallery space itself was very good, the size of it may cause an issue, it is a lot of space for just 8 people to exhibit work, the gallery was also booked out until April 2012 so this is not a viable option for us.

"Treacle Tap"

This is a very petit little bar in the centre of town but it is a place that I think bursts with character and quirkiness. Inside has very intimate feel and there is not much on display on the walls, apart from a few pieces of art which are for sale. I think this could potentially be a very interesting place to exhibit and it would throw up lots of challenges regarding layout, but also could provide some interesting themes to base our exhibition on, such as personal space or the Treacle Market.

"g Fine Art Gallery"

"g Fine Art Gallert" is an interesting venue as it what one would expect from and exhibition space. It is appealing to us as Sophie works here so it may be the case that we may be able to get a better deal through using this gallery thanks to its connections with the class.