Design Team: March gallery visits in Liverpool and Manchester

 
For our Design Team, the main focus of the visit was Lucienne Day’s contemporary textiles with an environmental edge, which link into design, cultural and social trends, and take inspiration from the outdoors and the world around us. 

The textile designs include an array of nature-inspired hues, mostly greens, which in recent years has become a symbolic colour for the environment.

The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester

After being awarded Museum of the Year 2015 at last year’s prestigious Art Fund prize, the gallery has received much critical acclaim for its vibrant and engaging exhibitions.

Current shows include a retrospective of Tibor Reich, a pioneering post-war textile designer, who brought modernity into British textiles.

In contrast, the galleries upstairs focus on constellations, space discovery and unknown worlds.

This ties into the current trend for earthy, natural materials. Metallics, mirror and wood, are contrasted against geometric pattern and cubist-style design.

Tate Liverpool

The exhibitions held at the Tate Liverpool are a key reflection on the current trends in mixed media, with simplicity and geometrics being prominent influences.

The main exhibition highlights Henri Matisse’s use of colour being inspired by the bright shades of the garden. A snail exists at the exhibition’s heart and is made of hand-painted paper cutouts.

As well as spending time in London, the Design Team has recently been exploring exhibitions a little closer to home. The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester, and the Tate Liverpool are both currently playing host to large-scale exhibitions. Works to know by Heart: Matisse in Focus is on display at Tate Liverpool (until 2 May 2016), and William Morris, Lucienne Day and others: Historic and contemporary textiles with an environmental edge, is being displayed at The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester (until 6 March 2016).