TRACTION PROJECT SPACE

Traction is an artist-led project space developed by artist/curator Erika Cann. The street-facing window gallery is supported by Exeter Phoenix and Positive Light Projects, and is situated within EP Sidwell St.

Set in the left hand side of the building's large street-facing windows, the gallery provides a flexible space to test new ideas and present work in all formats, in a 24/7 accessible location.

The gallery's focus is to develop ideas and to provide experience and support for young and emerging artists, showcasing high quality, critically engaged, contemporary visual art to a diverse audience in Exeter city centre.

The aim is to provide opportunities to artists at the early stages of their career, not only to exhibit but to access advice and guidance on the curation, marketing and presentation of their practice. The first year’s programme will stage 5-6 exhibitions, curated by invitation or selected by open call and will include an exhibiting opportunity for a Foundation Diploma graduate from Exeter College, selected during their end of year exhibition.

This kind of targeted support is a key part of the ethos of the space, complimenting that of the wider community support ethos of Positive Light Projects.

current and UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

Altered Images
Jonathan Price and Janet Sainsbury

1st May - 19th June
Evening celebration: Friday 1st May, 5-7pm

Showing together for the first time, textile artist Jonathan Price and painter Janet Sainsbury use the exhibition to reflect on crossovers and links between the individual practices of two artists who share a household; what might be mutualistic and what might be seen as parasitic.

Jonathan’s recycled textile hangings incorporate found materials, new fabrics and most significantly for this exhibition, Janet’s discarded paint rags. The oil paint rags bring deeply saturated and suffused colours, altering the sense of depth and surface, and bringing an embodied sense of haptic intervention and history to the fore.

Painting on hessian represents a new strand in Janet’s practice. Using this rough textured material brings challenges; some globs of paint stay on the surface and some are absorbed into the open weave of the fabric. The effect finds echoes in Jonathan’s hangings where light is both absorbed and reflected, and materials float or sink into the surfaces of the work.

Find out more here