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HOME is a city.
You might like to swoop like a roosting starling, in amongst the rooftop air conditioning and Victorian glass domes. There’s the Town Hall clock, and out there, way out there, the TV transmitter on Winter Hill, and Scout Moor Wind Farm, over Rochdale.
For artist-architect Neil Dimelow the city is Manchester. Neil is from North Wales. He’s been in Manchester for 17 years and lives in Crumpsall with his wife and two boys.
He’s taken a rest from architecture, and has been a part-time primary school teacher for seven years. He draws on days off. Neil’s work is as meticulous as it is intriguing. It is arrestingly contemporary. Many people draw the city, but no one quite like him.
For Neil, drawing what’s in front of him is a way of seeing. It is both forensic and imaginary. He records and creates. The drawings, always made in front of the subject, are just the start.
Michael Oglesby and Bruntwood staff on the twenty-fourth floor of City Tower generously enabled Neil to draw more Bruntwood buildings than you can count. In careful collaboration with printer William Chitham drawings are scanned, digitised, scaled-up and coloured, as they make the journey from drawing pad to artist’s print.
HOME comes in different sizes. What you are looking at in The Mall is the biggest that Neil’s work has grown to date. If you can’t find your own building here, the place where you work, your favourite pub, club or shop, it’s because they are not there, not visible, not in the line of sight. Perhaps this is a fundamental thing about cities; so much of them is obscured, tucked away in shadow, like Harry Lime in a Vienna doorway, in The Third Man.
We both like back streets and murky windows, acid-leached concrete, the array of kitchen extractors in Chinatown, skyline like torn paper. We like what Manchester is.
The city we love so much was famously unplanned. Two hundred years ago Manchester men taught the world the ungentlemanly art of building without consequences. Manchester bent to their will; bent and contorted around polluted rivers, fast-cut canals, cross-knitted railway lines and scything viaducts.
Many of the buildings Neil has drawn from his crow’s-nest in City Tower did not exist two or three decades ago. There’s No 1 Piccadilly Gardens, No 1 Deansgate, No 1 New York Street, No 1 First Street. More No 1’s than Take That. Chase George Street through Chinatown, past the City Art Gallery and Bridgewater Hall.
You might like to swoop like a roosting starling, in amongst the rooftop air conditioning and Victorian glass domes. There’s the Town Hall clock, and out there, way out there, the TV transmitter on Winter Hill, and Scout Moor Wind Farm, over Rochdale.
Since HOME Neil Dimelow has made more drawings that tie other bits of Manchester down, netting them in pencil. It is a compulsion. Not many artists have brought such a concentrated, focused eye to the city on this scale. None has done so with such line and life.
This panoramic view of Manchester will be on display in the Mall under City Tower from 23 March. There will be prints for sale.
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Superb images
Ooh, I like these.
Love them. The hills in the backgound put me in mind of the 'Unknown Pleasures' album sleeve.
I like that Dimelow has cheekily replaced the hideous new power station that is Scout Moor wind turbines with beautiful trees. He puts these behind the CIS Tower and makes beauty out of ugliness.
I quite like the way the Arndale Centre tower still looks crap alongside everything else.
I need to write a children's story about these images. They are very Walking-in-the-Air.
Yay!
There's Abito, in the second one down, behind the Arndale tower.
These really are fab, top marks to all concerned!
I appreciate that my opinion is worth nothing, but I think they are rubbish.
Everyone's opinion is worth something. Be a dull place if we all agreed.
Nope you're wrong his opinion was worthless
In my worthless opinion, a picture (or 'composition') that gives me a headache, and looks like it was done by a 9 year old, is not worthy of the praise that it's getting here.
horrendous!
I cannot understand anyone calling these superb pictures, horrendous ??? Even if they are not to your taste I cant see any reasonably intelligent person describing them as such
I like these! Remind me of a couple of posters I had years ago as a student; one of London and one of New York. The NY one was fab and depicted not only the city but out towards to Hudson, showing the Bahamas and Puerto Rico.
They'll look good when the colouring in is finished
As Turner said of his paintings they are 'compositions' not unlike Hockneys woods and fields but more ironical. Where's HB superman flying over this realm
Fab - Wonder who that is on top of the Arndale offices?
are you steves wife
It's a crane.
It's a Borrower, Tracey
Some people have been discerning enough to appreciate the graphic quality in these, as they are illustrative more than painterly. Would make poster series - ' 21st Century Manchester', or pictures in a book on a similar topic
See, this is my point. I have no idea what 'painterly' means, which is why I accept my opinion to be worthless.
Daniel yep you are so uncertain your opinion definitely is worthless
#dudeneedsaruler
#square
I didn't think I was going to like these but I actually did! I like the fact that someone loves my home town enough to take such effort. With the ever changing skyline it's nice to have something to look back on.
I LOVE THEM !!
Well I, just little old me really like these...there again I like the wind turbines on Scout Moor, each to his own!
I think they're great. I'd love posters of 'em. Are they available? Get the tourist centre on the case! Something a bit "French 60s vibe" about them, which in my book is a very good thing.
Yes, they are available to buy. Contact Neil directly at neildimelow@me.com for a full price list
Is there one of Castlefield?
Anyone know when they are available to view, I tried last Sunday but closed. I figured they might be as they are offices, is it open Saturdays?
Rang them and was told 7am-7pm weekdays only if useful to anyone else.