Flashlight and Flash Nights

Friday 28 July 2023

The Mansell Street gallery hosts a "bold and colourful new exhibition" this summer featuring work by artist in residence Andrew McAttee, hoping it can serve as an "escape from life" for those who need it.

The Flashlight exhibition is open at the Art for Guernsey hub in the Old Quarter until September.

Having drawn on a wide variety of sources including graffiti art, comic book graphics, pop art and abstract expressionism, McAttee's artworks are described as having "a strong sense of movement and vitality, teeming with clusters of synthetic species bursting into life".

Brands including Nike have commissioned him for work while he has been featured in The Observer, The Independent Review, Hip Hop Connection, Graphotisms and New York Magazine.

Speaking after a recent trip to Sark where the dark sky island inspired some of his work, McAttee said: “I soak up things by osmosis and lots of the structures and forms that we’ve been looking at have been really interesting. There was an element of timeless beauty at Moulin Huet, and La Coupée in Sark was just awe inspiring. Especially coming from London, where you can’t see anything like that."

Pictured: Sark is the world's first Dark Sky Island, inspiring artwork by Andrew McAttee and others.

"It’s been great to have the opportunity to do something that’s challenging in a new way, and I’m absolutely alive to exploring what that is, and what happens as a result.”

Art for Guernsey's Curation Director, Jock Petit said: “During Andrew’s brief residency we packed in a whistle- stop tour of Guernsey’s rugged coastlines, beaches, fortifications, skies and sunsets, focused on the large-scale drama of the scenery, right down to the intricate detail of the marks, shapes and textures of pebbles, seaweed and lichens. We also spent 24 hours exploring the dark skies and incredible landscapes of Sark, taking an artist more accustomed to the rhythms of the urban landscape and fully immersing him in experiences that he described as taking him back to the innocence and explorations of childhood.”

Tom Ellis, Art & Private Client Manager at Hiscox Guernsey, said: “As a collector of contemporary art, including Andrew’s work, Hiscox are thrilled he has found inspiration in Guernsey’s landscape and can’t wait to see what he creates.”

Mr Petit added: “We are all excited to see how Andrew’s time in the islands influences his abstract and explosive compositions, and to sharing these with the Guernsey audience, young and old alike.”