Image by Megan Bendall
Elliott Gallery is proud to announce the first of our new Digital Online Exhibitions programme. Each show will be Guest Curated by an Elliott Gallery Artist/Photographer and we kick off the programme with this exhibition curated by British Photographer Matthew Murray.
Each exhibition is curated entirely from Elliott Gallery’s vast archive.
Non-Conformist: Guest Curated by Matthew Murray
1st September - 30th November 2020
“The Non-Conformist is always seen as the outsider, the fly in the ointment, the troublemaker, the divider. But truth be told the non-conformist is inspirational, the game changer, the leader and the progressive thinker.
As a child growing up on a council estate in the industrial Midlands (UK) and going to an inner-city boys’ school, conformity was rammed down our throats by stiff suited teachers smelling of tobacco and chalk. Non-conformity was the naughty kid at the back of the class, always back-chatting with boisterous behaviour, leading to double detention, punishments and being expelled. There was a feeling of intrigue and admiration for these non-conformists, whilst they were frowned upon, tutted at and judged for their need to cause anarchy.
Growing up and gaining an insight into the wider cultural landscape outside of the boys’ toilets and the football terraces, I began to realise non-conformity was everything I had always thought it was – brilliant, progressive, inspiring, exciting and experimental.
Non-conformity is weaved throughout consciousness, politics, our thinking, our icons, our music, our sport, our beliefs and our desires.
In curating this show I have tried to include a cross section of artists, photographers, subjects, methodologies that didn’t or don’t conform.
The brilliance about the non-conformist is that their ideas won’t always be non- conforming. Time changes ideas and mind sets and where once these ideas may have been shocking, hated and deemed disgusting or unacceptable. Now they may be considered the norm, but the ‘new norm.’
But the beauty of the ‘new norm,’ is that it’s organic, ever changing and progressive and with it comes the next generation non-conformists, we love to hate and then learn to love!”
—from an interview with Matthew Murray by Justine Marklew, August 2020
All photographs in this exhibition are available to purchase.
Please contact Elliott Gallery for further information.