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Nicola Ellis: Exercises in Knowing

Three new exciting bodies of work that explore how we relate to industry, materials, and labour
Sat 21 Feb - Sun 17 May
Sat 21 Feb
-
Sun 17 May

For this exhibition, Exercises in Knowing, Nicola Ellis has created three new bodies of work that extend her ongoing collaboration with the steel enclosure manufacturer Ritherdon & Co in Darwen, Lancashire. In it, Ellis explores how we relate to industry, materials, and labour, highlighting the role of sensory and tacit knowledge in these relationships, as well as the ways such knowledge is communicated.

Ellis’ work is often created in response to contexts outside of traditional art environments, using discarded or overlooked materials, substances or subjects within industrial or scientific contexts. By combining sculpted, found and digitally manipulated materials, she creates forms that retain the traces of their origins exploring their ecologies and legacies.

Subject To Use

Subject To Use is a series of sculptures made from plaster of Paris featuring fabricators carrying out gestures or actions performed daily. Worked into plinths, the gestured limbs coordinate to apply personal protective equipment, drive a forklift, or lift steel components. These works become studies of hands interacting with tools or machines, displaying the dexterity and control, immortalised into plaster evoking classical sculpture, and statue.

Arc

The video work Arc is a split screen work shot from nine angles around the welding booth at Ritherdon using an array of digital cameras. Within the heat of the confined space and the intense UV light, the routine, technical skills and knowledge accumulated by the fabricators are apparent, accompanied by sounds from the booth and live radio vibrations.

Retro Activity Series: Residual architecture

This is a series of large works suspended throughout the space, flat, almost paper-like sheets of steel with punched out voids which act as an angular oculus through which to view the other works in the exhibition. Reclaimed recyclable waste materials from the Ritherdon manufacturing line – they are the skeletal remains of steel sheets used to produce casing for EV street chargers and similar steel enclosures which house the street-side electrical units that power outdoor street lighting, traffic lights, smart motorways and more.

The handling of tools—acquired not through manuals but over years of observation, practice, and repetition—is a source of familial connection for Ellis. This work expresses a deep reverence for skills usually hidden behind factory walls and now - often assumed to be automated. Over the last 30 years, the UK’s manufacturing sector has declined, and the economy has shifted toward services, this reflects a structural shift rather than a contraction of output, as services have expanded much more rapidly than manufacturing has shrunk. This exhibition celebrates the communities still centred around manufacturing and manual making, highlights our symbiotic relationship with materials and tools, and emphasises the value of doing things by hand—even within a digitally organised system—reminding us that people remain central to creating the infrastructure that surrounds us.

 

About Nicola Ellis

Nicola Ellis is a North West–based artist whose work has been exhibited across the UK and Europe. Recent exhibitions include presentations at Pipeline Contemporary, Workplace, DOX (Prague), Copperfield Gallery, Platform A Gallery, Fitzrovia Gallery, and Bury Sculpture Centre. Ellis has also undertaken residencies in a wide range of contexts, from large-scale industrial environments such as the global steel manufacturing headquarters of the Pittini Group in Osoppo, Italy, to more intimate, small-scale settings including her father’s home inventor’s shed.

Since 2018, she has developed a long-term relationship with Ritherdon & Co. Ltd, a manufacturer of steel enclosures based in Darwen, Lancashire. The success of this residency led to the two-year Arts Council England-funded placement “Return to Ritherdon,” which resulted in an unprecedented invitation to remain in residence indefinitely. Ellis will continue to observe, participate in, and occasionally disrupt the ecosystem of the factory while working alongside—and in collaboration with—the Ritherdon workforce.

She is a member of Incidental Unit, the current iteration of the Artist Placement Group, which was conceived by Barbara Steveni in 1966 and co-founded with Barry Flanagan, David Hall, John Latham, Anna Ridley and Jeffrey Shaw in London in the late 1960s.  Incidental Unit  

Her work has been acquired by private and national public collections, including the Government Art Collection and the Arts Council Collection. She is the recipient of a Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award, a Henry Moore Artist Research Fellowship, and several Arts Council England grants to support the development of her work.

Nicola Ellis: Exercises in Knowing

Gallery Opening Times:

Tue - Sat: 12pm - 8pm

Sun: 12pm - 6pm

Mon: Closed

The exhibition is free to attend but requires you to book.

 

Exercises in Knowing shares the main gallery space with Gabriel Kidd's exhibition I found the giant and he was dead. Your ticket offers entry to both exhibitions.

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