I’d never heard of Jock McFadyen until the most amazing picture of a giant moon popped up as a Facebook advert.
I had to go to see the actual painting. Fortunately, the painting was part of an exhibition at the Lowry which is just a tram ride away. I hadn’t looked round the Lowry Gallery for years so was keen to spend a few hours in the gallery, revisiting the L S Lowry collection as well as seeing the Jock McFadyen exhibition (he’s the one who painted the giant moon, in case you haven’t guessed).
The Lowry is a very modern theatre and gallery complex in Salford Quays. It opened in 2000 and is home to many of the works of local artist, L S Lowry (he’s the one who painted all the grimy mill scenes with matchstick men), who it is named for. The building is a bit of a work of art in itself – designed by architects James Stirling and Michael Wilford, it is modern and futuristic looking.
Although the Lowry is free to visit, Covid restrictions mean limited numbers are allowed in and so you have to book a timed ticket. As I booked, I realised that during the afternoon, the astronaut, Tim Peake, would be speaking in the theatre. Look at pictures of the moon in the morning and listen to an astronaut (who hasn’t actually been to the moon, but has been a lot closer than I’ll ever get) in the afternoon. It sounded like a perfect day so I booked myself a Tim Peake ticket too.
I’d forgotten just how great the Lowry Gallery is. I ended up spending about 3 hours looking at all the Lowry paintings, reading all the information, watching a film about his life and doing a free guided tour of his works.
I didn’t like all the Jock McFadyen pictures, but I did like most of them. And I really liked the moons. Moons, plural, because there were actually two moon paintings. The exhibition is worth visiting for those alone.
What I really liked about the gallery and the exhibitions was that where Lowry and McFadyen had painted a similar theme, they had them displayed side-by-side. Sometimes there were three paintings displayed together, the third one being by a local schoolchild who had won an art competition creating a work inspired by a Lowry painting.
I took so many photos. I know there’re a lot of photos in this post, but this is just a tiny sample of the ones I took and I found it really hard to even cut them down to this many. The colours in the Jock McFadyen paintings are amazing and the photos just don’t do justice. Also, if you’re wondering why some have been taken at funny angles, in some cases it’s because I was trying to get as little reflection as possible; in others it’s because some of the Jock McFadyen painting are HUGE and it’s not possible to get the whole painting in unless you stand to one side a bit.
The Tim Peake talk was great too. It was a talk in two halves, the first part being about his early life and career and how he came to be chosen to live on the International Space Station. The second part was about life on the space station. It was this bit that got the geeky anthropologist in me really interested. He spoke about having to isolate before going into space to make sure he didn’t take any infectious diseases up there (I think we can all relate to that after the past two years), about the launch and journey to the space station and then about life onboard.
It was the everyday details I liked best. And the bits about how you have to retrain your brain over the simplest things. For example, you can’t just ‘put something down’. And you have to re-learn how to throw. When you throw a ball (or anything) on earth your brain automatically calculates a curved trajectory. You don’t think about it, you just do it. This doesn’t work in space, because the ball would start out on the upward part of the trajectory and, so long as it had propulsion, would just keep on going up. So you have to learn to throw dead straight. Then of course, you get back to earth six months later and have to unlearn all the new ways and reprogramme yourself with the old ways again. Fascinating.
If you get the chance to hear Tim Peake speak, I recommend you grab yourself a ticket. And if you’re near the Lowry I recommend you pop into the gallery too.
Have you been to the Lowry? Are you familiar with Lowry’s works? And who was the best speaker you’ve heard? Share your thoughts and recommendations in the comments below.
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- A Day Out in Liverpool to Visit the Sickert Exhibition
- Moderna Museet, Stockholm
- Fusilier Museum, Bury
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