Kirkby Gallery: Steve Randall, Kirkby Chronicles

Kirkby Gallery: Steve Randall, Kirkby Chronicles

When

5.7.21 - 28.8.21    
All Day

Where

Kirkby Gallery
Kirkby Centre, Norwich Way, Kirkby, Knowsley, L32 8XY, Knowsley

Event Type

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Steve Randall is a self-taught artist born in Liverpool in 1968.

His move into the creative world, triggered by a life changing event in 2014, came as a big surprise to his family and friends and a massive shock to him.

This selection of oil paintings celebrates Steve’s growing up in Kirkby and tells a very personal story, a story Steve lays out in the Kirkby Chronicles book which he has written to accompany them.

Steve sees the work as the external portrayal of happy times; bright representations of my childhood, played out in a town I loved and with people I understood. Yet it is painfully clear that I paint in a style that gives me solace.

I’m very proud of the Kirkby I grew up in and although I haven’t lived here since 1985 I will always consider Kirkby my home and still feel loyal to people I haven’t seen in over 30 years.

As I paint the perspective of the street, I see myself coming back around many corners… this dull estate, with the homogeneous pebble dashed prison officers’ houses, was actually a cacophony of colour and noise. Joyous noise and hundreds of coming-of-age stories.

It’s impossible for me to ever run out of painting material; every memory leads onto another more random than the last and connects me deep to an overriding sense of belonging. This was the time I felt most safe. Those Kirkby streets were a protection against an outside world of which I knew nothing. If it’s strange to think of blocks of brick as beautiful then I’m very strange.

Opening hours until 28th August are Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, 10am – 4pm. Visits to the gallery can be booked via emailing: galleries@knowsley.gov.uk / 0151 443 4936