The Critical Friend

"So here we are in Manchester in the early evening dusk in the 60's tower block home of the artist Paul Harfleet which doubles as the Apartment gallery. We are looking at the work of the Hungarian artist Beata Veszely. Simple pen drawings of horse archery superimposed onto found art and fashion magazine pages. Horse-archery was the national sport of pre-communist era Hungary. Of Course I am nosily looking around the (very tidy) flat thinking about the chaos of my own back home which doubles as my studio. 'How do you manage it?' I ask Paul. 'well I'm used to it now' he says, 'and anyway it's an appointment basis so I can plan when I show people around. As we sit in the flat/gallery in the ever growing darkness, up in the skies surrounded by a vista of cranes of Manchester's great 'march forward' of neo-yuppie flat building, we watch the twinkling lights from the cars zooming by in the road below, the scene unfolds into an interesting whole with each part adding to the mix. There is a melancholic wistfulness, in these simple lovingly drawn horses and archers, floating like ghosts from another century onto these self important magazine pages. There is the whiff of lost socialist utopias, the sheer romanticism of Eastern European history all mixed up in a Judy Garland Mickey Rooneyesq 'lets put the show on right here in our barn' idealism. Liked it."

Alex Michon
Taken from Spring 2006 issue of 'The Critical Friend'
for more on this show follow this link