Exciting range of artwork on show in Chester city centre

CHESTER – The University of Chester’s city centre art gallery is showcasing a series of superb exhibitions featuring work by University staff and students past and present over the next few weeks.

Contemporary Art Space Chester (CASC) in Castlefield Gallery, New Art Spaces is currently exhibiting Chester through the decades as documented by Cheshire Life magazine, which celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2024.

Organised and curated by Dr Matt Davies, Senior Lecturer in English Language, and Alice Horner, second-year BA English Literature student, the exhibition – titled Chester Lives in Cheshire Life – includes archive magazine covers, articles on Chester’s shopping centre, sporting events, historic buildings and more. The exhibition has been funded by a Culture and Society RKEI Breaking Boundaries grant and has support from Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, as well as Cheshire Life editor Joanne Goodwin.

Running parallel to this exhibition is Bakestonedale Moor – wind, weather and a mobile artmaking kit. Following the doctoral research undertaken by Sabine Kussmaul at the University, this exhibition documents the development of a visual arts practice on the landscape of the Peak District.

Both exhibitions run until May 2, with the gallery open between 11am-4pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

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Running from April 23 to May 5 at the windows of the former Topshop unit at the Grosvenor Shopping Centre is Gathering Stillness, a new exhibition by Chester-based interdisciplinary artist Estelle Woolley. This unique exhibition offers a contemplative glimpse into the artist’s world, evoking quiet reflection and connection to nature through a series of sculptural assemblages.

Central to the exhibition is a garment sculpture resembling a giant nest that embraces the model’s form – accompanied by documentary images from a life drawing event. Alongside this, delicate sculptural works – some newly created, others reimagined – are imbued with new life and meaning. The materials used carry deeply personal and rural histories: farming tools, cow teeth, baler twine, horsehair, fragments of ferns, and a child’s sewing machine.

Estelle Woolley holds a first-class degree and Master’s in Fine Art from the University of Chester, where she has taught as a Visiting Lecturer in Fine Art. Her work has been exhibited and published nationally and internationally, and she has received multiple awards for her work. Notably, her photographic wildflower-masked self-portraits taken during the pandemic. She is currently the lead artist at Castlefield Gallery New Art Spaces: Chester.

This exhibition is supported by Castlefield Gallery and the University of Chester’s School for Creative Industries, Art, Design and Innovation and will be visible to passers-by during the regular shopping centre opening hours.