Zoe Maxwell
Part(y) of the Arts
Arts Council funded Heritage Project, responding to the archives at South Square Centre, Bradford
Titanic Thornton, 1984
Oil on canvas
2025
100 x 120 cm
Pat's Studio, Puck Inn
Oil on canvas
2025
12 x 15 cm
Brollies and chairs at the Folies Bergère, Bradford
Oil on canvas
2025
12 x 15 cm
Enter sign swings ahead
Oil on canvas
2025
12 x 15 cm
This body of work was made in response to the archive at South Square Centre. Pulling from the archive of photographs, audio recordings, and written accounts I produced paintings that reconstruct the first events held at the centre during the 1980s.
From speaking to members of the South Square community who had been part of these events, I centred my research on how the events built an identity for South Square and brought art and creative activity to people who didn’t regularly engage with galleries. Through having these conversations and listening to oral histories I developed visual traces that derive from the recollections collected.
Titanic Thornton
Not the same story as the past,
In this one the iceberg is paper (they didn’t crash)
The lighthouse was home to low hangings seagulls,
Red striped deck chairs lined up to watch,
Wonderful arrays of fabrics flowed past,
Hats picked out to match
Old curtains fashioned into a frock,
Fur covered shoulders hang out near the dock.
Crowds of people flocked to the square,
All week the stood and stared,
As the light house went up, the iceberg grew,
And the seagulls hovered over, some say at night they flew.