City’s key player in UK visual art scene

Roger Palmer has one heck of a commute.

Glasgow-based, he makes a weekly round trip to Leeds University, where he is professor of Fine Art.

The lecturer is also co-curating Pieces of Eight, a new exhibition at Project Space Leeds (PSL) opening next week, featuring the work of eight Phd art students, four from Leeds University, and the others from Gothenburg University in Sweden and the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki.

So why does he make the round trip from another country, to return to Yorkshire on a weekly basis?

Palmer believes that Leeds is in the process of becoming something of an epicentre for the art world.

Which seems a grand claim.

“I think there is a real undercurrent, with a number of institutions in the city helping to make it one of the most vibrant places for art and artists in the UK,” says Palmer. “The art gallery has a fantastic collection – much better than many other galleries in cities of comparable size.

“The Henry Moore Institute is world class and an extraordinary research centre for the study of sculpture and five years ago a number of working artists came together to launch PSL.

“In terms of size and how it has come about, it reminds me of the Arnolfini in Bristol, which started on a small scale and has become an important centre for art in Europe.”

Palmer says that, while the galleries are important to the city and provide spaces for artists to show their work, the fact that they can develop their practice in the city is one of the keys to why Leeds is hitting a purple patch for arts practice – to which exhibitions like Pieces of Eight contribute.

“There are so many opportunities to study art here in the city – there are the courses at the university, at Leeds College of Art and Leeds Met,” he says.

“Having that number of opportunities brings people to the city to practice as artists and while a number of them leave, many of them stay. With studios like East Street Arts opening their doors, it creates a sense of community.”

All of this begs a question. If this burgeoning art scene is a result of the artists brought to Leeds to study and, given the context that PSL is essentially showing a graduate art show (albeit of the work of Phd students), is it the case that artists can only succeed through the means of academic study?

The last exhibition at PSL was organised by a Leeds graduate and the artists showing work were all Leeds former art students. Pieces of Eight features the work exclusively of Phd students. Is academia the only way in?

A fine art professor will clearly have a biased opinion.

“I think what we try to do in higher education, with any creative subject, is create a community where artists can be challenged by us and by each other,” says Palmer.

“The more opportunities there are for discussion and research and for interrogating and justifying work, the more thorough the practice becomes.

“That said, it isn’t, clearly, the only way for an artist to develop their practice. These artists’ communities have been popping up in Leeds, because people come to study, stay and come together to create this community themselves. That isn’t to say that without having studied in an academic environment, an artist can’t be successful. What we do is formalise the context – but that can happen equally outside of academia.”

However they arrive at the practice, the important thing is that they get there, it seems.

Pieces of Eight highlights

Pieces of Eight features the work of:

Artist, writer and musician Andy Abbot.

Classical musician and artist Sam Belinfante, fresh from recent shows at Hayward Gallery and Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art [MIMA], debuting his new video work Many Chambers, Many Mouths.

Eirini Boukla whose large scale wall drawing which condenses a Tintin comic into one layered piece.

Hui-Hsuan Hsu’s short films challenge notions of time and viewpoint.

PSL, Whitehall Waterfront, Leeds, Apr 25-June 30.