One of the first casualties of the pandemic were in-person life drawing classes which shut almost as soon as coronavirus took hold. However, Ągata Alcańiz, a Catalan contemporary artist who ran such classes at Studio Bee in Manchester, immediately took them online as Life Drawing+ in what she believes were the first Zoom life drawing sessions in the world.
Ągata's in-person classes drew about sixty people but the online Life Drawing+ sessions had 620 members from over twenty countries in Europe, USA, South America and China participating.
Now that the sessions have been running for a year, to celebrate there's going to be an online exhibition which runs from 10th May until 20th June on Instagram and Facebook*, featuring works from around sixty of the artists. But don't expect the 'normal'...
The '+' in Life Drawing+ stands for the extra je ne c'est quoi angle of the sessions which didn't merely feature static anodyne models but activists from the Black Lives Matter, Disability Equality and LGBTQ+ movements, presenting images which challenged stereotypes around age, size and gender. Other sessions were themed around Pre-Raphaelites, chiaroscuro [light and shade] and more.
From Salford, Brenda Hird, who lives in Worsley and helps to run Eccles life drawing classes, has three top pieces in the exhibition (see photos), while Ągata Alcańiz, almost an honorary Salfordian having lived in Lower Kersal and run life classes at Islington Mill, has organised the sessions and art show.
The tie-up with Islington Mill came after she asked if there were any life drawing classes, only to be invited to run some herself..."They were incredible creative people, and I had the best of times" she recalls, although after seven years she moved them to the warmer and more accessible Studio Bee in the Northern Quarter.
"It went mad sometimes we had more than sixty people in the studio, and we had wine and tapas, and people loved it" she recalls "And then..."
...Coronavirus happened. But the success of the classes became even more pronounced online, and the rest, as they don't say, was histrionics and a haze of strange characters and scenarios.
Some sessions with life models have featured elements of performance, including dance, music, and poetry, exploring everything from Japanese Bhuto to a series on the theme of carnival featuring models in costume.
"Now it's grown exponentially, even the models are attending life drawing classes" laughs Agata, who was invited to publicise her sessions on a huge American online platform and now has artists from three different American cities on board, LA, Seattle and San Francisco. While on Zoom, everyone is sat at home, including the models and facilitators, it's forged a new worldwide community of interest during the lockdowns...
"It's a brilliant example of how local and global art can combine to create an international language" says ace Bolton artist Andy Smith, who had only attended two in-person life drawing classes in Wigan before the lockdown but found Life Drawing+ online.
"I've been going pretty much every week and what I like about it is the inclusivity of it; everyone's accepted whatever standard of art, amateurs or professionals, and you can stay on at the end to have a chat" he enthuses "There were English people abroad stuck in lockdown and so you get people from all over. It's a community now, some of us have become friends and it's a great atmosphere.
"When Agata said she wanted to do an exhibition to celebrate a year, everyone mucked in and it's very much a group effort" he says "There have been different themes for each session, from key workers to LGBT people, and we were getting models from all over the world, of all different shapes and sizes. In that sense it's been amazing, it's breaking new ground and Agata has made it work."
Andy has an image in the exhibition of Hattie, who self describes as 'gender fluid' and appeared in one of the gender sessions. Meanwhile, other artists have bigged up the psychological advantages of the sessions...
"At the start the classes were a lifeline" says Alison "I honestly felt that I had been rescued - almost all the things that mattered most to me had been taken away and this brought life back in spades."
Libby also points to the health benefits of the weekly sessions..."Life Drawing let's my brain relax, it's literally two hours thinking about the light and lines and not about all the other craziness going on in the world. Definitely good for my mental wellbeing!"
The sentiments are echoed by Marilyn, who says "This class has been amazing and helped me so much during lockdown. I am a pensioner living alone, I am totally isolated, so when Zoom was offered to me as a way of being with others I snapped it up."
While the online exhibition runs from 10th May and is free, there is a £2 Zoom preview evening on Friday 7th May from 7pm which promises to be a good insight into the creative madness of the sessions...
"We'll be having curators and artists talking about the work, and we'll also be having a pianist playing live from his cabaret club in Rome and we'll be asking people to draw him" says Agata "There'll also be an artist doing a short video-tutorial on portraits. It's ok to know how to draw in a traditional way but it's good as well for people to get crazy and be more expressive, so we'll encourage people to do a self portrait digitally themselves."
Attendees are also asked to dress up as if they were going to a physical art opening in Manchester and to bring a few glasses of wine to drink. To get a £2 ticket for the opening click here
Larger Than Life Drawing exhibition online between 10th May and 20th June.
On Facebook: Larger Than Life Drawing click here
On Instagram: Larger Than Life Drawing
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