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Capturing vanishing Bradford

10:44am Thursday 14th February 2008

Artist Scott Barden is capturing on canvas the streets, houses and open spaces of Bradford before they disappear for good.

The Great Horton-based artist has been painting areas of the district that are close to his heart, preserving their image for future generations.

Last year an exhibition of Scott's vibrant expressionist oil paintings, depicting everything from urban streets to a Victorian cemetery, went on display in an exhibition aptly titled When It's Gone It's Gone!

Now his paintings of Thornton, Clayton and Great Horton have gone on display at the South Square Gallery in Thornton.

The exhibition, called Three Bradford Villages, continues his theme of capturing the changing district for posterity. His paintings include Coffin House and Backfield in Thornton and Great Horton Methodist Church.

In a fast-changing district, where mills are being transformed into penthouses and once futuristic-looking buildings are being razed to the ground and replaced with 21st century versions, Scott has made it his mission to capture the essence of Bradford life through the familiarity of its pavements, garden walls and terraced houses.

Last year's exhibition featured paintings of properties and scenes near his Great Horton home, as well as city centre buildings, including the former Odeon building.

"I love the architecture, atmosphere and cultures of Bradford and I particularly like to capture architectural views of the many diverse streets around where I live," says Scott. "The views are great because the setting is so hilly, giving me a bird's eye view of the city. I paint in a bold expressionist manner, usually oil paint on canvas.

"I have included magpies, as they are common around here. Anyone who looks closely will see they appear in at least three of my pictures so far.

"Part of my intention is to capture scenes of Bradford that may not be here for much longer, such as Great Horton Methodist Church Cemetery, just behind my house," he adds.

"It's a wildlife oasis and is overgrown and rambling, with many old gravestones and trees. It's an architectural gem that will probably be gone soon as new houses are planned on the site.

"As with much of Bradford which is being pulled down, I felt the need to capture this for posterity in my paintings. It's the only way I know how to capture these places as they are."

As well as landmarks, Scott is also keen to paint the diversity of the district's houses.

"Bradford has a wealth of Regency, Victorian, Edwardian, Art Deco and other styles of architecture that has been much neglected and overlooked. The people of Bradford should be proud of its heritage which is as great, and often greater, than many other places," he says.

Scott's art heroes include Van Gogh, Gustav Klimt, Egon Shiele, LS Lowry and Edvard Munch.

"I suppose I'd say my style is typically more European than English," he says. "It's an expressionist style. I usually use oil paint on canvas although I have used other materials including board, acrylic, watercolour, ink and collage."

He has had work exhibited around the world, from Northern Ireland to Bosnia, and says it doesn't matter to him whether the legacy of a place is pretty or not.

"Prettiness doesn't enter the equation," he says. "A patchwork quilt of washing on clothes lines draped from balconies on tenements in Catalonia or the hub-bub of Kelso's town square in the Scottish borders is just as beautiful and fascinating as the medieval Guildhall in Lavenham."

Despite wanting to capture Bradford places on canvas, before they disappear, Scott is optimistic about the city's future.

"I feel excited about the changes in Bradford," he says. "I hope we can make Bradford a more coherent, but still diverse place, both in its architecture and its many cultures. I hope we can do this in a progressive, modern way, without losing too many of its architectural gems."

Scott started painting when he was three and says art has been an expression of his feelings "since before I learned to talk."

Aged 16, taking inspiration from the film Zulu, he built a plasticine model of the Rorke's Drift siege for a spoof stop-motion animation. Shortly afterwards he started creating papier-mache model cars. "I thought I'd hit on a way of making pocket money since friends seemed to love them," he says. "But it was short-lived because our microwave oven, which was great for curing models, exploded in a shower of sparks one day."

His next venture was a stop-motion animation of a pivotal event during the Battle of Waterloo. "I built the set on our kitchen table using modelling clay, papier-mache, dried plants and weeds. I put the table out of family use for about four months!"

While at Cardiff College of Art, working on a degree in fine art, Scott built a larger scale model of the battle, which filled a studio. "I wanted to ridicule the ritual of men going off to war in glamorous regalia just to kill each other," he says. "My aim was to create life-size sets that looked like paintings."

His work has attracted the attention of film-maker Ken Russell and broadcaster and novelist Melvyn Bragg.

Recently Scott has been working in his attic studio on a stop-motion animation about a bumble bee and ants. Little wonder that his dad refers to him as "Scott of the Ant Attic"!

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