Double A Sides captures coastal landscapes in New Brighton show

Artists, musicians and educators John Hyatt and Carl Hunter are launching a fascinating new joint exhibition of work which captures and celebrates the Merseyside coast.

Double A Sides – Exploring Coastal Perspectives opens at the Mersey Arts Zone in New Brighton’s Vale Park this Saturday evening.

It features Hyatt's watercolours capturing Liverpool Bay, and Hunter’s Polaroids gazing upon Hyatt's viewpoint and the Irish Sea, "providing multifaceted insights into perception and environment."

Hyatt, known to music fans as a member of Leeds post-punk band The Three Johns and more recently as a solo performer or leading his band, Glamogoth, is also a painter, digital artist, designer, curator, author and historian who has exhibited his work worldwide.

Dobbed ‘the Punk Professor’ by the Guardian for his involvement in cultural practices, pedagogy, industry, urban regeneration, and communities whilst building Manchester School of Art, since 2016 he has been Professor in Contemporary Art at Liverpool John Moores University’s School of Art and Design.

Above: Polaroid by Carl Hunter, Top: Watercolour by John Hyatt.

The Farm bassist Carl Hunter is not only a successful musician but also an acclaimed documentary maker and film director whose debut feature film Sometimes Always Never – written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and starring Bill Nighy - premiered at the London BFI Film Festival in 2019 and was a hit with critics and audiences.

Meanwhile he and Clare Heney took the award-winning Polaroids for the Frank Cottrell Boyce novella, The Unforgotten Coat.

Hunter, who has also exhibited internationally, is currently Senior Fellow in filmmaking at the Institute for Creative Enterprise at Edge Hill University.

Mersey Arts Zone was opened two years ago by Dawn Reck as a creative space for exhibitions, events and affordable artwork, and a location for artists, creatives and musicians to meet.

It is open from 12.30-5pm on Wednesdays and 10am to 5pm on Thursday to Sunday.

Double A Sides – Exploring Coastal Perspectives is at Mersey Arts Zone, Vale Park in New Brighton from October 7 (launching with a reception from 5.30-7.30pm) to November 3 and is free.