Drip, drip, drip in fluctuation grey - a-n The Artists Information Company

Images by Ligia the Ritherdon Marketing overlord.

Friday is usually a half day at Ritherdon, so Matt and I put our surprisingly refined ‘unorthodox’ approach to powder coating to the test last Friday on 5 large panels destined for exhibition in the summer.

Giving the ‘dead powder’ a second chance to make it to the oven, it was applied to the metal in lashings. Surfaces were thick, heavy, matte, gloss and everything in between. As the dead powder is a collection of every colour used at the factory over an extended period of time, the exact colour codes used for the beautiful and precises regular powder coating jobs at Ritherdon are a distant memory. Instead we get a deeply unsettling range of intense greys, fluctuating thanks to the odd bit of anti graffiti and leatherette finish powder. The heavy textures also cause a kind of surface subsidence, pulling down and drawing out each coloured particle in the peaks and troughs.

This phenomena gives me a real thrill (nerd alert???). The powder does melt to become a liquid surface covering, but each particle retains its individual tiny spec of colour.

The aftermath.

DISCLAIMER: we totally disrupted the usual pristine Ritherdon paint shop for the afternoon. This is not usual factory practice!

Nicola Ellis

Nicola Ellis is a British visual artist based in Manchester, who explores the question of who values what—and why—in different contexts. Her work examines how information, tradition, and legacy are passed on and translated through materials, systems, and the people who work within them. Ellis works with materials sourced from places of industry, scientific research, and public institutions; therefore, her sculptures, drawings, and digital artworks often intercept and expand existing material cycles. Her work simultaneously celebrates the connections and distinctions between different contexts at specific points in time. Since 2018, Ellis has developed a long-term relationship with Ritherdon & Co. Ltd, a manufacturer of steel enclosures based in Darwen, Lancashire. The success of this residency led to the two-year Arts Council England-funded placement “Return to Ritherdon,” which resulted in an unprecedented invitation to remain in residence indefinitely. Ellis will continue to observe, participate in, and occasionally disrupt the ecosystem of the factory while working alongside—and in collaboration with—the Ritherdon workforce. Ellis is a member of Para-lab Manchester, a group of artists and material scientists interested in cooperation and collaboration, based in Greater Manchester and Yorkshire. She is also a member of Incidental Unit, the current iteration of the Artist Placement Group. The Incidental Unit draws out key ideas, methods, processes, and rationales for maintaining the independent and critical work of artists and curators, connecting the historical legacy of APG with the complex nature of social practice today. Incidental Unit In recent years, Ellis’s work has been acquired by private and national public collections, including the Government Art Collection and the Arts Council Collection. She is the recipient of a Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award, a Henry Moore Artist Research Fellowship, and several Arts Council England grants to support the development of her work. Most recently, Ellis was awarded Horizon Europe funding by Better Factory to participate in an eighteen-month “Knowledge Transfer Experiment” in collaboration with Ritherdon & Co. Ltd and technology provider Digiotouch. This project developed new technology and infrastructure to support the integration of robotics into a small factory floor, reduce waste, and expand the Ritherdon product portfolio to achieve lot-size-one production of bespoke powder coating finishes.

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