As a group show of more than 50 female artists, there’s no obvious theme. Yet something like it exists and it feels like isolation.

Rogue Women 3 speaks of modern-day malady. From the tightly cropped tearful painting Crocodile Tears by Natalie Dowse and the lone lifeless pigeon Dead Bird, Christmas Day by Andrea Booker, to the solitary figures of Yvadney Davis’ Dame Lorraine’s Standing Ovation, Amy Dury’s Castor and Hannah Wool’s Sitting (Margarita’s carpet), there is introspection.    

Sarah Lund by Donna Mclean

Private moments are captured in beautifully rendered paintings by Lindsey Bull and Ruth Murray. Despite being accompanied by the subjects’ reflection, this seems to add to the loneliness of their public-facing persona. Equally so the drawing Two Sisters by Lela Harris which feels as if each subject is lost within their own world rather than experiencing a shared haircare activity.    

We are wasteland-locked in the painting Back to Nature 2 by Rosey Prince where an unnatural yellow-green creates a foreboding sense of desolation; sitting alongside it, the bleak moorland painting Shifting Ground by Margaret Cahill offers a deserted landscape. We are distanced by Jen Orpin’s Let Love Grow and shut out by Michelle Heron’s Washed Up. I don’t feel warm in these environments, no matter what Orpin’s bridge graffiti is hoping to elicit.   

On a lighter note, yet somewhat darkly, Emmer Winder’s antidote of prescribing doses of well-meaning advice from her Social Pharmacy offers a wry smile. Opposite, a wink from Claire Dorsett’s giant painting of the word Taxi! and Jenny Steele’s wonderful woven caravan offer a colourful escape. All seem to say: get the hell out of here.    

Social Pharmacy by Emmer Winder

There’s more definitive feminist bite back, though, coded as dark natural forces and literally breaking out of the wall in goth-horror style in Sophie King’s sculpture For One, Welcome Our New Interdimensional Overlords. Then there’s the cinematic event taking place in Donna Mclean’s painting Sarah Lund, and especially in Nicola Turner’s The Female Gaze, a darkly-modelled creature with binoculars for eyes and tentacle-like forms giving off weirdly bearded observational vibes.   

Rogue Women 3 is well worth a visit. There are many more works to see and consider, and not all may subscribe to my interpretation, which could come across as bleak. But the fact that this deeply-felt artistic activity is taking place feels like hope. As an all-woman show, it’s a uniquely all-female perspective which says something important and uneasy about our times – exactly what art is supposed to do.  

By Nancy Collantine

All photos taken by Nancy Collantine. Main image: Amy Dury’s Castor and Lindsey Bull’s Dance Studio.

Rogue Women 3 is an annual highlight of the Manchester art calendar, organised and co-curated by Margaret Cahill and Jen Orpin to showcase the 40 women artists who work at Rogue Studios. This year the show is guest curated by Leanne Green, head of exhibitions at Tate Liverpool. Rogue Women also features 11 guest artists from around the UK. This year they are Rosie Prince, Lela Harris, Michelle Heron, Tassie Russel, Donna McLean, Yvadney Davis, Amy Dury, Natalie Dowse, Suzanne Clements and Penny Hallas. 

Rogue Women 3 is at Rogue Studios in Openshaw, Manchester until October 27, 2024. It is open Saturdays and Sundays from 12–4pm and by appointment during the week. For more information, click here