The fruits of an artist's year-long river odyssey - beautiful images of the Irwell's wildlife
The sulphur yellow breast of a grey wagtail. The outline of a roe deer silently springing by a barbed-wire fence. A silouhette of two swans and the speckled back of a trout just below the water's surface.
It captures how nature has reclaimed a river and its banks polluted and scarred by industry. A dipper perched on a river rock biding its time to dive for a minnow and that blue flare - the kingfisher, now a regular sight on the Irwell. Since that time, he has exhibited widely, most notably a retrospective at Manchester Art Gallery in 2006 and his paintings have been collected avidly. In 2005 he was the subject of a 30-minute documentary on the BBC.
It gave him the first seed of an idea for a project close to his heart. For the last year he has walked the banks of the 39-mile long stretch - from the headwaters in Rossendale to its canalised lower reaches in Salford. His purpose was to seek, and witness a revival in its fortunes. And then to record what he saw in drawings, paintings, and film.
He adde: "In one part of the river it was a scruffy urban location, Townsend Fold, between Rawtenstall and Ewood Bridge, where there is a bypass bridge over the river. But within 200 yards there is a lot going on. There is a shingle beach which has been full of wildflowers. There's bricks, junk, and tyres, but it has been a good spot to visit over the seasons.
"I think if you follow the Irwell through a number of country parks and coal minings, bleach works, paper mills, you would be hard pressed to find a place that wasn't post-industrial. Yet nature has come back with a bang."
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