‘I’m not just trying to display poverty porn’
How ‘Manor Boy’ Conor Rogers found his place in the art world
Good afternoon members — and welcome to our Tuesday newsletter.
Today we have a look at Conor Rogers, a young Sheffield artist from the much-maligned Manor estate who has gone on to exhibit in prestigious galleries and win major prizes. His challenging art focuses on his working-class upbringing — but in playful ways that defy easy characterisation.
Mini-briefing
The fallout from council CEO Kate Josephs’ Cabinet Office Covid rule-breaking leaving party is continuing this week with leader Terry Fox announcing this morning that a committee of senior councillors would be convened to consider her future. A comment piece in the Yorkshire Post says Josephs should consider her position.
Following on from our weekend story about the Gleadless Valley, Sheffield local democracy reporter Lucy Ashton reveals that £90m is to be spent on the estate. Director of housing Janet Sharpe says the vast majority of the work will focus on refurbishing existing homes but that some limited demolition will also take place.
A lovely story in The Star about First Bus driver Linford Stephenson’s retirement from driving after 44 years behind the wheel. Linford (or Lenny as everyone calls him) was born in Kingston, Jamaica and came to the UK with his mum aged 14 in 1967. Now 69, he tells reporter Rob Hollingworth that buses were better before deregulation.
A new exhibition — Meet the Locals — featuring work by artists from South Yorkshire and the surrounding area is now open at the Fronteer Gallery on Exchange Street in Castlegate. The gallery is open on Wednesdays-Fridays from 10am-3pm and on Saturdays from 2pm-6pm. For more details follow them on Facebook or Instagram.
By Jason Holyhead
It might not seem like the ideal environment for a promising young artist to emerge from, but Conor Rogers spent much of his early life with his grandad in working men’s clubs or the local bookies. He grew up “with fuck all” on Vikinglea Drive on the Manor in the 1990s, at the same time as the neighbourhood was being vilified by politicians and the press as the “worst estate in Britain”.
As a child he captured those early experiences — either in his head or on the beer mats that were scattered around the tables of the smoky clubs he once played in. Now 29, he mines those memories for artistic inspiration. His stock in trade is painting remarkable photorealistic imagery onto unlikely canvases such as crisp packets, betting slips, parking tickets and paddling pools. He is also a poet, but writes his poems on Rizla papers.
In 2019, Conor was named Robert Waters UK Young Artist of the Year and last year he was given his own exhibition at Sheffield’s prestigious Site Gallery. When we met at the Lescar pub in Hunter's Bar earlier this month, I was keen to know first of all how such an unlikely story happened. And secondly, to ask him whether the subjects he chooses are intended to be grim, or if he’s trying to do something more subtle.
“I’m not just trying to display poverty porn, it’s far from that,” he insists. He mentions one painting of a bottle of Strongbow and a four-pack of Foster’s painted onto a packet of Scampi Fries as an example of something that could be misinterpreted. “The painting of the cider bottle is pure joy to me,” he says. “Where to someone else on the outside — it's scummy. To me, it’s memories, fun nights and conversations, and people that are attached to that object.”
None of his family were particularly “arty”, so he’s unsure where his talent comes from. He does recall his dad sketching a picture of Bob Marley on an old roll of wallpaper, however. “He put it up on the kitchen wall,” says Conor. “We got burgled two or three times while we lived there, and after he put that up it got nicked. It must have been good.”
At school his text books became full of sketches of classmates or football boot designs. His first dream was to be a designer and he would meticulously paint celebrities onto trainers or t-shirts. He spent hours honing his craft and taught himself how to mix paint through practicing. Doing well in his GCSEs gave him the confidence and belief to go on to college.
Not everyone in his circle was supportive, and he was often asked why he was “wasting his time” doing art. One person even asked him why taxpayers should be expected to fund his “hobby”. “I knew what he was saying, but I disagreed,” Conor says. “We are all part of this community. But the narrative underlined whether people can become artists from this kind of background. Some people didn’t believe this was possible for people like me — why not get a trade like your dad, go and be a brickie. That’s the paradox, in hindsight that’s the inspiration — the fact people say no you can't, it makes me inspired to do stuff.”
When he first started going to galleries he had no preconceptions of why he should or shouldn’t like the paintings; something he calls “the freedom of lack of influence”. Being exposed to lots of traditional paintings depicting wealth and grandeur, ownership and prestige could have felt alienating. But rather than be put off by the distance between his upbringing and the art he was looking at, it instead spurred him on to carve out his own niche in the art world: to put himself in the picture. He certainly isn’t ashamed of his working class roots, but he doesn’t want to wear them as a badge of honour either.
As for his motivation, sales and shows help, of course, but the urge to create is his ultimate goal. “The success in your work is the fact you want to make it,” he tells me. “That’s what motivates me every day. I’ll have an idea and I want to channel that energy that I’ve just felt and create something and watch it materialise from a thought to an actual, literal thing in this world. Remove expectation and validation and just don’t give a fuck, make what you want to make.”
As if to prove his point, Conor says he “can’t wait” to get started on an old Netto bag he’s found, just to see what comes of it. Selling pieces and taking opportunities comes much later, he says. “In art, whether it’s drawing, painting, writing — if you have an idea, do it,” he tells me. “That’s the success. Anyone else can judge it’s shit or it’s good, that doesn’t matter. That’s someone else’s judgement. Not chasing validation or accolades is very liberating.”
As The Tribune has previously reported, the Manor estate and its residents are often unfairly vilified in the mainstream media as lazy, dishonest, uneducated and untrustworthy. Conor’s ability to articulate a different side of working class life stands as a rebuke to that stereotype. And he’s also trying to help others to benefit from his success by leading an art project at Sheffield Park Academy, not far from where he grew up.
Areas like these have suffered disproportionately from the cuts to arts funding that have taken place over the last decade. Sheffield now receives less than a quarter of the Arts Council England funding that nearby Leeds receives. And the gap between Manchester and Sheffield is even greater, despite the culture, arts and heritage sector contributing over £200m to the South Yorkshire economy. A report in 2020 revealed that the number of youth projects commissioned by Sheffield City Council had halved in the last five years. And last year the Government announced cuts to funding of “high cost” subjects, redirecting money from art, music and dance into things like science and technology.
Conor tells me one of the first things he noticed when going back into the classroom was a lack of connection to art and a lack of understanding of it. In areas like the Manor, art is something you do in little sessions — once a week. As such there’s now little or no opportunity to take students into a world where they can push the boundaries of creativity and self-discovery.
“As teachers, we just need to provide direction and encourage self belief,” says Conor. I ask him how he and the school would measure if the project had been a success and he bubbles with pride telling me about the moment he saw inspiration in the face of a student for the first time. In class, he spent some time showing her how to turn everyday experiences, like walking home from school, into poetry.
“I went back a few weeks later and she's got a text book full of poems,” he says. “They’re good. That’s the success of it already for me. Putting on an exhibition at the end will be another kind of success but I’ve already reached the point where I’m happy when a single student becomes inspired.”
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