‘The artistic home of misfits’: Chorley’s alternative art gallery launches this weekend

A group of rebellious artists whose work was rejected from galleries for being ‘too working-class’, ‘too dark’, and ‘too trippy’ have been left with no cause bar one - launching their own ‘anti-gallery’ in the heart of Chorley.

The TCB Arthaus and Gallery is set to open on Cheapside this Saturday (November 14), and will give underrepresented artists the chance to showcase and sell their work to visitors from across the North West.

It was all the brainchild of Chorley creative Nicolla Moran, the owner and curator of Arthaus, who wanted to give a home to alternative, emerging, and working-class artists traditionally left out of many galleries in the North West.

“I wanted to start TCB because I'd started painting just as a hobby, just because of work stress and I've linked up with loads of other artists, people I already know, some I didn't even know were into art,” she told the Lancashire Post.

“But you start doing it, everybody starts talking about it and it all linked up!”

As it stands, people from working-class backgrounds are significantly less likely to likely to pursue a career in the arts - with shocking research from the British Sociological Association found that the proportion of working-class artists had halved since the 1970s.

Creatives whose parents had working-class careers made up roughly 37 per cent of the workforce in 1981, with the number falling to only 21 per cent by 2011.

According to research from The Sutton Trust, younger adults from working class-backgrounds are four times less likely to work in the creative industries compared to their middle-class counterparts.

“The common theme was that we couldn't get into local galleries,” Nicolla said.

“We were maybe underrepresented, a little bit too working class, or the theme's of our art are a little bit too dark or a bit trippy, and just underrepresented.

“So I decided, instead of opening a studio for just my own work, to sort of collaborate with all local artists, mainly working class, mainly misfit, and create a gallery where we could all sell, all exhibit, open to all sorts of levels of artists.”

TCB ArtHaus - which stands for ‘Taking Care of Business’ - will feature a steady lineup of creatives from Chorley and beyond.

Their artwork will be put on display and available for sale, with the artists themselves set to meet the public at the launch event on Saturday.

“We've got fine artists, published authors and complete novices that have just started out and they're all welcoming TCB,” Nicolla said.

The TCB ArtHaus and Gallery launch will take place between 4pm and 8pm on Saturday November 14.

Artists who are interested in taking part in the future can contact Nicolla directly at [email protected], or visit the TCB ArtHaus website.