Dale Mackie is a painter who depicts a lost heritage in such vivid hues that the disappearing world he commemorates seems instantly revived. More celebratory than nostalgic, Dale's work punches you in the senses like a North Sea blast off the Dogger Bank.
Mackie, the man and artist, is East coast through and through, and may well have the North Sea running through his veins, such is the inspiration he finds from the fishing industry.
In his own words: "Of particular interest are the situations of men at work, human interactions and relationships that are captured in iconic scenes of fishing trawlers rough and marred by use and the elements or, emotive paintings of fish sales on the old Pontoon that literally bustle with characters trying to be recognised." Nice one Dale, you are putting the Great in Grimsby… and isn't that Whitby too!?
Matt Hyde is a Grimsby ex-pat and founding partner in Glitchers, creators of award winning games and interactive products for your smart devices. Who knew a chap from Grimsby could actually earn a living doing this sort of stuff?
As you will see, their in-house graphic style is fresher than a Cleethorpes teenager after a sniff of Lynx. Consequently, demand for their work is high; Such serious corporate folk as Channel 4, Warner Bros, Mr Porter and even Cadbury Mondelelz have all had business scratches that Matt and his pals have ahem… glitched: Mondelez turned to Matt to help them reverse the global decline of chewing gum; it seems nobody buys it anymore.
This is very good news for the pavements of the world, but terrifyingly bad if you happen to be a manufacturer of gummy confectionary. To promote their Stride brand, the company commissioned Glitchers to stimulate a bit of demand for the chewy stuff with a game app called Gumulon; a chewing controlled game app! Which frankly sounds bonkers, but check out the above TV ad for an explanation that will outshine anything we might muster.
Perhaps in a homage to his GY roots, Hyde has also created (among other things) a multiple award winning game in which you run your own chip shop called, appropriately enough, Chippy. It's available to download on iTunes and is generally raved about in the gaming community. Pass the salt Matt, you are definitely putting the great in Grimsby.
A major broadsheet reports a positive news story about Grimsby. It's a shocker, but it's true. As featured in The Independent, our town has been lauded as the Green Energy capital of England, knocking the major cities of London and Birmingham into a cocked hat in the process. In fact, the efforts of those two cities in the field of renewable energy were decried as feeble with contributions of under 1 % in the case of the Capital city. Pathetic London! While wind and solar energy remain much debated as a fuel for the future, a quick look at the comments section in the Independent will attest to this, Grimsby seems to be embracing clean energy with an open mind.
Blowing in the wind: The biggest cluster of offshore wind farms in Europe lies off Grimsby.
The Gilluminatti: A Northern Light shines on the South Bank.
It's strangely compelling to look at, hypnotic even, but what the hell does it mean, and who is responsible?
Gillian Hobson is a Grimsby artist with quite a lot to show off about: She is a Doctor of Fine Art; she's an author with a commission from the NHS to explore creativity in helping sufferers recover from mental illness, and (though she may not describe herself as such) she is a sculptor of light operating out of her studio on the South Bank of our beloved Humber.
Now light is not a touchy feely material; you can't take a chisel to a shapeless lump of the stuff, fashion an object into a recognisable form and put it in your garden for the neighbours to coo over. The physics just do not work like that, and trying to explain it in esoteric terms, as you find artists inevitably do, will see most of us get lost in the language.
And here's Shaping Light No 3: Selected for The British Glass Biennale 2015, and shortlisted for The Lumen Prize, the global award for digital art.
Patterns of Place: Commissioned for Museums at Night 2014 at Grimsby Minster.
She is current chair and exhibiting member of the 62 Group of Textile Artists and Fellow of the Society of Designer Craftsmen. Born in Grimsby, Sue Stone studied Fashion at St Martins School of Art and then Embroidery at Goldsmiths College in London. In her own words, Sue's mixed media compositions allude to the passing of time by merging images from the past with those from the present. You can check out her blog and more work at Woman With A Fish.
My other Nanna usually gives me money.