DARK TOWN COMES TO PRINT TOWN

2nd May - 1st June

Grand Opening Friday 2nd May 6 - 8pm (bar available)

An exhibition of prints and original work by Johnny Hannah

Jonny Hannah is a freelance illustrator. He has many passions, including the music of Hank Williams, hand drawn lettering & the films of Jacques Tati. 

His recent projects have included Northumberland Folk, & Shipbuilders & Fisherfolk, exploring the length & the breadth of the North-East of England, resulting in six exhibitions between 2021-23. 

Recent publications have included a book called The Story of the Skids, by Richard Jobson, & Let there be Light – a psychogeographical celebration of Hartlepool. 

Jonny lives in the real place of Southampton, but also regularly goes to Darktown, his imaginary peninsula, where Slim Gaillard own McVouty’s, a second hand shop to die for, & Jacques Tourneur runs the local cinema. It’s all in a handsome volume called Greetings from Darktown… have a wee look…

He also plays in a top beat combo, The Postmen, delivering Brutalist Architecture Urban Folk anthems with council estate choruses, about the pandemic, the existential uncertainty of life, & the Elephant Rock.

His latest book is another collaboration with punk-rock legend Mr Jobson, set in Kreuzberg, Berlin. So listen out for The Alabama Song.

And this new exhibition is a collection of this, that & the other, all at UpCo, in the fair town of Otley, a place with an important entry in English print history. So much so, he’s created a new set of posters at Tilley Printing in Ledbury, all created on a Wharfedale press, made in Otley in 1879. Beware the Otley Panther…