THE first seven years of an exhibition, which is expected to take a total of 35 years to complete, is currently showing at Gallery Oldham. The exciting new visual exhibition, ‘Dave Ball A to Z: The First Seven Years’ features the work of Swansea born artist Dave Ball and was conceived as a deliberately absurd undertaking and mammoth task!

It's made up of a series of illustrations and photographs that represent the words A to C in the Oxford English Dictionary.

The piece starts with the word 'Aardvark' and goes all the way to 'Cyst'.

Dave’s wider project, ‘A to Z’, when fully completed, will be a collection of drawings and images that visualises every word in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary in alphabetical order.

It’s estimated that around 10,000 visualisations will need to be made to complete all the 26 letters and Dave has said the project will likely take a monumental 35 years to complete.

In 2011 Dave embarked on the journey after he wanted to make art about the world and its surroundings.

He soon realised that the world was frustratingly large and complex, so he had to think of other ways to carry out his passion.

Residents can now view the first seven years of his hard work at Gallery Oldham until March 2.

The first, piece ‘Aardvark to Axle’ (2011-13), consists of 461 drawings of the “A” words.

The second, ‘Babble to Byte (from Memory)’ (2013-14), features a sequence of 479 “B” drawings produced entirely from memory and finally, ‘All the Cs (Through the Lens of My Camera)’ (2014-18), features 831 photographs of words beginning with “C”.

Councillor Paul Jacques, Cabinet Member for Education and Culture, said: “This exhibition is a brilliant opportunity for visitors and residents to explore the work of such passionate and motivated British artist.

“Dave’s work will appeal not just to a local audience, but to everyone who is involved in creative arts.

“His work is something every artist can aspire to and we invite everyone to come and view this vast project of work.”

“We look forward to the next instalment of his A to Z project.”

For more information go to www.galleryoldham.org.uk.