once upon a time in an oxford road train station

Armaghan Butt

Inspired by Manchester's modernist architecture and everyday life, Armaghan combines text, digital illustration, printmaking and animation to explore memory, observation and imagination.

Armaghan Butt is an artist based at Venture Arts in Manchester.

Armaghan's practice explores stream of consciousness, typing processes and modernist architecture. His six-month collaboration with The Modernist saw him work on their Architectural City Guide to Manchester, travelling specific routes across the city to create fineline drawings of his favourite buildings.

His highly detailed, observational style — clean, single-line draftsmanship — gives the impression of a direct yet off-kilter tracing from life. Generous areas of negative space let his modernist structures hover mid-air, with blank patches of sky and whited-out trees cutting through the concrete and slicing across the tops of buildings.

This project was supported by Venture Arts project facilitator Jacenta Sellars, and curated by Sarah Boulter, curator at Venture Arts.

Armaghan exhibited for Venture Arts at Manchester Contemporary Art Fair 2025 and has been commissioned for murals around the city.

Published in collabration with Venture Arts.

48pages

B&W illustrations

150mm x 150mm