The third Manchester Contemporary, taking place 28-30 October in Quay House, Spinningfields brings together 10 of the UK’s leading commercial contemporary art galleries alongside a purpose built Print Room – which is a new addition to this year’s exhibition. Manchester gallery The International 3, takes the role of curatorial coordinator bringing together galleries and projects that give art enthusiasts, buyers and collectors the opportunity to access world-class contemporary art.

Arcade, Cole, Man & Eve and Seventeen (all London), Bureau and The International 3 (both Manchester), Ceri Hand Gallery (Liverpool), Mermaid and Monster (Cardiff), Workplace Gallery (Gateshead) and WORKS|PROJECTS (Bristol) all exhibit this year at the Manchester Contemporary 2011.

It’s a staggering display of art – particularly when combined with a trip to the very tempting Buy Art Fair in the same building – but I have picked out a few highlights which shaped my visit, from artists I look forward to meeting again:

The Print Room
Introduced to Manchester Contemporary for 2011, the Print Room is a treasure trove of prints – both from exhibiting artists and a selection of other organisations including The Hepworth Wakefield and Trace – Manchester Metropolitan University. Trace – by MMU print students, staff and invited artists – reflects the diversity in print. From Eastern Pavilions Print Portfolio, Andy Holden’s Lecture on Birdsong poster, with its simple, nostalgic appeal caught my eye, with the strong line-drawn sun appearing from behind a group of birds.

Ceri Hand Gallery (Liverpool) – Samantha Donnelly
Donnelly’s work is a rich mixture of delicate anatomical drawings, overlaid with magazine cut individual limbs and splashes of neon. Her Flesh Out series is very impressive, and a series of bar-top sculptures named after cocktails are quite brashly challenging, playing with feminine shapes and more neon colour pops, as well as texture of jay cloths and the waxy fixing substance juxtaposed with the smooth contours of the pieces.

International 3 – Alison Erika Forde
Forde uses found objects in her work, so her pieces are recognisable from across a gallery and draw me directly to her work. A group of three velvet tasselled wall hangings are layered with Paula Rego reminiscent grotesque faces. Forde invests her pieces with a dark, sinister aspect while at first glance retaining an almost comic fairytale quality.

Workplace Gallery (Gateshead) – Laura Lancaster
Lancaster’s haunting untitled piece with a pink sky and green foreground is based, like a lot of her work, on found photographs. Although using a wide brush and different colours, the photographic element is evident – but with Lancaster’s interpretation comes a somewhat ghostly appearance. The setting and, to a lesser extent the figure, is open to interpretation by the viewer – with a retained sense of anonymity of the subject and private memories for the original photograph owner.

Arcade (London) – Anna Barham
Barham works with a complex and fascinating web of influences – which range here from the different meanings of iris, tangrams and anagrams. Her work with anagrams is what really catches my eye, with a ballpoint pen drawn grid filled with anagrams from the phrase Return To Leptis Magna – revealing associations, links, streams of thought between each, she’s even published an epic poem based on the combination of anagrams. Barham strikes me as an artist who relishes the challenge of exploring infinite permutations and I find viewing her work a hugely rewarding and edifying experience.

Laura Maley blogs on arts and culture at http://www.culturalshenanigans.co.uk