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April 15, 2020April 17, 2020

No York Open Studios in April, but all that art still needs a new home, so look here…DAY SEVENTEEN

Here Be Monsteras ceramicist Kayti Peschke at work

YORK Open Studios 2020, the chance to meet 144 artists at 100 locations over two April weekends, has been cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, with doors sadly shut for the April 17 to 19 and April 25 to 26 event, CharlesHutchPress wants to champion the creativity of York’s artists and makers, who would have been showcasing their ceramics, collage, digital, illustration, jewellery, mixed media, painting, print, photography, sculpture and textiles skills.

Each day, in brochure order, five artists who now miss out on the exposure of Open Studios will be given a pen portrait on these pages, because so much art and craft will have been created for the event and still needs a new home. Addresses will not be included at this time.

Meanwhile, York Open Studios artists are finding their own way to respond to the shutdown by filling their windows with their work instead. Look for #openwindowsyork2020 to locate them. “If you see one in your area while taking your daily exercise, take a picture and let us know,” they say.

Jill Tattersall, mixed media

THIS would have been Jill’s second York Open Studios since she and her The Wolf At The Door art enterprise moved north from Brighton.

Before turning to art, she taught mediaeval French literature, leading to her fascination with the creation myths: Norse, Eastern, European and Aboriginal. “I’m overawed by early cave and rock art, made long ago with the simplest, most elemental means. People looked up into the night sky, just as we do, and must have asked the same questions about their place in the universe.”

Coasts and maps have inspired her too. “I used to live as far from the sea as you can get on this island but, like most of us, I was fascinated by coastlines and the sea,” says Jill. ”I moved, and till recently lived on the south coast, where the light is fabulous. I try to avoid trite seaside scenes and ration myself to a few sea-related pieces a year.”

Town and country are key influences as well. “Subjects just crop up: loaves of bread, a stretch of pavement, a passing scene, reflections in a train window,” she says.

“Often I use my own hand-made cast or moulded cotton paper. I then apply washes of paints, inks, dyes and pure pigments to build up intense, glowing colours, combining gold and silver leaf with recycled elements. Labour intensive, highly individual. The paper has a seductive, unpredictable surface: I like the danger and uncertainty this brings. You can wreck a promising painting at any moment.”

Jill’s paintings are in collections from Peru to Tasmania. Since moving north, she has exhibited at Kunsthuis Gallery, The Dutch House, Crayke. Discover more at jilltattersall.co.uk.

Here Be Monsteras: Ceramics created in a garage studio in a Wolds garden

Here Be Monsteras, Kayti Peschke, ceramics

KAYTI creates ceramics under the name of Here Be Monsteras from her garage studio in her garden in the Wolds east of York.

Her background is in photography and magazine design, but a year ago she started making pottery and now she has converted full time. “It has become an obsession,” she says.

Kayti makes wheel-thrown ceramics with stoneware clays to create functional objects for the home. “A collection of special pieces that bring a bit of extra joy to the ordinary,” as she put it ahead of what would have been her York Open Studios debut.

“It has become an obsession,” says Kayti Peschke of her conversion to making pottery

She has been working on new collections, including screen-printing ceramics with artist Jade Blood, creating travel cups and a full dinnerware set, as well as collaborating with restaurants and cafés that serve their menus on her tableware.

“A cup of tea in a handmade cup really does taste better, maybe because the process feels more special or you take more time over it? I’m not sure why, but it’s true,” she says.

In her home studio, the cups of tea flow and her puppies hang out in the sunshine as she listens to BBC 6Music or podcasts. “I absolutely love being out there, creating, and hopefully this shows in the things I make.”

As testament to that, her ceramics can be found in York at Kiosk, Fossgate; Sketch By Origin, York Art Gallery; Walter & May, Bishopthorpe Road; Lotte The Baker, SparkYork and Botanic York, Walmgate. Take a look at herebemonsteras.com.

Gold needle necklace, by Joanna Wakefield

Joanna Wakefield, jewellery

DESIGNER jeweller Joanna’s work combines her two passions, jewellery and textiles, with the third essential element of her memories, observations and musings.

Joanna creates silver and gold jewellery inspired by textiles, haberdashery and her vintage collections and found objects.

Her work invokes a sense of nostalgia. Alongside button-inspired pieces is a delicate interpretation of handcrafted bobbins, thimbles, measures and needles.

Joanna first trained in design, specialising in textiles, having grown up in a family environment of three generations of needlewomen.

Joanna Wakefield: Switched from textile designs to jewellery designs

She travelled the world as a Fair Trade designer, but after more than ten years she could no longer ignore her desire to develop further creatively, leading her to re-train at York School of Jewellery.

“A huge part of my jewellery designs is influenced by textiles and haberdashery, stemming from a fascination that grew from admiring my Grandma’s talents and fond memories of sorting through her button stash,” says Joanna, whose work was to have featured in the MADE shop at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, near Wakefield, from March 7 to June 21.

Take a shine to Joanna’s jewellery at joannawakefield.com.

” I’ve always had an interest in natural history and the British countryside,” says Mark Hearld

Mark Hearld, collage, printmaking and ceramics

MARK studied illustration at Glasgow School of Art and an MA in natural history illustration at the Royal College of Art in 1999 before breaking into the artistic world with exhibitions at Godfrey & Watt in Harrogate and St Jude’s in Norfolk and in London’s arty Lower Sloane Street.

He specialises in bright collages, paintings, limited-edition lithographic and lino-cut prints and now hand-painted ceramics, his work often involving animals and birds, flora and fauna.

“I’ve always had an interest in natural history and the British countryside,” says Mark, 46, who is strongly influenced too by mid-20th century art and design. “I like the idea of the artist working as a designer rather than making images to stick in a frame,” he reasons.

Mark Hearld: Birds, beasts, flora and fauna

He undertook a set-design commission for the 2005 film Nanny McPhee and has done design projects for Tate Britain – cups, jugs, plates and scarves – and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, near Wakefield, where he held a solo show, Birds and Beasts, from November 2012 to February 2013.

In 2012, Merrell Books published Mark Hearld’s Work Book, the first book devoted to his work, and he has illustrated such books as Nicola Davies’s A First Book Of Nature (2012) and Nature Poems: Give Me Instead Of A Card (2019).

He curated the Lumber Room exhibition at the re-opened York Art Gallery from August 2015 after its £8 million development project, as well as a re-imagining of the British Folk Art Collection at Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park. Contact him via mark.a.hearld@googlemail.com.

Lauren Terry, Lauren’s Cows, painting

Out in the fields: Lauren’s Cows artist Lauren Terry

LAUREN has moved out of Bar Lane Studios, not too far away, to a new studio workspace overlooking Micklegate Bar and Blossom Street, where her focus remains on creating vibrant cow paintings, prints and homeware.

Lauren’s Cows had began with a one-off painting of a cow that she painted while working as a waitress and actress in the heart of London.

Growing tired of city life, she craved a window to her country childhood. What better view than a curious cow peering in on her kitchen table?

The framer in North Yorkshire was so taken by the characterful cow that he offered to host an exhibition if Lauren agreed to paint 20 more of her beautiful beasts.

The response this debut show generated gave her the confidence to change career tack by launching her art business and brand, and so Lauren’s Cows was born in 2012: a daughter-and-mother partnership where Lauren paints character-filled cattle in heavy-bodied acrylic paint and designing items for the home in her York studio and Jude takes care of business from the family home at Crackenthorpe, Appleby-in-Westmoreland.

“I love what I do,” says Lauren. “Cows have such a curious nature and humorous personality that they just make me smile, and I take great pleasure in passing that smile on through my vibrant paintings. It’s all about capturing all the character while still remaining true to the breed.”

Lauren’s Cows can be found at laurenscows.com.

TOMORROW: Sharon McDonagh; Jane Dignum; Carolyn Coles; Adele Karmazyn and Nathan Combes

April 14, 2020

No York Open Studios in April, but all that art still needs a new home, so look here…DAY SIXTEEN

York,Christmas Eve, 2019, by Simon Palmour

YORK Open Studios 2020, the chance to meet 144 artists at 100 locations over two April weekends, has been cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ben Arnup, ceramics

BEN defines his ceramics as art pottery, wherein an early obsession with perspective has developed into a play between drawn description and form.

“I like to play a game: setting the prosaic nature of clay against the unlikely structures of the drawings,” says Ben of his oxidised stoneware with inlays and colourful porcelain veneers, fired in an electric kiln.

The son of the late Mick and Sally Arnup, painter and potter and sculptor respectively, he grew up learning ceramic skills and technology.

Ben Arnup: “I like to play a game,” he says

Having trained as a landscape architect at Manchester Polytechnic, he worked for Landscape Design Associates in Peterborough, before he returned to making pots influenced by the design process in 1984.

Now a fellow of the Craft Potters Association, he works out of a basement workshop in his York home, exhibiting his ceramics in Britain, Europe and North America. Learn more at benarnup.co.uk.

Jo Bagshaw, jewellery

THE central theme of Jo’s work is to create beautiful, wearable collections of silver jewellery that follow simple lines and shapes.

“I’m inspired by everyday objects, vintage items and novelties,” she says. “I sometimes include these elements directly in my work, encasing and embellishing them with precious metals to give a fresh perspective to a familiar object.

Jo Bagshaw: Inspired by everyday objects, vintage items and novelties

“I often weave a narrative into my jewellery, incorporating messages or well-known sayings to an item that convey meaning to the wearer.

After completing a degree in metalwork and jewellery in 2004, Jo launched her jewellery business in 2006. Since then, she has combined this with teaching jewellery-making skills at The Mount School, York. More details at jobagshaw.co.uk.

Clay in hand: Feet in Clay ceramicist and multi-media artist Francesca King

Francesca King, ceramics/multi-media

FRANCESCA founded her ceramics practice in 2016 to explore surface, texture and formation of agate clay. She has exhibited nationally, alongside undertaking ceramic portrait commissions and teaching.

Now in the second year of her MA in fine art, she was awarded first prize in an international art competition, leading to a week’s residency at Urbino University, Italy.

Francesca, who is also a clay therapist, is taking clay into a more interactive aspect of sculpture with her Feet in Clay installation: an interactive sculptural exhibit that “promotes the positive aspects of clay in motion, stimulating the corporeal experience for participants”.

The Feet in Clay experience would have been offered during Francesca’s exhibition for York Open Studios 2020, for which she was one of the annual event’s multimedia bursary recipients.

This bursary enables artists to create experiences such as digital works, installations, films or performances as part of York Open Studios.

For the full picture, take a look at francescakingceramics.com.

Photographer Simon Palmour: Likes to remove the glass barrier between viewer and image

Simon Palmour, photography

SIMON has been a photographer for 35 years, having his work published and exhibited at many locations, not least the Royal Geographical Society.

Abstract images are extracted from landscapes and reproduced on several media, such as aluminium, acrylic and board to “remove the glass barrier between viewer and image”.

Last year, his photographic essay on The Yorkshire High Wolds was published. This year, he was timing the publication of his new project on the Yorkshire Elmet flatlands to coincide with York Open Studios 2020.

A theme of his photography is ambiguity, whether of scale, subject, point of view or colour (much, although not all, of his work being monochrome). “The aim is to invite contemplation, to reward repeated consideration and to cause a little confusion,” he says.

Simon also carries out portrait work, commissions and workshops, as well as teaching groups and offering personal tuition.

After the cancellation of this year’s York Open Studios, he is holding a Virtual Show instead throughout April. Visit palmourphotographics.blogspot.com/p/virtual-exhibition.html daily.

“Each day, I’ll add a different piece to the show, with the story behind the shot and the cost of a print,” he says. Those images can be bought at palmour@gmail.com.

Elena Panina, textiles

ELENA is a Russian-born textile artist who works with wool, silk and decorative fibres.

Using wet felting techniques, she makes wearable art pieces: necklaces, shawls and throws, bracelets, headwear, belts, hand bags, toys and wall hangings.

Elena was born and brought up in St Petersburg, moving to Britain 15 years ago. She attended arts college in St Petersburg and her past artwork centred on ink drawings, until she discovered wet and needle felting three years ago.

Elena Panina: Drawn to the magical qualities of felting

Studying felting from Russian felt makers, she was drawn immediately to its magical properties as she learnt how to produce cloth out of fibres.

As well as an artist, she is a teacher. She can be contacted via yelenavpanina@sky.com.

TOMORROW: Jill Tattersall; Here Be Monsters; Joanna Wakefield; Mark Hearld and Lauren Terry.

April 14, 2020April 15, 2020

Nouvelle Vague to ride a bossa nova new wave at Leeds City Varieties in October

Nouvelle Vague: Playing Leeds City Varieties this autumn

FRENCH fancy covers band Nouvelle Vague will play Leeds City Varieties on October 13 on their 15 Years Anniversary Tour, now running into a 16^th year.

Nouvelle Vague translates as “bossa nova” in Portuguese and “new wave” in English, explaining Marc Collin and Oliver Libaux’s choice of moniker that encapsulates the Parisian group’s concept of remaking classic New Wave singles with a Brazilian pop twist.

By appropriating the punk and post-punk cannon and running it through the Bossa Nova filter, they re-invented the cover-band genre, revealing new singing talents along the way such as Camille, Phoebe Killdeer, Nadeah, Mélanie Pain and Liset Alea.

The group’s first two albums, 2004’s Nouvelle Vague and 2006’s Bande A Part, defined their urbane retro sound , while third album, 2009’s NV3, featured collaborations with Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore, Echo & The Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch, The Specials’ Terry Hall, Barry Adamson, The Saints and Minimal Compact.

Subsequently, they have released the live album Acoustic in 2009; Best Of Nouvelle Vague and Couleurs Sur Paris in 2010; I Could Be Happy in 2016 and Curiosities and Rarities in 2019.

Nouvelle Vague will perform their 23-date autumn tour with a line-up of Collin, Libaux, Pain, Killdeer and Elodie Frégé. Killdeer and Pain will sing at the shows from October 9 to 20, including Leeds; Frégé and Pain from October 22 Tickets for the only Yorkshire date are on sale at cityvarieties.co.uk.

April 14, 2020

Kentmere House Gallery still finds a way to celebrate artist Jack Hellewell’s centenary

North York Moors, by Jack Hellewell, 1920-2000

KENTMERE House Gallery always intended to devote much of this year’s exhibition programme to Jack Hellewell, as 2020 would have been his centenary year.

Ann Petherick’s gallery, in Scarcroft Hill, York, is closed under the Coronavirus lockdown, but the website is being updated regularly, especially his section.

“You may not be able to go to the Yorkshire Dales over the Easter break, but you can still enjoy Jack Hellewell’s views of Yorkshire and elsewhere online until such time as you can see the real thing,” says Ann.

“There will be a rolling exhibition of Jack’s work from the date of the gallery re-opening, including works on paper and on canvas, with prices ranging from £500 to £1,500.”

After his death in 2000, Kentmere House Gallery was appointed to manage Jack’s artistic estate on behalf of his family, since when exhibitions have been held in Ilkley, Leeds, Stoke-on-Trent, Bristol, London and Vienna. “There were several more planned in 2020, although some may now have to be deferred to 2021,” says Ann.

Ever since Ann saw Jack’s work in a gallery in Ilkley 25 years ago, he has been one of her gallery’s most loved and respected artists and work from his studio is on show there permanently.

“Jack lived for his painting, describing himself as ‘a fanatical painter’ and spending all day and every day painting, especially after his wife died,” says Ann. “Towards the end of his life, his daughter said the only way she knew he was really ill was when he stopped painting

“He loved it when he sold work but hated having to be involved with the selling and, as a result, most of the work we show will never have been seen before outside his studio.”

Ilkley Moor, Yorkshire, by Jack Hellewell

Jack’s attic flat overlooking Ilkley Moor was always neatly stacked with canvasses and work on paper. “Initially he would say ‘I haven’t done much’, and then the paintings would start to appear: astounding in their quality and consistency and always singing with colour,” says Ann.

“The gentlest, quietest and most modest of men, there were few who were privileged to know him, but he had a delightful sense of humour, which also appears in his paintings.”

Jack Hellewell was a Yorkshireman through and through. Born in Bradford in 1920, he trained as a painter at Bradford College of Art – where David Hockney studied too – from 1949 to 1952 and in later life lived in Menston and Ilkley.

He saw war service in Egypt, North Africa and Italy and he then worked as a graphic designer. His travels with his family took him to Australia, Austria, New Zealand, the South Seas and, frequently, to Scotland.

Socotra, Indian Ocean, by Jack Hellewell

In 1976, he gave up his design work to become a full-time painter, returning to West Yorkshire to do so.

“All his work was executed entirely from memory – he always refused to sketch on site, believing that ‘it ties you down’ – and everything was derived from personal experiences,” says Ann.

“Jack’s travels and encounters had a dramatic impact on his painting and he had an amazing ability to retain the essence of a place, so that years – or even decades later – he could produce a painting from it.”

Much of his work used the visual experience of intense light in warmer climates, as compared with the more subtle light he found in Britain.

The front door of Kentmere House Gallery: Closed until further notice, but gallery owner Ann Petherick is still operating an online service

“Jack always worked in acrylic, enjoying the contrasts it offers between strong and subtle colours, and the feeling of movement, which is such a feature of his work,” says Ann. “He had the ability both to use the medium neat on canvas or diluted on paper, the latter giving the effect of the most delicate watercolour.”

Jack exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition on several occasions in the 1990s; his work was featured on the Tyne Tees Television arts programme North-East Line and he has an entry in the definitive publication Artists In Britain Since 1945.

“All this leads me to wonder how many other such artists there are: producing superbly rich and inspired work, yet largely unknown to the public and even more so to the art world, and never receiving a penny of public funding, nor any public recognition,” says Ann, who continues to ensure that all’s well that’s Hellewell by promoting his art assiduously in his centenary year.

Did you know?

WORKS by Jack Hellewell are in the collections of British Rail; National Power Company; Sheffield Museums; Mercer Gallery, Harrogate; Rochdale Art Gallery; Rutherston Art Loan Scheme, Manchester City Art Gallery; Barclays Asset Management, Leeds & Birmingham, and Provident Financial, Bradford.

April 13, 2020

No York Open Studios in April, but all that art still needs a new home, so look here…DAY FIFTEEN

YORK Open Studios 2020, the chance to meet 144 artists at 100 locations over two April weekends, has been cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Angela Anning, textiles

ANGELA makes one-off wearable art – scarves, shawls and jewellery – using fine silks, cottons and wools.

She also creates highly textured wall art, applying wet felting techniques to bond and sculpt natural materials, sometimes overlaid with hand or machine stitching. She designs lampshades too, decorated with fabric paint and machine embroidery.

“The theme is treasures in nature,” says Angela, whose textile art is inspired by sketches and photographs of landscapes and natural objects she experiences. “My work is always influenced by the qualities and characteristics of natural materials as I work with them.”

For Angela, textile art is a second career, after a degree in fine art and English and years as an educator, researcher, academic and writer, working mainly in Manchester and Leeds.

“But I sustained a passion for and active interest in textiles and fashion alongside my professional life,” she says. Fifteen years of developing work in fine and decorative arts has ensued. Take a look at anningtextiles.com.

“My aim is to translate the dynamism and sensitivity of my former career as a musician into a ‘visual music’ in clay,” says Pamela Thorby

Pamela Thorby, ceramics

PAMELA left behind a distinguished career in music as a recorder virtuoso and academic to pursue a new path in fine art.

Her stoneware-fired porcelain sculptural vessels are “imagined but reminiscent of a multiplicity of organic forms”: whether interstellar, fossil, micro-organism or coral.

“I aspire to make work light enough to be hung in the air; strong enough to be placed piece inside piece, creating new possibilities of form and meaning,” says Pamela. “My aim is to translate the dynamism and sensitivity of my former career as a musician into a ‘visual music’ in clay.”

Pamela Thorby: “Making work light enough to be hung in the air”

She was “so excited” to have been selected for her first participation in York Open Studios. “This was another one of the goals that I set myself and here we are, in my second year as a ceramicist, and I’m working towards a major body of work for this fantastic event in April,” she said at the time.

In her esteemed career in music, Pamela was professor of recorder at the Royal Academy of Music in London until 2019; the regular recorder player for Welsh composer Sir Karl Jenkins’s projects and a member of such groups as La Serenissima, New London Consort and Palladian Ensemble with Baroque violinist Rachel Podger.

In May 2007, she performed a radical fusion of jazz and folk music with Perfect Houseplants at the National Centre for Early Music in York, an innovative experience she described memorably as: “I’m a bit like a gherkin on a salad plate: I’m adding piquancy to the mix.”

To discover more, go to pamelathorby.com.

Andrian Melka, sculpture

ANDRIAN began studying art and sculpture at the age of ten, graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana, Albania, in 1994.

He moved to England in 1997 with a Getty scholarship and spent a year at the Building Crafts College in London, where he was awarded the City & Guilds Silver Medal for Excellence and granted the Freedom of Carpenters’ Company and the Freedom of the City of London.

He headed to York to work as head sculptor with the renowned carver Dick Reid on high-profile commissions such as the Jubilee Fountain on Sandringham Estate to commemorate HM The Queen’s Golden Jubilee and figures of Christ and Madonna for St Mungo’s Church in Glasgow.

Since opening his own studio near York in 2003, he has taken on commissions from Lord Rothschild, HRH The Prince of Wales, Lord Conrad Black and the Earl of Halifax.

His work in bronze, marble and stone ranges from figurative sculptures and portraits to abstractions based on the human form.

Attention to detail and the right finish are important to Andrian, who approaches his work differently from most other studios, working directly in stone without the need for full-size models in the same way Michelangelo would have done. See the results at melkasculpture.com.

Isabel K-J Denyer, ceramics

ISABEL loves to know that her oven-proof stoneware and porcelain pottery will be used on an everyday basis, for all occasions and celebrations, as she aims to make the presentation of food “sing”.

“It gives me great pleasure to think that they are part of people’s daily lives as they serve and enjoy food in different ways, from a family meal to special occasions,” she says. “This, for me, makes the process complete and creates a mutual message between me, the maker, and the user and is the essence of my working life.”

Isabel’s stoneware and porcelain pots are thrown on an electric wheel and are reduction-fired in a gas kiln. “Form and function are absolutely integral to the work and my objective is to make pots to be used, handled, cherished and cooked in,” she says.

The making of pots gives Isabel a sense of peace. “I’m attracted to the forms made by the Etruscans, Koreans and the early Bronze Age Cycladic period and these are the pots I mostly draw in museums,” she says.

“For my own work, I prefer to work shapes out by making them first, helped along by exploratory drawings at a later stage and then allowing them to evolve and change over the years. This makes for a constant voyage of excitement and discovery.”

Isabel trained in the 1960s on the Harrow Studio Pottery course, later potting in the United States and Jamaica. Since moving to Yorkshire in the early 1980s, she has been a member of the Northern Potters Association, serving on the committee for nine years and as chair, and she is a member of the Craft Potters Association too. Learn more at isabeldenyer.co.uk.

Pennie Lordan, painter of landscapes

PENNIE’S oil paintings explore the stark contrast and parallels that exist between loss and hope, sensitivity and brutality, isolation and connectedness through the theme of Edgelands.

“My paintings are developed from studies that come directly from location sketches, often on pre-prepared grounds that reference a sense of composition and atmosphere,” she says.

“These studies then develop into oil paintings, built on varied prepared grounds and developed through the process of multiple thin layers of oil paint and cold wax, often applied, wiped back and re-applied.”

Her work is both on linen, incorporating subtle stitching, and on disregarded found materials, such as pitched pine, board or aluminium.

Londoner Pennie runs two creative businesses in York with her husband, arriving here with a background in animation, art and education. Recently she completed three years of studying landscape painting at Leith School of Art in Edinburgh. 2020 would have been her first year in York Open Studios. More details: pennielordan.com.

TOMORROW: Ben Arnup; Jo Bagshaw; Francesca King; Simon Palmour and Elena Panina.

April 12, 2020April 17, 2020

No York Open Studios in April, but all that art still needs a new home, so look here…DAY FOURTEEN

YORK Open Studios 2020, the chance to meet 144 artists at 100 locations over two April weekends, has been cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The imperfections tell the story of the making,” says Kate Buckley

Kate Buckley, sculptural porcelain

ORIGINALLY from North Wales, Kate has lived in York for two decades as a partner, mother, teacher, artist and designer.

Having taught for more than 20 years, now she has graduated with a first-class contemporary craft degree from York College and is a UK prize winner in the Eleanor Worthington International Art Prize in Tertiary Education (Italy and the UK).

Porcelain meets origami in her thought-provoking sculptural works that favour a stripped-back colour palette focusing on light and shade. She uses slip-cast and press-moulded folded parchment and linen, together with folded surface distortion in concrete and plaster.

Kate Buckley: Demonstrating the delicacy of paper in porcelain

“The product is the sum of the process and the imperfections tell the story of the making,” says Kate, who is a member of the British Origami Society and artist-in-residence at York College.

“My time there is spent striving to express the delicacy of paper in porcelain and investigating how geometry, repetition and folding capture the interplay of shadow and light and embrace the space between.”

Since 2017, Kate has exhibited in York (According To McGee, Village Gallery), Harrogate, Newcastle (Holy Biscuit), London (Art. Number 23) and Urbino, Italy, and last year at Kunsthuis Gallery’s Shades of Clay exhibition at The Dutch House, Crayke, and Art& York, York Racecourse. She will return to Art& York from October 23 to 25 this autumn. Go to katebuckley.co.uk to learn more.

Kay Dower, painting

KAY is the resident artist at Corner Gallery, which she first ran in Scarcroft Road for 18 months and now operates from her home.

“Having more space allows me to showcase more art to more people in the context of a relaxed, contemporary home, and of course there’s the excuse to make more of a party out of it,” she reasons. “I’m all for a casual approach to art with a dollop of fun and fizz thrown in for good measure.”

Starting out as an “unserious, serious artist”, she now paints with lashings of acrylics, using a palette knife to give her paintings a sense of freedom and texture. Subjects range from everyday ‘still life’ objects, whether pears or Prosecco, gerberas or gin bottles, to quirky scenes of York.

Among these are classic York buildings and corners of York, depicted from fresh angles, such as York Racecourse and Bishopthorpe Road. “These are artworks that don’t want to hide behind glass,” she says.

Kay welcomes commissions big and small via cornergallery.art/artists/kay-dower/.

Claire Morris, photography

YORK retro book-art photographer Claire likes to encourage people to think about their favourite books in a different way when she brings vintage book covers and iconic characters to life through the lens

“I’ve always had an interest in photography and creating pop-up books,” says Claire, whose primary influence was American photographer Thomas Allen, who would cut characters out of pulp-fiction books and then photograph them.

“I loved this concept so much, I started doing my own versions. His were a bit sexy and I wanted mine to be cleaner.”

Inspired by vintage fictional books, Claire uses paper-cutting techniques to partially free the characters from the book, before dramatically lighting and staging the shot to give the impression of the figure coming to life from the pages, creating a 3D, retro-cool image.

*Claire Morris pictured when she exhibited at Pocklington Arts Centre*

Claire divides her time between working in the health sector and scouring charity shops and second-hand book sales, sourcing images and materials for her next art piece.

“I find inspiration from the characters on the front of the books. There’s something so iconic about book covers from the 1950s,” she says. “I like to highlight the emotions that the characters are showing and telling their story by placing them into a new situation.”

As well as being a permanently featured artist at Kay Dower’s Corner Gallery, Claire has exhibited this year at Pig & Pastry, Bishopthorpe Road, The Gallery, Malton, and Pocklington Arts Centre. Take a look at clairemorris.photography.

Emma Whitelock, painting

DEPICTING evocative land and seascapes in an expressive style, Emma’s work often incorporates a lone female figure as a tiny abstract symbol.

Seeking to portray an emotional connection to land and sea, how the outer world can reflect the inner, the expansiveness of nature acts as a foil to human concerns with memory and solitude.

Her inspiration varies from the dramatic Yorkshire moors and coast, to the exceptional light and vibrancy of Cornish summers.

Emma Whitelock: Depicting land and seascapes

“Using acrylic with mixed media, I build layers that evolve intuitively to create textured, semi-abstract works, where I aim to transport the viewer to wild places,” says Emma.

Her use of colour is both dramatic and ethereal, often giving the works the feeling of being poised on the borderline between day and night. “They are charged moments, filled with remembrances past and possibilities for the future,” she says.

One of Emma’s paintings, featuring a seagull, was used by York Settlement Community Players for artwork for Helen Wilson’s production of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull at the York Theatre Royal Studio earlier this year. Head to emmawhitelock.co.uk for more info.

Peter Donohoe: Exploring the relationship between two people

Peter Donohoe, sculpture

PETER’S sculptures explore the relationship between two people, friends, lovers, real or imagined.

Having graduated from Leeds College of Art in 1969 with an honours degree in sculpture, he worked in mainstream theatre and the museum display industry as a prop maker and commercial sculptor. This gave him a broad experience of both materials and technique.

Peter Donohoe has developed an alternative approach to figurative sculpture

In 2005, he left full-time employment to concentrate on his personal work and to develop an alternative approach to figurative sculpture.

His sculptures are in hand worked copper, patinated and mounted on stone. Visit his website at peterdonohoe.co.uk.

TOMORROW: Angela Anning; Pamela Thorby; Andrian Melka; Isabel K-J Denyer and Pennie Lordan.

April 12, 2020April 12, 2020

Filmed at York Theatre Royal, Emma Rice’s Wise Children is streaming on BBC iPlayer

Showgirl memoirs: Katy Owen, left, Etta Murfitt and Gareth Snook in Wise Children. Pictures: Steven Tanner

YORK Theatre Royal’s co-production of Angela Carter’s Wise Children, made with Emma Rice’s company Wise Children and The Old Vic, is now available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

Adapted and directed by Rice, ever-innovative former artistic director of Cornish company Kneehigh Theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe in London, the show marked the debut of her new Bristol company.

Wise Children was co-produced with The Old Vic, London, where the world premiere opened in 2018, Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, Oxford Playhouse and York Theatre Royal.

In March 2019, a performance of Rice’s exuberantly impish, musical vision of Carter’s last novel was filmed live at the York theatre with support from The Space.

The 138-minute play will be streamed for free for two months on BBC iPlayer as part Culture In Quarantine, the BBC’s arts and culture service to “keep the arts alive in people’s homes”. A screening on BBC 4 in May will be confirmed at a later date.

Billed as a big, bawdy tangle of theatrical joy and pain, Wise Children is a celebration of show business, family, forgiveness and hope as Nora and Dora Chance, twin chorus girls born and bred south of the river, celebrate their 70th birthday in Brixton.

Wise Children artistic director Emma Rice

Across the river in Chelsea, their father and greatest actor of his generation, Melchior Hazard, turns 100, on the same day. As does his twin brother Peregrine. If, in fact, he is still alive. And if, in truth, Melchior is their real father after all.

“When I set up Wise Children, I knew I would open with an adaptation of Wise Children after calling the company that name, presenting Angela Carter’s open love letter to theatre in all its aspects, its power and glories,” said Rice.

“I was a great fan of Angela Carter in my 20s. She has had a magical impact on people’s lives; she’s breath-taking in allowing the unimaginable to happen, so we fit together well!”

To create her adaptation, Rice read Carter’s novel, then wrote down the story or “what I remember of it”, she said. “I then started working on it with the actors, using their collective imaginations, so that they can pass on their own experiences in theatre.”

Rice has a track record for picking unconventional casts, typically so for Wise Children. “The actors I’m drawn to over and over again, and the way I tell stories, reflect how I always like to open up to diversity, expanding on my own experiences of humanity, especially in these polarised times, by looking at people who have had different experiences to your own,” she reasoned.

Against the 2019 backdrop of so much drabness, division, enmity and lost hope, Rice was determined to champion showbusiness, family, forgiveness and hope. “They represent a lot of my life,” she said. “When I talk of family, I mean not only blood family, but how we connect as humans.”

Emma Rice’s company Wise Children in Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers at York Theatre Royal last September

Now, Rice is delighted that Wise Children is being streamed from this week on BBC iPlayer amid the Coronavirus lockdown. “I dreamt about adapting Angela Carter’s Wise Children for years before it became a reality, and, when I finally did make it, it was the first piece I made for my new company,” she says.

“It’s a show I carry deep in my heart; a love letter to theatre, to survival, to family and family of choice. When The Space commissioned us to film it for the BBC, I almost burst with pride!

“I delight in the fact that we now get to share this glorious story with so many others, and hope that the fun, truth, love and generosity poured into it will find its way into sitting rooms across the country.”

Reflecting on Wise Children being part of the BBC’s Culture In Quarantine programming, Rice says: “What feels even more perfect is that we’re releasing it now. Today, more than ever, we need joy, resilience, hope and love of life, which runs through the veins of Wise Children. As Nora and Dora Chance tell us: ‘What a joy it is to dance and sing!’. Never has this been more true. We hope you enjoy.”

Last September, Rice and Wise Children returned to York Theatre Royal for a second co-production, Enid Blyton’s “original post-war Girl Power story, the naughty, nostalgic and perfect for now” Malory Towers: her “happy Lord Of The Flies”, as Rice called it.

Wise Children and the Theatre Royal are to complete a hattrick of collaborations in 2021, this time in tandem with the National Theatre for Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.

The butterfly effect: Emma Rice’s Wise Children company in Angela Carter’s Wise Children

Charles Hutchinson’s review of Wise Children at York Theatre Royal, March 2019. Copyright of The Press, York.

IMAGINE a Victorian vaudeville troupe or a circus travelling across Europe picking up performers, musicians, speciality acts, en route.

It would look not unlike Emma Rice’s new Wise Children company, set up since she left the artistic directorship of Shakespeare’s Globe and more in keeping with her 20 years leading Cornish company Kneehigh.

Do not take it the wrong way when I say Rice’s Wise Children are a modern-day freak show, not in the overt manner of the Circus of Horrors, but in how Rice celebrates, liberates and embraces beauty in all forms: a message for this age of Brexit intolerance for “outsiders” and fashion magazine photo-shopped “perfection”.

Vicki Mortimer’s design echoes circus in its lighting, while the set is dominated by a caravan, again recalling travelling troupes in Rice’s adaptation of Angela Carter’s last novel: a “celebration of showbusiness, family, forgiveness and hope” that receives a big, bold, bouncy, exuberant, darkly imaginative, saucy interpretation.

Opening on the 75th birthday of The Lucky Chances, Brixton showgirl twins Nora and Dora Chance, Rice’s hyper-production jumps around in time to tell their life story.

On the way she employs puppetry; glorious live music; theatrical in-jokes; old Bob Monkhouse and Max Miller gags; Shakespeare quotes; much mischief making, scabrous scandal and mistaken identities; men playing women, women playing men, and multiple versions of the same character at different ages.

Fabulous show, fabulous performers, fabulous butterflies too.

April 11, 2020

No York Open Studios in April, but all that art still needs a new home, so look here…DAY THIRTEEN

YORK Open Studios 2020, the chance to meet 144 artists at 100 locations over two April weekends, has been cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Fiona Kemp, painting

FIONA’S paintings and prints depict northern cities, wherein she finds unusual perspectives and uses reflections as a device to encourage viewers to reassess their surroundings.

“I’m interested in the decay and renewal of urban spaces,” says Fiona, who employs diverse media, such as watercolour, acrylic, lino-print and etching.

“My work records the changing face of the city environment: the demolition, the re-building, the restoration and the altered skylines. I’m fascinated by the transient moments where reflections shimmer and fracture in the windows, puddles and canals.”

She continues: “The distortions and blurring created in this way create a mysterious and unusual view of these everyday scenes. At dusk, the scene transforms into an explosion of lights and colour.”

Fiona studied fine art in Sheffield, later gaining an MA in printmaking from Bradford College, and has exhibited at Saltaire Open Houses, Bradford Industrial Museum, Sheffield University and Tokarska Gallery, London. Since moving to York, she has started a series of paintings of the city that would have featured in her York Open Studios debut. Find out more at fiona2349@gmail.com.

Chris Whittaker, painting

CHRIS is a polymath: artist, poet, writer, cartoonist and former art lecturer, who managed further education colleges in Cheshire and Yorkshire.

Once the head of the School of Design in Scarborough, he started painting in earnest after he retired. Now he paints in the mountains of southern Spain, where he has a house in a remote village, and draws in studios in York, where he is a member of several drawing groups. He spends roughly half his year in each place.

He favours using a wide range of media in his drawings of rural landscapes, personalised still lives and scenes of York and Spain, his art marked by a bold and fluid style.

Chris Whittaker: Started painting in earnest once he retired

Chris, who trained at Manchester School of Art in the 1960s and later attended university in London and Leeds, says: “For me, drawing is a focus, a way of looking at the world so as to translate a confusing array of surfaces into marks on paper.

“Other artists remark that I look as if I am ‘fencing the canvas’. Working on a large drawing or painting is certainly an intense experience and quite physical. Even after all my years of experience, an evening’s drawing will leave me drained, triumphant or disappointed.”

2020 would have been his first year as a York Open Studios artist. Take a look at goggleme.co.uk instead.

An abstract geometric piece of jewellery by Laura Masheder

Laura Masheder, jewellery

LAURA trained originally as a classical singer, attending Leeds College of Music, and left to raise a family and work in catering management for a decade.

On rekindling her creative ambitions, she studied an Access to Higher Education course in art and design, leading to her degree studies in contemporary craft at York College, where she is in her final year.

In her hand-crafted hallmarked silver jewellery, she specialises in chasing and repoussé techniques, while also experimenting with wax casting and silver clay.

Her jewellery is a mix of figurative nature studies and abstract geometric pieces, as can be seen at boochica.com.

Henry Steele relies on his eye to give a sense of aesthetic in his ceramics

Henry Steele, ceramics

A DIAGNOSIS of autism gives Henry an unusual vision of the world around him. From an early age, he refused to conform to numerical concepts. Instead, he relies on his eye to give a sense of aesthetic.

In his art, he uses mixed media, focusing primarily on ceramics. “I’m particularly interested in ancient manufacturing techniques that favour sustainable methods and I often employ discarded items as tools for decoration,” he says.

Henry Steele: “Often employs discarded items as tools for decoration “

Through his work, Henry questions the traditional boundaries of historic styles and fashions, with the intention of prompting the viewer to say to themselves “what if”, “why not” or even “that’s impossible because”.

Like fellow student Laura Masheder, 2020 was to have been his York Open Studios debut. Contact him via henrygeorgesteele@hotmail.co.uk.

Chunky ceramics: The work of Sarah Papps

Sarah Papps, ceramics

SARAH is in the final year of a contemporary craft degree, where her primary focus has been on experimenting with form and colour.

In her York Open Studios debut, she would have been exhibiting hand-built and wheel-thrown chunky pots and tableware.

By compressing and manipulating the clay, her work takes on an identity of its own, producing a contrast of swirling bright colour against the depth of clay. Visit sarahlpapps@gmail.com.

TOMORROW: Kate Buckley; Kay Dower; Claire Morris; Emma Whitelock and Peter Donohoe.

April 10, 2020

No York Open Studios in April, but all that art still needs a new home, so look here…DAY TWELVE

YORK Open Studios 2020, the chance to meet 144 artists at 100 locations over two April weekends, has been cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Caroline Utterson, textiles

CAROLINE combines her two great loves, photography and fabric, in creating one-off embroidered, appliquéd and felted artworks influenced as much by her imagination as by the landscape around her.

After graduating from university with a degree in textiles, she worked for North Yorkshire Police for eight years before travelling to Thailand to teach English.

On her return, using the tools she had to hand, Caroline taught herself freehand machine embroidery, a craft she likens to drawing with a sewing machine.

“The environment is important to me, so I use many recycled fabrics in my work,” says Caroline Utterson

“I’m greatly inspired by animals, nature, my northern roots and my love of travel and photography,” she says. “Forever taking photos of anything that catches my eye, I then convert my pictures into textile artworks, using fabrics, buttons, beads and bits that I have collected over the years. The environment is important to me, so I use many recycled fabrics in my work.”

Caroline launched her It’s Cute textile shop in September 2013. “The name was coined as a result of a happy acronym of my name and what I do: Caroline Utterson Textiles and Embroidery,” she says.

She would have been participating in York Open Studios for the first time this month. Contact her via itscuteshop@yahoo.com.

Marcus Jacka, wood

MARCUS specialises in furniture and objects in wood, usually practical, sometimes only for contemplation.

After many years studying, teaching and researching in Physics, he has, for the past decade, been a full-time woodworker.

The common thread is design and experimentation, in thought, process and materials, as Marcus tries to achieve a spare lightness in what he creates. For more info, go to marcusjacka.com.

“Structure, containment, balance”: Ruth King’s pots

Ruth King, ceramics

RUTH’S slab-built pots explore structure, containment and balance, articulated and enhanced by the passage of vapours in the final salt-glaze firing.

Trained at Camberwell School of Arts and Craft, she moved to York after four years living and working in London. A leading figure in York’s art world, with books to her name too, she is a member of the York Art Workers Association and a Fellow of the Craft Potters Association.

Unexpected yet hauntingly familiar, Ruth’s distinctive ceramic vessels have been exhibited widely and are represented in the collections of York Art Gallery; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh; Royal Ulster Museum, Belfast; Nottingham Castle Museum and the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent.

Her work is available by commission, through exhibitions, at onlineceramics.com and the Contemporary Ceramics Centre, London. More details can be found at ruthkingceramics.com.

Elaine Hughes, collage

ELAINE creates stitched collages using vintage papers and ephemera to depict scenes from an imaginary, whimsical world she calls “Oh Golly Gosh”.

The paper is first coloured and manipulated with a variety of techniques to then illustrate an imaginary patchwork scene.

The text and graphics of old printed papers, along with a love of the character of old buildings and boats, provide inspiration.

“I have a love of the quirky vernacular buildings found in market and seaside towns, as well as ancient cities such as York,” Elaine says. “The charms of bygone eras of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s also play an important part in the aesthetic language of the work.

“Creating patina and pattern”: Elaine Hughes’s collage work

“I use text, fonts and graphics from vintage ephemera, such as old tram tickets, maps and dress-making patterns, to create patina and patterns.”

Elaine, a graduate in embroidery from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2001, has exhibited in galleries across Britain and since launching her Oh Golly Gosh label in 2009, her work has made its way to homes around the world, as well as finding a permanent home in The Written Gallery in York. Take a look at ohgollygosh.co.uk.

Mick Leach’s paintings take inspiration from Russian artists El Lissitzky and Maleyich

Mick Leach, painting

AS a self-taught artist and full-time worker, Mick’s side-career in painting has been taking shape steadily since early 2016.

He works mainly with acrylic paint and chalk powder, along with other media, that he applies to MDF board to achieve a layered, industrial aesthetic in his abstract paintings.

He draws inspiration from El Lissitzky, the Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect, and Kazemir Malevich, the pioneering fellow Russian avant-garde artist and art theorist.

“My work aims to abstract the modern, decaying landscape with textures and geometric composition,” says Mick, who won the 2019 Art& York Best Raw Talent award.

Last May to July, he took part in Pyramid Gallery’s Abstract Paintings exhibition; this month would have seen his York Open Studios debut. Check out mickleach.art.

TOMORROW: Fiona Kemp; Chris Whittaker; Laura Masheder, Sarah Papps and Henry Steele.

April 10, 2020April 10, 2020

Rufus Wainwright unfollows the rules on new album ahead of York Barbican gig

The tour poster for Rufus Wainwright’s Unfollow The Rules show at York Barbican

RUFUS Wainwright will follow the summer release of his new album Unfollow The Rules with an autumn tour booked into York Barbican for October 27.

The American-Canadian baroque, operatic and indie pop singer-songwriter was the first guest for the Royal Albert Hall’s free special isolation sessions, #RoyalAlbertHome, last night.

Out on BMG on July 10, the typically fearless, mischievous and honest Unfollow The Rules will be Wainwright’s ninth studio album and his first set of new compositions since Out Of The Game in 2012.

“I consider Unfollow The Rules my first fully mature album,” says Rufus, 46-year-old son of Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle. “It is like a bookend to the beginning of my career.”

“I consider Unfollow The Rules my first fully mature album,” says Rufus Wainwright. Picture: Tony Hauser

Wainwright will be joined on the road by a new band, featuring Los Angeles guitarist and producer Brian Green, who has worked previously with John Legend, and Phoenix singer-songwriter and keyboardist Rachel Eckroth, erstwhile collaborator with KT Tunstall.

Looking forward to performing a setlist of Wainwright old and new post-Lockdown, Rufus says: “For me, thinking about this tour is like a light at the end of this dark tunnel that we are all in together. It gives me hope and confidence that we will rise above this collectively.

“And while it might seem that we are not moving forward swiftly in this dark long tunnel, I know that we will reach the light again and be able to be together. I cannot wait to be part of that moment for my fans and share this music live with them.”

Tickets for Rufus Wainwright: Unfollow The Rules at York Barbican go on sale on April 17 at 10am at yorkbarbican.co.uk.

*No Joker: York Barbican’s film screening with an orchestra has been cancelled*

MEANWHILE, York Barbican has announced that Joker: Live In Concert on May 17 is off.

“It is with great disappointment that we can confirm our Joker: Live in Concert performance will no longer go ahead due to the COVID-19 outbreak,” the Barbican statement said. “All tickets will be refunded, and please contact your point of purchase if you have any questions.”

The show would have have featured Todd Phillips’s award-laden film being accompanied by an orchestra performing Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score live to build a “vivid, visceral and entirely new Joker viewing experience”.