Exhibitions – Page 27 – charleshutchpress

December 17, 2022December 17, 2022

More Things To Do in York and beyond for Christmas joys, but Armageddon is coming. Hutch’s List No. 110, courtesy of The Press

*A mouse on skis at the Fairfax House exhibition A Townmouse Christmas*

A MOUSE house invasion, Christmas concerts galore, a much-loved musical and a cracking ballet are Charles Hutchinson’s festive fancies.

Exhibition of the week: A Townmouse Christmas, Fairfax House, York, until December 23, 11am to 4pm, last entry, 3.30pm

‘TWAS the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring. Not true! In among the Georgian festive decor, hundreds of decorative town-mice have descended on Fairfax House.

Stealing the cheese and biscuits, running up and down the clocks, even skiing down the banisters, the charming magical mousey scenes complement the 18th-century-style festive foliage that evoke a Fairfax family Christmas of a bygone era in York. Tickets: fairfaxhouse.co.uk.

*Chapter House Choir: Candle-lit carol singing in the nave of York Minster*

Christmas institution of the week in York: Chapter House Choir’s Carols By Candlelight, York Minster, tonight, 7.30pm; doors, 6.45pm

DIRECTED by Benjamin Morris, the Chapter House Choir will be joined in the central nave by the Chapter House Youth Choir, the choir’s Handbell Ringers and York organist William Campbell for a feast of festive music, combining familiar carols with new and exciting compositions.

Jesus Christ The Apple Tree, a carol composed for the choir by founder Andrew Carter, will be premiered. The 90-minute concert with no interval will be dedicated to the memory of Dr Alvan White, the choir’s Candlelighter-in-Chief for these concerts from 2003 to 2018, who died in August. Tickets: “Selling very well” at yorkminster.org.

*Sanna Jeppsson’s Maria Rainer sings to the von Trapp children in Pick Me Up Theatre’s The Sound Of Music*

Musical of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in The Sound Of Music, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until December 30.

COMMONWEALTH Games squash gold medallist and Harrogate man of the musicals James Willstrop plays Captain von Tropp opposite Swedish-born Sanna Jeppsson’s trainee nun turned free-spirited nanny, Maria Rainer, in Robert Readman’s production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s final collaboration.

Three teams of von Trapp children, Team Vienna, Team Graz and Team Linz, will share out the performances at 7.30pm tonight, then December 19, 21, 23, 27, 28 and 29, and at 2.30pm, today, tomorrow, then December 20, 22, 27, 29 and 30. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

*Holly head: Kate Rusby crowned in festive foliage for her Christmas celebrations*

Festive folk concert of the week: Kate Rusby At Christmas, York Barbican, tomorrow, 7.30pm

AFTER marking her 30th anniversary in the folk fold with 30: Happy Returns, an album of collaborations with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Richard Hawley and KT Tunstall, Barnsley folk nightingale Kate Rusby ends the year with her customary Christmas tour.

Joined by her regular folk band, led by husband Damien O’Kane, and her Brass Boys quintet, Rusby draws on South Yorkshire’s Sunday lunchtime pub tradition of singing carols once frowned on by Victorian churches for being too jolly, complemented by festive favourites and her own winter songs. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

*Merry Christmas from The Howl & The Hum*

Christmas fancy dress of the week: Please Please You presents The Howl & The Hum, The Crescent, York, Monday and Tuesday, 7.30pm, both sold out

DEMAND was so high for York band The Howl & The Hum’s now traditional Yuletide celebration at The Crescent that a Monday show was added to the fully booked Tuesday gig. All tickets have gone for that night too.

What will frontman Sam Griffiths wear after raiding the Nativity Play dressing-up box for angel wings in 2019 and bedecking himself as a lit-up Christmas tree in 2021? And which Christmas classic will they reinvent in the wake of The Pogues’ Fairytale Of New York last time when joined by fellow York combo Bull?

The New York Brass Band’s two Xmas Party gigs on December 22 and 23 at 7.30pm have sold out too.

Christmas revival of the week: Northern Ballet in The Nutcracker, Leeds Grand Theatre, Tuesday to January 7 2023

*The Nutcracker: Northern Ballet’s festive delight returns to Leeds Grand Theatre. Picture: Emily Nuttall*

LEEDS company Northern Ballet’s touring revival of former artistic director David Nixon’s festive favourite heads home for a three-week finale at the Grand, replete with gorgeous Regency-style sets by Charles Cusick Smith.

“The Nutcracker is not just a ballet, it is a tradition for many families and generations, a way of having shared memories at a time of year when togetherness turns to the fore,” says Nixon. “I believe that The Nutcracker offers the perfect festive escapism for every generation, a chance to revel in the child-like magic of Christmas.” Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.

*The York Waits: Christmas music on shawms, sackbuts, curtals, crumhorns, bagpipes* *and more*

The wait is almost over for…The York Waits’ Christmas concert: The Waits’ Wassail: Music for Advent and Christmas, National Centre for Early Music, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm

THE York Waits, now in their 45th year of re-creating the historic city band, present Mirth & Melody Of Angels, music for Christmas and the festive season from medieval and renaissance Europe, performed by Tim Bayley, Lizzie Gutteridge, Anna Marshall, Susan Marshall and William Marshall with singer Deborah Catterall.

Angels abound, from the 1350’s Angelus ad Virginem to Orlando Gibbons’ Thus Angels Sung from the late-Elizabethan era. Familiar German chorales are followed by French Noels and Mediterranean folk songs, played on shawms, sackbuts, curtals, crumhorns, bagpipes, recorders, flutes, fiddles, rebec, guitar, hurdy gurdy and portative organ. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Baaaaaarrrrgggghhhhhhbican frustration! Ricky Gervais’s brace of Armageddon dates at York Barbican sold out in 27 minutes

Apocalypse next month: Ricky Gervais, Armageddon, York Barbican, January 10 and 11 2023, 7.30pm precisely

ARMAGEDDON is not the end of the world as we know it but the name of grouchy comedian, actor, screenwriter, director, singer, podcaster and awards ceremony host Ricky Gervais’s new tour show.

Gervais, 61, will be torching “woke over-earnestness and the contradictions of modern political correctness while imagining how it all might end for our ‘one species of narcissistic ape’,” according to the Guardian review of his Manchester Apollo gig. Box office? Oh dear, you’re too late for Armageddon; both nights have sold out.

Also recommended but selling out fast: The Shepherd Group Brass Band Christmas Concert, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight, 7.30pm

ONLY the last few tickets remain for this Christmas concert featuring all the bands that make up the Shepherd Group Brass Band, from their Brass Roots absolute beginners to the championship section Senior Band, playing a variety of Christmas and seasonal music with plenty of audience participation. Box office: josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

December 13, 2022December 14, 2022

Adele Karmazyn’s imaginarium of creatures, objects and other lives ventures into Hidden Spaces in City Screen café exhibition

*Out Of Sight, digital photomontage, by Adele Karmazyn, from her City Screen Picturehouse exhibition in York*

INSPIRED by October’s York Unlocked event, York Open Studios regular Adele Karmazyn is opening doors to Hidden Spaces in her new exhibition.

Embracing the opportunity to visit the city’s historic hidden places, she took photographs on the way, and now those photos form the backdrop for her new body of digital photomontages on show in the City Screen Picturehouse café, in Coney Street, York, until January 14 2023.

Each piece in Hidden Spaces evolves into an individual story when Adele brings in her 19th century characters, taken from old cabinet photographs, and combines these with other photographs of objects, landscapes and creatures.

By merging multiple layers and concentrating on light and depth, she creates “realistic, believable scenarios, which at the same time could never possibly be”.

*Adele Karmazyn at work in her Holgate garden studio*

Here CharlesHutchPress asks questions to send Adele into her flights of fantasy…or maybe ghost stories of lives that could have been.

What drew you to the City Screen café as a location for an exhibition? Is this the first time that you have exhibited there?

“I love the City Screen building with the river backdrop. I’ve exhibited once before upstairs but never in the café. It’s a wonderful spot for my work, being full of stories and imagination, just like the films on show there.”

Which hidden places in York did you visit during the York Unlocked weekend in October?

“York Unlocked was a great opportunity for me to take lots of photographs to use in my work. I ran around the city like a headless chicken! I was particularly impressed with the Masonic Hall and the York Guildhall, which I‘d never been to before. I’m sure these spaces will feature not only in this collection but again in future collections.”

How did the buildings spark your imagination for Hidden Spaces?

“I was already planning to create a collection centred around the old (Grays Court) and present Treasurer’s House, which I’d visited and photographed already. So when I heard about this event, I decided ‘Hidden Spaces’ could be any historic building in York.”

How did you settle on that title?

“Well, when I choose a title, I spend a moment looking at the images as they are ‘in progress’. They all look like secretive places, hidden away from the crowds. This is the feeling I got also when these doors opened, and I got to see behind these (often) closed doors.”

Why do creatures as well as humans feature so prominently in your work?

“I think there’s a creature of some sort in every image, be it a bird, a butterfly or a beetle. I feel it brings more life to the image and creates a connection between the character and nature. I also love it when you don’t always see everything on first glance, and hiding some creature makes the images more interesting and surprising.”

*The 19th century photograph of a father and daughter, adapted by Adele in Cat And Canaries*

How long does it take to create each multi-layered work?

“Some pieces flow really nicely and I can complete it in a few weeks, but some can have a rough ride, where I get stuck and nothing makes sense or I don’t have the right character.

“I may have ‘something’ but there’s a missing piece and these can sit in my folders for months. My images are a tornado of imagination and chance. It’s a really fun and also sometimes frustrating process, but when that magic happens and the ideas and images come together, it’s really exciting and why I love working this way.”

Further explore your assertion that each piece features a “realistic, believable scenario, which at the same time could never possibly be”…

“Digital collage artists can create so many scenarios, from totally surreal and roughly pieced-together images to the subtle changes of a realistic photograph.”

“What I’m trying to achieve is an image that looks almost painted, as opposed to ‘photographic’, and by mixing water where there would never be, or a cloud in a room, or wild animals inside a Victorian skirt, so your eyes see this is actually happening in the image but the brain knows this could not actually happen. I believe it’s called ‘Magic Realism’.”

Are they images of ghosts coming alive or of lives that could have been?

“I like to think of it as giving them another life, full of adventure and stories untold. Of course there is a ghost-like quality to the images but nothing too dark.”

Is it lazy to label them as “surrealist”?

“A couple of my pieces I would say are bordering on surreal, but mostly they are dreamlike images, theatrical, imaginative and curious.”

*Two Girls, 19th century photograph, whose image re-emerges in Adele Karmazyn’s All Of A Flutter*

Are there hidden meanings to these Hidden Spaces?

“If the viewer finds a meaning, then that is what it is. I like to leave the interpretation up to each individual. I do like to work with a theme, and some have meaning to me that may mean something entirely different to someone else.”

Who would be your influences? Magritte? Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam? Maybe even Glen Baxter?

“I do love the work of Magritte. I follow many modern-day artists who inspire me, such as Daria Pertilli, Maggie Taylor and Christian Schloe.”

*“My images are a tornado of imagination and chance,” says Adele. Witness Into The Lights, above*

There seems to be a balance between humour and something more troubling: the images are frozen in time past awaiting release in the viewer’s imagination that could take both the incumbents and the viewer anywhere. See above: Those Canada Geese in flight….how did they get in there? Where are they going? Why are they in there? Will they get out? So many possibilities! Like in Tracy Chevalier’s novel, inspired by Johannes Vermeer’s Dutch Golden Age oil painting Girl With A Pearl Earring. Discuss…

“Wouldn’t it be amazing if a whole story was written from an image. This is what I love about the process of image making. I start with nothing, then I find a character, then a space, then things get thrown in and taken out and a story evolves and changes.

“My best-selling image is ‘Survival’, a picture of a young girl sailing in an upturned umbrella with a bird and a nest on her head. Part of the success of this image I think is the girl herself.

“She speaks volumes just to look at her. She is strong-willed and she will survive! This could easily be a still from a film and the rest of the story is up to the viewer to imagine.”

“The young girl is strong-willed and she will survive,” says Adele of Survival, *the York digital photomontage artist’s best-selling work*

What’s coming up for you in 2023?

“Next year begins with York Open Studios [April 15, 16, 22 and 23], hopefully followed by Saltaire Open Houses arts trail [May 27 to 29] (although this hasn’t been confirmed yet).

“I’m bringing in oil paintings and working on creating curiosity boxes too, as something new to accompany my digital images.

“I’ve also written a children’s book, which I’m now illustrating, so it’s all go in my Holgate garden studio. The book is called ‘The Life Of A Bee, It’s Not For Me’ and it’s a rhyming story for ages three to five, I would say. It’s all about a bee called Clive, who saves the world with the help of the swallows…I don’t want to give any more away!

“It’s very exciting as I may have a contract…once I send off the illustrations, which is my project for in between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.”

*The exhibition poster for Adele Karmazyn’s Hidden Spaces in the City Screen café*

December 13, 2022December 13, 2022

Jane Dignum and Mark Druery combine for clash of styles at Village Gallery exhibition

*Jane Dignum at work on a linocut print in her studio conservatory*

THE contrasting styles of York artists Jane Dignum and Mark Druery unite in Village Gallery’s winter exhibition in Colliergate, York.

York Printmakers’ member Jane studied Fine Art at Leeds College of Art and Design, where she was introduced to a variety of printmaking methods. She tends to favour linocut but still experiments with other methods.

“Jane loves to create images showing plants and wildlife and often includes scenes from her allotment or things she sees when out walking,” says gallery owner Simon Main. “She finds inspiration everywhere and always has her sketchbook and camera with her, so that she can make visual notes wherever she goes.”

*Beehives And Sunflowers, by Jane Dignum*

Jane prints her linocut images on her etching press, often on handmade paper and using specialist oil-based printing inks.

Mark, who trained at Canterbury School of Art & Design, describes himself as inseparably both an architect and artist.

“Drawing has always been an integral part of his studies and later his professional life as an architect,” says Simon. “He always carries a sketchbook and camera around, often stopping to study interesting buildings and features.

“His favourite medium at work and in art is the drawing pen, loving the immediacy of the medium and the decisiveness of the pen stroke, when committing pen to paper. He then applies watercolour over the pen strokes.”

Bold, colourful, nature -inspired prints versus original detailed architectural studies of York form Jane Dignum and Mark Druery’s exhibition, running at Village Gallery until January 21 2023. Opening hours are: Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm.

To complement its regularly changing art exhibitions, Village Gallery stocks Lalique glass and crystal, along with jewellery, art, ceramics, glass and sculpture, much of the work made by York artists. “Perfect for Christmas gifting,” suggests Simon.

December 10, 2022

More Things To Do In York and beyond to warm the art as temperatures plummet. Hutch’s List No. 109, from The Press

*Into The Lights, digital photomontage by Adele Karmazyn, from her Hidden Spaces exhibition at City Screen Picturehouse, York*

IT’S beginning to look a lot like Christmas will be the be all and end all of Charles Hutchinson’s list. Except for a bite of comedy, a Scotsman and hidden digital artworks, that is.

Exhibition launch of the week: Adele Karmazyn, Hidden Spaces, City Screen Picturehouse café, York, from Monday to January 14 2023

INSPIRED by this year’s York Unlocked event, York Open Studios regular Adele Karmazyn has embraced the opportunity to visit this historic city’s hidden spaces, taking photographs on the way.

These photos create the backdrop for her new body of work, each piece evolving into an individual story when she brings in her 19th century characters, taken from old cabinet photographs, and combines these with other photographs of objects, landscapes and creatures in her digital photomontages. By merging multiple layers and concentrating on light and depth, Adele creates “realistic, believable scenarios, which at the same time could never possibly be”.

*Promenade light for dark nights: Quinn Richards leads the way as Charles Dickens in Be Amazing Arts’ A Christmas Carol in Malton Market Place*

Promenade event of the week: Be Amazing Arts in A Christmas Carol, Malton Market Place, until December 24, 7pm nightly (except December 16 and 22); 5pm on Christmas Eve

AFTER a sell-out debut run in 2021, Be Amazing Arts return to Malton Market Place with Rozanna Klimaszewska’s promenade adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol in the market town where Dickens himself performed at the long-gone theatre.

Starting out at Kemps General Store, this immersive theatre and dining experience invites you to follow Dickens (Quinn Richards, who also plays Ebenezer Scrooge) as he tells the story and brings to life Dickens’s characters alongside fellow professionals James Rotchell and Kirsty Wolff and Be Amazing’s Young Company. Festive canapes and a warming winter drink are provided by The Cook’s Place. Box office: 01653 917271 or beamazingarts.co.uk.

*Mari Christmas: Mari Wilson in festive mood at Selby Town Hall tonight*

Have yourself a Mari little Christmas: Mari Wilson, Selby Town Hall, tonight, 8pm

JUST what you always wanted: A Mari Christmas from Neasden’s “Nymphette of Nail Varnish and High Priestess of Hair Spray”, Miss Beehive, songstress Mari Wilson, who will be combining her Eighties’ hits with tunes of Yuletide yesterdays, a Singalong-a-Christmas and seasonal surprises. Dressing up is a must for the complete Wilsational night. Box office: 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk.

Fresh from Squeeze’s Food For Thought autumn tour, Chris Difford is doing the solo rounds, returning to Selby on Friday. Sold out, alas.

*Mostly Autumn: Winter songs at The Crescent*

Entirely winter from… Mostly Autumn Christmas Show!, The Crescent, York, Sunday, 8pm (doors 7pm)

YORK prog-rockers Mostly Autumn celebrate Christmas with a standing show at The Crescent, sure to feature For Everyone At Christmastime. Expect hard rock, Celtic themes, traces of trad folk and more contemporary influences too in a set of festive fireworks from Bryan Josh, Olivia Sparnenn-Josh, Angela Gordon and co for devotes of Seventies’ Genesis, Pink Floyd, Camel, Renaissance and Jethro Tull, before they head off to Belgium next week. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

*O little voices of Barbican: York’s community carol concert*

Christmas institution of the week: York Community Carol Concert, York Barbican, Sunday, 2pm

AFTER 64 years, York’s community carol concert draws in all ages and still plays to full houses. Taking part this time will be York Railway Institute Band; Osbaldwick Primary Academy Choir; St Oswald’s CE Primary School; Stamford Bridge Community Choir and York singer, songwriter and guitarist Steve Cassidy.

Mike Pratt is the musical director, with the Reverend Andrew Foster and BBC Radio York presenter Adam Tomlinson as the co-hosts, for an afternoon of Christmas carols and songs in aid of the Lord Mayor and Sheriff of York’s Christmas Cheer Fund and Martin House Children’s Hospice. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

*Rick Wakeman: Re-awakening songs with a Christmas twist and festive flair at York Barbican*

More Christmas events at York Barbican: Disney’s The Muppet Christmas Carol: Live In Concert, Monday, 7pm; Rick Wakeman’s Grumpy Christmas Stocking, Tuesday, 7.30pm; Emma Bunton: The Christmas Show 2022, December 16, 8pm

DISNEY’S The Muppet Christmas Carol, the one with Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit, Michael Caine as stingy Ebenezer Scrooge, Gonzo as Charles Dickens and Miss Piggy as Emily Cratchit, will be accompanied by a live performance of the musical score.

Yes organist Rick Wakeman gives a Yuletide twist to his grand piano and electric keyboard arrangements of songs from his own career and others, plus a few surprises, punctuated by stories.

Emma Bunton spices up her Christmas Party with solo career hits, Spice Girls staples and festive favourites. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

*No More, vows Steve Mason, in his tour show at The Crescent, York*

Most welcome Scottish visitor of the week: Steve Mason, No More Tour, The Crescent, York, Thursday, 7.30pm

SCOTSMAN Steve Mason is joined by keyboardist Darren Morris on his No More Tour, named after his new single. Melodious material from his Beta Band days and solo catalogue are promised, along with a showcase of songs from Brothers And Sisters, his first album since January 2019’s About The Light, ready for release in 2023. Cobain Jones is the support act. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

*Russell Kane: His strain of comedy will keep on running in 2022*

Comedy gigs of the week: Russell Kane Live!: The Essex Variant, York Barbican, Wednesday, 8pm; Dara OBriain: So…Where Were We?, York Barbican, Thursday, 8pm

MAN Baggage and Evil Genius podcaster, comedian, actor, writer and presenter Russell Kane discusses “the two years we’ve just gone through” in his Essex variant of Covid comedy.

By way of contrast, in his sold-out return, Irishman Dara OBriain will “hardly mention the last year and a half, because, Jesus, who wants to hear about that but will instead fire out the usual mix of stories, one-liners and audience messing”. Box office: for Kane tickets only, yorkbarbican.co.uk.

*So…where are you on Tuesday, Dara? At a sold out York Barbican for “the usual mix of stories, one-liners and audience messing”*

December 9, 2022December 9, 2022

Van Gogh’s immersive art experience at York St Mary’s to gogh on until March 31

*Deck chairs at the ready: Sit down and relax into a “Zen-style” immersive experience surrounded by Van Gogh’s animated artworks at York St Mary’s. All pictures: Charlotte Graham*

THE Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience exhibition at York St Mary’s, Castlegate, York, has been further extended to the end of March 2023.

For the festive season, art lovers can enjoy a “Zen-style escape” from the bustling streets in the former church that offers a sanctuary of peace, tranquillity, mindfulness amid the chance to “step inside” Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings as an antidote to the Christmas crowds.

As exhibition manager Evie Blackstock says: “The run-up to Christmas has to be one of the busiest and most stressful times of the year, so we’re encouraging frazzled shoppers to come and recharge their batteries with a calm, relaxing experience surrounded by Van Gogh’s paintings, animated and projected onto the nave walls of York St Mary’s.

*Making a big Post-Impression: Vincent Van Gogh surveys his artwork projected onto York St Mary’s nave walls*

“The best way to enjoy the experience it is to settle into a deck chair and let the soothing soundtrack wash over you as you are surrounded by stunning artwork. It instils a real sense of calm, so people are ready to face the outside world again with renewed vigour.”

In the 360-degree son-et-lumière presentation, many of Van Gogh’s most famous works are shown on the nave’s four walls and floor, accompanied by an emotive soundtrack, interspersed with “commentary” from Van Gogh.

The Dutch Post-Impressionist painter’s story is told through 200 of his artworks, from his peaceful time in the French countryside, to the mental turmoil that brought his life to an end through suicide at 37 on July 29 1890 at Auvers-sur-Oise. He had sold only one of his 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, in his lifetime.

*York St Mary’s: The setting for Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience*

After the immersive sound-and-light show – run on a 35-minute loop to enable visitors to enter and leave at any point – and projections of his floral artworks onto a huge vase, visitors can partake in mindful colouring of Van Gogh’s works, with their illustrations being projected onto a virtual gallery on the wall.

“Some people initially think that this is just for children but engaging the creative part of your mind is very soothing for adults, too,” says Evie. “There’s great satisfaction from finishing an artwork.”

A small exhibition about Van Gogh’s life and work awaits on the mezzanine floor, along with an optional extra (with a £3 additional charge): a virtual-reality visit to Arles, France, where Van Gogh was at his most productive.

*“Starry, starry night, Paint your palette blue and grey,” as Don McLean sang on his 1972 chart topper, Vincent*

Donning VR headsets, visitors are taken on an 11-minute digital recreation of the village, starting in the house where Van Gogh stayed, before travelling around the streets and sights so familiar from his later paintings.

York was the first British venue chosen to host Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience, opening at York St Mary’s, next to the Jorvik Viking Centre, on July 5 2019, followed by Leicester, with temporary exhibitions in such cities as Manchester, London and Bristol (and a New York show too). The Immersive Experience has just opened at Carlisle Memorial Church, in Belfast, where it will run until late February.

“We opened in York in summer 2019 with an original plan to remain until early January 2020, but it has been so popular that we’re delighted to be confirming another extension until March 31 2023,” says Evie. “This year, we had already extended to August and then to the end of the year!

*The Dutch Post-Impressionist painter’s life story is told through 200 of his artworks in Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience*

“We’ve had quite a number of visitors visiting us several times – it’s like they come in to recharge their cultural and emotional batteries – and we’ve had a couple of changes, including upgrading our virtual reality systems and extending the gift shop, during our stay to cater for the numbers of people through the door each day.”

Urging a winter visit, Evie says: “As a visit takes around an hour, this is something that people can easily fit into a trip to York – to rest their feet and their minds. It’s little wonder that we’re the longest-running version of the exhibition in the world!”

Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience, Castlegate, York, is open every day except Tuesdays, from 10am to 6pm; last admissions at 5pm. Tickets: adults £13, concessions £11, children £9, with an additional charge of £3 per person for the optional Virtual Reality experience. To pre-book, go to: vangoghexpo.co.uk/york

December 8, 2022December 8, 2022

Why York city centre is all at sea as Tom Lewis’s neon art takes over coffee shop

*Tom Lewis’s Neon Beasts: Adding a Splash Of Colour to the corner of Feasegate and Market Street, York, in Art Of Protest Projects’ latest city-centre installation*

SOMETHING fishy is happening to York city centre.

The reason is Splash Of Colour: Neon Beasts, a street art installation that is making waves amid the throng of Christmas shoppers and night-time party people.

York urban art team Art Of Protest Projects has curated this “exciting space for residents and tourists to come and soak up” at the corner of Feasegate and Market Street.

Commissioned by the York Business Improvement District (BID), the installation features artist Tom Lewis’s Neon Beasts in a project designed to bring animation and theatre to the streets, together with footfall and smiles to a deprived part of the city centre.

Art Of Protest Projects director Jeff Clark says: “The high streets have suffered in the UK since the Covid pandemic hit and many businesses have struggled to stay open. By targeting a specific area in York with a concentrated amount of empty shop-front windows, our mission was to uplift the streets and breathe new life into them, making the space an interesting place to walk past, even if people cannot walk inside.

“The result has been fantastic as the tired and unused streets have been transformed by an infusion of colour and energy, but also with a deeper meaning behind the art.”

Splash of Colour: Neon Beasts utilises multiple forms of artistic media and aquatic features, designed to navigate people from Coney Street to Parliament Street in a curiously colourful way.

*After: Tom Lewis’s shop-frontage conversion into a street art installation*

The Art Of Protest Projects team asked whimsical Lewes artist Tom Lewis to bring” iconic scenery into focus that relates back to York’s history and relationship with its waterways”, using vibrant colours and imagery to create a modern piece of street art.

On the frontage of a former coffee shop, the team has covered the space from top to bottom with a mural wrap, painting the adjacent pillars to reveal ocean waves and applying floor art and colourfully painted benches, providing a place for people to stop and take in the beautiful scenery.

Look out for an information board that gives details of the individual sea creatures for passers-by, complemented by a QR code that leads to more info on the project and also connects it to the charity Blue Marine Foundation, acting as a call to action for people to learn more about the crisis brought on by overfishing.

At night, the installation takes on an added radiance with ultraviolet lighting, illuminating the space and transforming the Neon Beasts into an even brighter and more impactful feature.

At first, the installation’s aquatic, underwater theme may seem unusual to residents and tourists alike, but Art Of Protest Projects communication director Brenna Allsuch says: “Almost every street that you walk down in the city of York is somehow linked to the history of the seas. The waters have provided a source of food, a pathway to reach foreign lands, a boundary divide to separate during war, and a travel network to expand the globe as we know it.

“York has had a plethora of historical importance, from its strong ties to the Romans where it saw incredible prosperity, to the years of struggling through the plague. Whether it be the Romans, the Saxons, the Vikings or during the mediaeval era, through to the more recent years of the Industrial Revolution, York has taken much of its trade and wealth from the seas.”

*The information board for Tom Lewis’s installation*

Jeff adds: “It’s always a wonderful feeling to be able to create a successful project, from concept and planning to full-scale delivery – and to see the instant effect that urban art has on people’s facial expressions and moods is a real privilege.

“We’ve done so many projects over the years with the intention of uplifting people’s spirits, including our last project with the York BID, the Guardians Of York, during the Covid pandemic, so to help bring a little bit of colour and joy to what was becoming quite a sad and unused thoroughfare in York was a really exciting opportunity to deliver on.

“We took an interesting concept, and by utilising the talent of artist Tom Lewis, we brought it to life. We’re super-proud of the result and the new space for people to come sit and relax.”

*“We’re super-proud of the result and the new space for people to come sit and relax,” says Art Of Protest Projects director Jeff Clark*

York artist Rosanna Johnson enthuses: “The high-street makeover by Art Of Protest Projects and Tom Lewis has done wonders for the street’s atmosphere. It’s so great to see it revamped and lit up with neon colours and aquatic shapes. I think young people especially will enjoy the feature. York needs more of this.”

Brenna concludes: “Intended for all ages and demographics, Splash Of Colour is a place to stop, to ponder, to laugh, to photograph, to share, to enjoy.” The installation will remain in place for several months.

*“Full-scale delivery”: A shark in the dark in Tom Lewis’s Neon Beasts installation*

December 8, 2022December 8, 2022

Batman and The Queen, art and politics collide in Heath Kane’s Art Of Protest debut

*Topical, political and convention-challenging artist Heath Kane: Making his Art Of Protest Gallery debut in York*

ART Of Protest Gallery’s Christmas Hang is up and glistening in Walmgate, introducing a new name to York’s exhibiting walls.

Born in Australia, Heath Kane has spent much of his life in England; first in London and now in the market town of Saffron Walden, Essex, where he has his studio.

“In the first part of Heath’s career, he was a designer and art director for London advertising agencies, and a strong sense of graphic structure still sits at the heart of his art,” says gallery curator Craig Humble. “He specialises in simple, iconic and memorable pieces that have the ability to tell stories and are linked to a larger narrative.”

*Heath Kane’s artwork on display at Art Of Protest Gallery*

One of Heath’s breakthrough collections was Rich Enough To Be Batman, the superimposing of Batman’s mask on The Queen’s face, in his response to what he calls “the increasing disparity in wealth that I was seeing”.

“I’ve always been fascinated by the world around me: particularly where life, art and storytelling collide,” says Heath. “After decades of working in advertising and design, it dawned on me that there was more to life than selling people sh*t they don’t need.

“Having worked with clients in the luxury goods market for quite a while, I found it hard to understand how some individuals had more wealth than entire countries. And so I created Rich Enough To Be Batman. I knew then that I wanted any art I made to be topical, political and to challenge the conventions of our lifestyles and the world we live in today.”

*“I want people to look at my art and talk about the issues we face, both individually and as a community,” says Heath Kane*

Heath has always made art in response to what he sees happening in the world. “Each of my collections explores a different political or social narrative,” he explains. “I want people to look at my art and talk about the issues we face, both individually and as a community.

“When politics seems to be moving backwards (and while right-wing governments continue to be in power), we need to be more active than ever in moving forwards. In creating art, I now have a voice that can help to bring about change. And through buying my art, perhaps you can join in that choir.”

Heath vows to continue to create more art that brings awareness to the societal rifts that politics creates. “I hope to ridicule these divisions while trying to create more tolerance and understanding for each other,” he says. “Let’s work together in making the world better. Not just for ourselves, but for everyone.”

Gallery opening hours are: Monday to Friday, 11am to 6pm; Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 5pm.

December 3, 2022December 3, 2022

Jake Attree opens part two of A Northern Sensibility exhibition at School House Gallery, inspired by Bruegel’s eloquence

*Jake Attree, after Bruegel, in A Northern Sensibility*

JAKE Attree, the York-born artist with the Dean Clough studio in Halifax, poses the question “What is a northern sensibility” in his series of two exhibitions at the School House Gallery, York.

Part II opens today in Jake’s exploration of the abiding influence on Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s masterpieces on his work and his continuing fascination with Bruegel’s North European aesthetic.

“For me, it began in the library of Danesmead Secondary Modern School in York,” says Jake. “I must have been about 14 at the time; one particular Bruegel reproduction in the book of European painting I found there, The Gloomy Day, had a particular resonance for me as it reminded me of Baile Hill, a site in York that I visit frequently to draw from.

“So, I became, I suppose, rather obsessed with Pieter Bruegel the Elder, a Flemish painter from the 16th century. Perhaps having been born and brought up in a medieval city had some influence on how I responded, and continue to respond, to Bruegel’s work, who knows?

“What I do know is that I continued looking very hard at Bruegel, initially the sequence of five paintings which make up the Season series.”

Some years ago, Jake began to make a series of drawings and paintings of figures in extensive landscapes. “As I became more and more involved in this series, I began to look at Bruegel’s The Procession To Calvary and have been making work influenced by this great painting ever since,” he says.

Lately, he was introduced to The Mill And The Cross, Polish director Lech Majewski’s 2011 film that focused on 12 of the 500 characters depicted in Bruegel’s 1564 painting, starring Rutger Hauer, Michael York and Charlotte Rampling.

It was to become another prompt to push the as-yet-unformed project further. “As I pushed myself towards a contemporary take on Bruegel’s painting – which is, on many levels, deeply pertinent to the time in which it was painted – I at last began to use a more diverse range of imagery, as well as a direct response to the painting,” says Jake.

“Vast crowds making their way through an extensive landscape, inspired by some momentous event, are bound to have some resonance with our own time, whether it is intentional or not.”

The exhibition title of A Northern Sensibility is a nod to Jake coming from the north. “That is just a fact,” he says, as he recalls with wry amusement that his first exhibition with Messum’s in Cork Street, London, was entitled The Elemental North.

While a London gallerist’s perception of Attree as a northern painter is water off a duck’s back to him, he has cemented a sense of northernness through the lens of his great artistic mentor, Bruegel.

Jake has lived and breathed Bruegel since childhood. “I remember watching the drovers driving their sheep past my classroom window and how it reminded me of The Return Of The Herd,” he says.

*“When Jake’s compositions include figures, often – as in Bruegel – they are depicted intent on their own private journey,” says School House Gallery co-curator Robert Teed*

School House gallery co-director Robert Teed says: “When Jake’s compositions include figures, often – as in Bruegel – they are depicted intent on their own private journey, indifferent to the vast landscape around them, or the importance of events happening just outside their field of vision, utterly absorbed by their own tragedies or triumphs.

“Bruegel famously celebrated the details of existence, revelling in people fighting, eating and drinking, and the consequences of that.

“This forms part of what Jake calls Bruegel’s ‘Northern sensibility’: the Flemish painter might have been regarded as vulgar by his Venetian counterpart, but behind the apparent chaos of his huge canvases depicting the rawness and messiness of human life there lies a cast-iron formal discipline.”

In The Procession To Calvary, Christ is a tiny figure almost lost in the melee. “But he is deliberately placed dead centre, and the diagonals of the composition lead to the exquisitely eloquent depiction of Mary’s grief in the right foreground,” says Robert. “This is what Jake believes epitomises Bruegel’s elegance, eloquence and intelligence.”

A Northern Sensibility presents Jake’s art in the context of Bruegel’s abiding influence on his aesthetic. “The figures in Jake’s landscapes are both timeless and contemporary, suggesting themes of rootlessness, displacement and migration; and in his figureless compositions we sense the tenacity and persistence of nature in spite of humans,” says Robert.

“A Northern Sensibility aims to prove that Jake Attree’s art also embodies elegance, eloquence and intelligence.”

December 3, 2022December 28, 2022

More Things To Do in York and beyond, from an Old Granny Goose to Grayson. Hutch’s List No. 108, courtesy of The Press

Goose by the Ouse: Dame Berwick Kaler, centre, with Martin Barrass, left, AJ Powell, Suzy Cooper and David Leonard, gathering again at the Grand Opera House, York, for The Adventures Of Old Mother Goose. Picture: David Harrison

KALER on the loose, Christmas music, art and crafts and a stellar trio on the horizon have Charles Hutchinson hopping between diaries

Berwick’s back: The Adventures Of Old Granny Goose, Grand Opera House, York, December 10 to January 8

THE script is complete, as of 6am on Thursday morning, for writer, director and perennial York dame Berwick Kaler’s second year at his adopted panto home, presented in tandem with the Grand Opera House’s new partners in pantomime, UK Productions.

At 76, expect a greater emphasis on the verbal jousting from Dame Berwick, but still with slapstick aplenty in the familiar company of sidekick Martin Barrass, villain David Leonard, principal gal Suzy Cooper, luverly Brummie AJ Powell and ever-game dancer Jake Lindsay in his tenth Kaler panto, me babbies, me bairns. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

*Angel With Gift, linocut print by Anita Klein, part of The Christmas Collection at Pyramid Gallery, York*

Exhibition launch of the week: The Christmas Collection at Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, today until January 12, open daily

YORK ceramicist Ben Arnup opens The Christmas Collection, the last exhibition of Pyramid Gallery’s 40th anniversary celebrations, at midday today. He will be exhibiting 12 new trompe l’oeil ceramic sculptures too.

Gallery curator Terry Brett has invited London printmaker Anita Kelin to fill the walls with 15 large linocut original prints and two paintings in her 28th year of showing her depictions of family life at Pyramid. Exhibiting too will be printmaker Mychael Barratt, sculptors Christine Pike and Jennie McCall, ceramicist Katie Braida and glassmakers Rachel Elliott, Alison Vincent, Keith Cummings and David Reekie, plus 50 jewellery makers.

*Sara Davies: Crafty ideas for Christmas at York Barbican*

Return to York of the week: Craft Your Christmas with Sara Davies, York Barbican, tonight, 7.30pm

DRAGONS’ Den entrepreneur Sara Davies, who founded her Crafter’s Companion company in 2005 while studying at the University of York, offers practical demonstrations, creative ideas and a healthy slice of down-to-earth know-how.

Taking you from gifts to garlands, cards to crackers, via a peek into the Den and a sprinkling of Strictly Come Dancing sparkle, Sara will help you to create your own unique handmade Christmas. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

*The Ebor Singers: Christmas music from America and Britain at St Lawrence Parish Church*

Christmas concert of the week: The Ebor Singers, A Christmas Celebration By Candlelight, St Lawrence Parish Church, Lawrence Street, York, tonight, 7.30pm

PAUL Gameson directs The Ebor Singers in an evening of beautiful choral arrangements for Christmastide that also marks the launch of the York choir’s CD recording of Christmas music by contemporary American composers, Wishes And Candles.

Pieces from the disc, featuring works by Morten Lauridsen, Eric Whitacre, Dan Forrest, Abbie Bettinis and Matthew Culloton, will be complemented by festive compositions by John Rutter and Bob Chilcott. Expect audience participation in carol singing too. Tickets: eventbrite.co.uk and on the door.

Festive musical duo of the week: Aled Jones and Russell Watson, Christmas With Aled & Russell York Barbican, Tuesday, 8pm

ALED Jones and Russell Watson are reuniting for Christmas 2022, combining a new album and tour. Performing together again after a three-year hiatus, the classical singers will be promoting their November 4 release of Christmas With Aled And Russell.

The album features new recordings of traditional carols such as O Holy Night, O Little Town Of Bethlehem and In The Bleak Midwinter, alongside festive favourites White Christmas, It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, Little Drummer Boy and Mistletoe And Wine, complemented by a duet rendition of Walking In The Air. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk

*York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust cast members in rehearsal for A Nativity for York. Picture: John Saunders*

Nativity play of the week: York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust in A Nativity for York, Spurriergate Centre, Spurriergate, York, Thursday, Friday, 7.30pm; Saturday, Sunday, 3pm, 5pm and 7.30pm

A NATIVITY for York returns to the Spurriergate Centre following a two-year enforced break, staged by York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust (YMPST). After directing the Last Judgement plays on the city streets in 2018 and 2022, Alan Heaven has created a fresh, vibrant and magical retelling of the Nativity, combining “music, dance, sorrows and joys and some audience participation”.

Heaven’s company of actors, dancers and musicians is drawn from a wide range of community volunteers, in keeping with the YMPST productions of A Nativity for York in 2019 and A Resurrection for York in 2021. Tickets: 01904 623568, at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or in person from the Theatre Royal box office.

*Solomon’s Knot: Christmas Cantatas at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, in York Early Music Christmas Festival 2022’s concluding concert*

Festival of the week: York Early Music Christmas Festival, mainly at NCEM, Walmgate, December 8 to 16; online box set, December 19 to January 31

MUSIC, minstrels, merriment, mulled wine and mince pies combine in York Early Music Christmas Festival 2022, to be complemented by an online box set of festival highlights post-festival.

Taking part will be La Palatine (Fiesta Galante); Ensemble Augelletti (Pick A Card!); Solomon’s Knot (Johann Kuhnau’s Christmas Cantatas); Spiritato and The Marion Consort (Inspiring Bach); Ensemble Moliere (Good Soup); Bojan Čičić (Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas); The Orlando Consort (Adieu) and Yorkshire Bach Choir & Yorkshire Baroque Soloists (Handel’s Brockes Passion). Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

*Guitarist Tom Bennett and baritone Sam Hird, outside their training ground, the Royal College of Music. On Friday, they perform a Christmas recital in York*

Homecoming of the week: Sam Hird and Tom Bennett, A Winter Night’s Recital, All Saints’ Church, North Street, York, Friday, 7pm to 9pm

YORK baritone Sam Hird and his fellow Royal College of Music graduate, guitarist Tom Bennett, perfrom classical songs from around the world, by Schubert, Faure and Britten, complemented by festive favourites such as Adeste Fideles, O Holy Night and A Cradle In Bethlehem to stir the Christmas spirit.

The 15^th century All Saints’ Church will be the “perfect backdrop” to this candlelit concert, Hird’s professional solo debut. A glass of mulled wine and a mince pie is included in the ticket price of £10 plus booking fee, available from samhirdmusic.co.uk and on the door.

Big jumpers, big songs: Alistair Griffin presents The Big Christmas Concert, St Michael le Belfrey Church, York, December 9, 10 and 17, 8pm; doors, 7.30pm

BILLED as “the biggest Christmas concert in York”, singer-songwriter Alistair Griffin’s winter warmer returns with classic Christmas tunes, carols and bags of festive cheer, heralded by a brass band.

The Big Christmas Concert takes a festive musical journey from acoustic versions of traditional carols to Wizzard, Slade and The Pogues, as audiences sing along and sip mulled wine while enjoying the fairytale of old York. Christmas jumpers and Christmas attire are encouraged; a prize will be given for the best costume. Box office: www.alistairgriffin.com.

*One way or another, you’re gonna get ya ticket for Blondie at Scarborough Open Air Theatre next summer*

Booking ahead: Blondie, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, June 22 2023

LOWER East Side New York trailblazers Blondie are off to the East Coast next summer to play Britain’s largest outdoor concert arena.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame icons will be led as ever by pioneering frontwoman/songwriter Debbie Harry, 77, guitarist/conceptual mastermind Chris Stein and powerhouse drummer Clem Burke, joined by former Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock, guitarist Tommy Kessler and keyboardist Matt Katz-Bohen.

Blondie join Sting, Pulp, rock supergroup Hollywood Vampires, N-Dubz, Olly Murs and Mamma Mia! among Scarborough OAT’s 2023 headliners, with plenty more to be added. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.

*The Waterboys: 40th anniversary celebrations in 2023, taking in York Barbican*

Booking ahead too: The Waterboys, York Barbican, October 12 2023, 7.30pm

GREAT, Scott will be back for yet another evening with The Waterboys at York Barbican, this time to mark the Scottish-founded folk, rock, soul and blues band’s 40th anniversary.

Mike Scott, 63, has made a habit of playing the Barbican, laying on the “Big Music” in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2018 and October 2021, since when The Waterboys have released 15th studio album All Souls Hill in May. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

*Grayson Perry: A Show All About You…and surely about him too at Harrogate Convention Centre?*

A brush with an artist: Grayson Perry: A Show All About You, Harrogate Convention Centre, October 1 2023, 7.30pm

ARTIST, iconoclast and TV presenter Grayson Perry follows up A Show For Normal People with A Show All About You, wherein he asks, “What makes you, you?”. Is there a part deep inside that no-one understands? Have you found your tribe or are you a unique human being? Or is it more complicated than that?

Perry, “white, male, heterosexual, able bodied, English, southerner, baby boomer and member of the establishment”, takes a mischievous look at the nature of identity, promising to make you laugh, shudder, and reassess who you really are. Box office: 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk.

Also recommended but sold out: The Cure, The Lost World Tour 2022, Leeds First Direct Arena, Tuesday, doors, 6pm

ROBERT Smith’s ever-changing band play Leeds for the first time since September 21 1985 at the whatever-happened-to-the Queens Hall. Expect a long, long set of all the heavenly, hippy pop hits, the gloomier goth stalwarts and more than a glimpse of the long-promised 14th studio album, Songs Of A Lost World, pencilled in for 2023.

November 30, 2022November 30, 2022

New works by ceramicist Ben Arnup and Anita Klein are the headline acts in Pyramid Gallery’s Christmas Collection exhibition

*The Christmas collection: York ceramicist Ben Arnup, left, and Pyramid Gallery owner Terry Brett with an Anita Klein linocut print behind them*

YORK ceramicist Ben Arnup will open Pyramid Gallery’s concluding 40^th anniversary exhibition, The Christmas Collection, in Stonegate, York, on Saturday at 12 noon.

Ben will be exhibiting 12 new pieces, having supplied gallery curator and owner Terry Brett with his distinctive trompe l’oeil’ ceramic sculptures for 28 years.

At the heart of The Christmas Collection will be new work by another Pyramid regular, London artist and printmaker Anita Klein. “I’ve invited Anita to fill the walls of this show with 15 large linocut original prints and two paintings,” says Terry.

“The gallery has enjoyed a long, unbroken relationship with Anita as a supplier of her extensive catalogue of prints that form a diary of her family life.

*Angel With Gift, linocut print, by Anita Klein*

“Over the 28 years in which she has shown more than 800 different pictures at Pyramid Gallery, we’ve watched her career progress to the point where she has become one of the most collectable printmakers in the UK. It seems very fitting that she is the main focus of this year’s final anniversary exhibition.”

As well as showing new linocut prints, Anita will be selling copies of her book Out Of The Ordinary – 40 years Of Print Making, published by Eames Fine Art in October.

For more than 40 years, this artist of the everyday and the personal has produced thousands of paintings, prints and drawings depicting her immediate family – husband, daughters, grandchildren and herself – going about the very ordinary activities of daily life.

From watching television, cooking, reading, driving to school, soaking in the bath and getting dressed, to cleaning the house, choosing a pet, going on holiday, or just cuddling up and sharing tender moments with loved ones, Anita captures these seemingly unremarkable domestic scenes with humour, sensitivity and beauty, creating an intimate visual journal with which everyone can identify.

*The book cover for Anita Klein’s Out Of The Ordinary, published in October and on sale at Pyramid Gallery*

The book contains 550 of Anita’s best-loved prints, presented as a charming chronological record of the family’s day-to-day life through the decades, seen from the artist-mother’s perspective, as they grow and change in their respective roles within the household.

Out Of The Ordinary also charts her development as a printmaker, from the simple monochrome drypoints of the 1980s, a consequence of the practical and financial demands of being a young stay-at-home mum, through to the more colourful and elaborate prints of recent years.

A personal appreciation of Anita Klein’s work by poet Hollie McNish opens the volume, while texts by publishers Rebecca and Vincent Eames, who have collaborated with the artist for more than two decades, and critic Mel Gooding give an introduction to her practice.

Anita herself provides recollections and further detail with short commentaries on the images and the occasions that they depict, complemented by poetry contributions from Dame Carol Ann Duffy, Hollie McNish and Wendy Cope.

*Pangolin, sculpture, by Jennie McCall, from The Christmas Collection at Pyramid Gallery*

Taking part in the exhibition too will be sculptors Jennie McCall and Christine Pike; printmaker Mychael Barratt; slipware potter Dylan Bowen; ceramicists Katie Braida, Ilona Sulikova and Drew Caines (from Leeds); glass installation artist and sculptor Monette Larsen and glassmakers Rachel Elliott, Alison Vincent, Keith Cummings, Bruce Marks and David Reekie.

To complement with festive sparkle, the Christmas Collection jewellery displays will feature studio work by more than 50 British makers, including Jane Macintosh.

Saturday’s launch will run from 12 noon to 3pm; the exhibition will continue until January 12, open 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday; 11am to 4pm on Sundays.