Scarborough, by Malcolm Ludvigsen, at Village Gallery, York
PROLIFIC plein-air artist Malcolm Ludvigsen is the focus of Village Gallery’s new exhibition from tomorrow in Colliergate, York.
“The last year has been extremely hard for everyone, not least of all for artists, with many exhibitions and events being cancelled,” says gallery owner Simon Main. “So, we’re thrilled to announce our first show of 2021.”
Erstwhile maths professor Ludvigsen spends much of his time on the beaches and headlands of his Yorkshire homeland, fascinated endlessly by the sea and sky.
“I think the thing that first attracted me to painting was John Ruskin’s exhortation that all men, as part of their morning salutations, should go out and paint a picture of the sky,” he says.
Malcolm Ludvigsen painting in the bracing air of Scarborough
“This sounded like a very nice thing to do, so I decided to give it a go, and I’ve not really stopped painting since.”
In 2013, Ludvigsen won the Oldie British Artists Award – a major competition for British artists aged 60 or over – for his landscape entitled Filey.
“Ironically this accolade came in the same year that my work was rejected by the Royal Academy for their summer exhibition,” he recalls.
Malcolm Ludvigsen’s Art, a show of familiar Yorkshire landscapes and seascapes in oils, will run from tomorrow until Saturday, June 19, with Covid-secure, socially distanced measures in place. Opening hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm.
Artists Andy Goldsworthy (left) and Kane Cunningham at Southfield House for their collaboration with Ryedale Folk Museum. All pictures: Tony Bartholomew
SCULPTOR Andy Goldsworthy will be among six artists collaborating with Ryedale Folk Museum, Hutton-le-Hole, to explore the impact of the pandemic on artists and their creative practice.
Goldsworthy will feature in a series of videos, created by Scarborough landscape painter Kane Cunningham for sharing in May and June, that will include photographer Joe Cornish, landscape painter Peter Hicks, photographer Tessa Bunney, sculptor Peter Coates and painter Francesca Simon too.
The collaboration will culminate in an open exhibition in September, bringing together professionals, amateurs and hobby artists in response to the northern landscape.
Cheshire-born sculptor and land artist Goldsworthy specialises in site-specific installations involving nature and the passage of time.
His latest work, Southfield House, has been developed on the North York Moors from conditions created by the pandemic and forms part of Goldsworthy’s quest to explore the environment through natural materials.
“It was conceived during lockdown and made between lockdowns,” says Goldsworthy, 64. “I wanted to make something during that period that has that sense of being uplifting,” he says. “The work is now connected to that moment in time.”
Kane Cunningham, left, and Andy Goldsworthy on the North York Moors
Funded by Arts Council England, the Ryedale Folk Museum project “grew out of a strong awareness of the lack of access to the natural environment in adherence to the Government’s Stay Home message at the height of the pandemic”.
Like everyone else, artists have found their travel restricted during the series of three lockdowns, hence museum director Jennifer Smith says: “At its heart, the project is an opportunity for artists to share their experiences and to encourage others who may have seen significant changes to their output because of Covid-19.
“Through Kane Cunningham’s films, we are seeing honest and open discussions about the challenges – and, sometimes, the opportunities – faced by the artistic community.
“Situated within the North York Moors National Park, we needed only to look outside the museum window to realise that there was nobody here during lockdown. One question that interested us was what impact that was having on artists who respond directly to the landscape and who make their living from that inspiration.”
The partnership between the museum and Cunningham, founder and co-director of Scarborough’s Festival of Big Ideas By The Sea, was a natural one.
“For 20 years, I’ve travelled from Scarborough to St Bees, coast to coast,” says Cunningham, whose studio is in the Old Parcels Office at Scarborough railway station. “In a normal year, my art takes me over hill and dale and across mountain pathways to find the perfect view.”
Andy Goldsworthy at Southfield House for the Ryedale Folk Museum project exploring the impact of the pandemic on artists and their creative practice
The sense of loss during lockdown led to Cunningham’s desire to reach out to others on this theme: “I felt the need to discover more about the landscape and what it means to me and other artists in these challenging times,” he says. “Has it changed the way they think about their work? Has it changed the way they think about the landscape?”
Ryedale Folk Museum hopes that sharing the contemplations of assorted artists will inspire people to create new work or to reflect on a piece created since the start of the pandemic, to feature in the open exhibition of 2D and 3D work from September.
The submissions window will be open from this week to June 30, whereupon works for the exhibition will be selected by a panel that will include Cunningham, Joe Cornish and ceramic artist Layla Khoo.
In addition, artists and other creative practitioners, of any art form, are invited to send their own brief film clips – less than a minute long – to be shared on social media, responding to the question: “How has your creative practice changed in the past 12 months?”.
Full details can be found on the museum’s website: ryedalefolkmuseum.co.uk/art-gallery/
Roger Lee: Overseeing new heritage interpretation programme at Bedern Hall, York
BEDERN Hall, in York, will reopen on May 19 with a new heritage interpretation programme.
Visitors will see how the historic hall, in Bartle Garth, St Andrewgate, was restored and how it operated as the refectory for the Vicars Choral of York Minster, learning about their lifestyle and how they built the hall and discovering some of the things they left behind.
The hall’s later periods, and its many different uses over the centuries as tenemented accommodation, a bakery and a pork-pie maker’s curing hall, will be featured too.
Located a two-minute walk from York Minster, Bedern Hall has been seeking ways to open to new users and has received a Culture Recovery Fund grant to support its development plans.
The grant has begun to assist a new volunteer programme too that will bring additional opportunities for people to take part in the new opening arrangements.
Roger Lee, of the Bedern Hall Company, says: “Bedern Hall is one of York’s small but important historic venues and as we seek new ways for visitors to experience and learn about the hall, this is a timely change of direction for the business as we emerge from Covid-19 restrictions.
“It’s also a new opportunity for people to volunteer to help us with this vision to retell the Vicars Choral Story and the hall’s restoration.”
Bedern Hall will be open to visitors four days a week, from Wednesday to Saturday, 10.30am to 4.30pm. New signs, interpretation information boards, a children’s trail and tours of the Bedern area are planned with guides.
A new Bedern Hall Tour App that visitors can access via QR codes on their smartphone or tablet device will provide information in text, audio, and video in up to ten languages and will doubles as a self-guide tour.
The hall will continue to offer facilities for wedding ceremonies and receptions, craft events, social events, community groups and business meetings. Its clientele include corporate organisations, private companies, social services and community groups.
“The aim is to bring the history of hall to the attention of visitors and local people and its continuing benefit to the city as one of York’s most important medieval meeting halls that’s often overlooked due to its location,” says Roger, who operates Bedern Hall, runs Time and Place Caterers from there and is a Freeman of the City.
Anyone interested in volunteering opportunities should contact Roger on 01904 646030 or by emailing roger@bedernhall.co.uk.
The Bedern Hall heritage interpretation project is funded by the Culture Recovery Fund for Heritage. The Culture Recovery Fund is being delivered by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Historic England, using funds provided by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport.
Scarborough Museums Trust documentation assistant Ela Bochenek with an item from the Animal Hauntings exhibition at Scarborough Art Gallery from May 18. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
ANIMAL Hauntings will take over Scarborough Art Gallery from May 18 to September 22, led by a tunny fish.
The exhibition combines film and objects from the Scarborough Museums Trust collection to ask what, in times of environmental uncertainty, we can learn from the ghosts of animals past in order to create more solid future relationships with the natural world.
Among those objects will be a tunny fish that was a favourite exhibit for many in a former life when the gallery’s neighbour, Woodend, was a natural history museum, together with examples of taxidermy, such as a pair of the now-extinct passenger pigeon, and equipment used by the “climmers” that once abseiled down Yorkshire’s East Coast cliffs in search of seabird eggs.
Tunny fishing and climming are the subject of two films from the Yorkshire Film Archive that form part of the exhibition, alongside moving images by artist Fiona Tan and exhibition curator and artist Martha Cattell.
Martha says: “The exhibition is inspired by Woodend’s past as a natural history museum, and by the book Arts Of Living On a Damaged Planet: Ghosts And Monsters Of The Anthropocene, an anthology of work by 20 eminent writers.
“Humans have long been fascinated with and reliant on non-human animals for food, transport, clothing and as pets. We are haunted by past connections to animals and many of the objects within the collection reflect this.
The full-size model of a tunny fish, cast from the original, that will be a star of the Scarborough Museums Trust collection on show in Animal Hauntings at Scarborough Art Gallery. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
“With more than 35,500 species threatened with extinction, this exhibition uses objects and moving image to highlight the entangled relationships between animals and humans, and offers ways of looking with animals, and not just at them.”
Scarborough Museums Trust will run a series of events inspired by the exhibition, to be announced on its website and social media channels in the coming weeks.
Animal Hauntings will run alongside two more exhibitions at Scarborough Art Gallery over the same dates: Scarborough: Our Seaside TownandLaughton’s Legacies.
The venue has been awarded VisitEngland ‘s We’re Good To Go industry standard mark, signifying adherence to government and public health guidance on Covid-19. All three exhibitions are on the ground floor and are fully wheelchair-accessible.
Entry to Scarborough Art Gallery is by annual pass, whose £3 cost gives unlimited entry to both the gallery and the Rotunda Museum for a year.
Opening hours at Scarborough Art Gallery are 10am to 5pm, Tuesday to Sundays, plus Bank Holidays.
Masham artist Ian Scott Massie: Capturing “the character of the north” in his Northern Soul show at Ryedale Folk Museum, Hutton-le-Hole, from May 17. Picture: Steve Christian
IAN Scott Massie revels in the “incomparable beauty” of the north in his uplifting exhibition of watercolours and screenprints at Ryedale Folk Museum, Hutton-le-Hole, an apt location at the heart of the North York Moors National Park.
Running from Monday, May 17 to Sunday, July 11, the Masham artist’s Northern Soul show represents his personal journey of living in the north for the past 45 years since the call to leave the south.
Depicting “the character of the north”, the 50 paintings and prints portray northern views as diverse as Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland and Barnsley in South Yorkshire, and landmarks ranging from the monastic ruin of Fountains Abbey, near Ripon, to the Tees Transporter Bridge in Middlesbrough, the longest-working bridge of this ilk in the world. The images reach right across the country from Liverpool to Newcastle.
Born in London in 1952 and raised in Langley, near Slough, from the age of six, Massie first headed north, to Durham University in 1973, to study to be a music teacher. Although he returned to Berkshire in 1982, five years later this folk musician and artist settled in Masham, Lower Wensleydale, with his artist wife, Josie Beszant.
Another Place, by Ian Scott Massie, from Northern Soul
He began working in watercolours “to paint quickly” when his children were small, citing JMW Turner as an influence.
“The depth of colour, the freedom of the expression and the speed at which a picture could come together captivated me,” he says.
The north, he posits, is “the truth of England, where all things are seen clearly”. “Both the pictures for Northern Souland the accompanying book of the same title take a very long view of the north, reaching back into my personal history and the history of the region,” he says.
“The exhibition also refers to my time working as a music researcher for Beamish Museum (which I loved), from which experience grew an interest in the industrial, social and folk culture of the north, which Ryedale Folk Museum reflects so beautifully.”
White Horse, Kilburn, by Ian Scott Massie
Jennifer Smith, director of Ryedale Folk Museum, says: “I’m delighted that we will open Ian’s exhibition on the same day as Ryedale Folk Museum will reopen, following a six-month period of closure.
“Northern Soul is a stunning and atmospheric journey across northern England. Ian captures the beauty, wildness and culture of The North, transporting the viewer to the places featured in his magical paintings and prints.
“The fact that we can share these works online, as well as in the art gallery, means that even if people can’t or don’t want to travel, they can feel nostalgic about their favourite northern places and maybe discover some new ones too.”
Massie’s Northern Soul project has undergone a long journey to this point, he says in his latest blog. “In 2016, I had the idea of creating an exhibition about my life in the North of England. The idea grew into a series of paintings and prints and then into a book. I found that delving into my past, trying to see how I first saw the places I discovered in the north, was an amazing source of inspiration.”
Moonlight, Whitby, by Ian Scott Massie
The exhibition’s grand tour of the north began in 2019 at Cannon Hall near Barnsley, followed by Masham Gallery, and should have come to Ryedale Folk Museum in 2020 until the pandemic put paid to that plan…until now.
Massie’s first northern encounter had left him “deeply unhappy” in Durham, and yet: “Little did I know that the north would make me. I would grow up there, discover talents for teaching and making art that I never suspected, discover places and music and stories that I would love for the rest of my life, and find happiness,” his blog recalls.
“Along the way, one question would occasionally surface: What makes the north the north? It isn’t simply that old cliche: a hard-working alternative to a soft and lazy south, and yet it’s a hard question to answer.
“It is an alternative of sorts – an alternative to the dreamy chocolate-box portrayal of England that exists only in the imagination. Perhaps, if we’re honest, its the truth of England, where all things are seen clearly: the incomparable beauty of the landscape; the harsh ugliness left by industry; the great wealth of the aristocracy; the miserable housing of the poor; the civic pride of the mill towns and a people as likely to be mobilised by political oratory as by a comedian with a ukulele.”
The Three Peaks, by Ian Scott Massie
Massie continues: “The north is a place made up of a multitude of races, each with their own deep pool of stories which combine to make a shared way of life. Mining, the Potato Famine, the textile industry, persecution, war and politics all brought different people to the north. The list goes on.
“So I’ve approached the Northern Soul as though it were a jigsaw puzzle: examining the pieces I’ve come across over the years for what they can tell me. I’ve got some bits of the edge and some promising parts of the middle, but I’d be lying if I said I was close to completing it.
“There are parts of the north I know only slightly and others I know like the back of my hand, and I’ll plead guilty now to favouring some places over others because that’s just the way it is.”
The accompanying Northern Soul book is available both from the publishers, Masham Gallery, at mashamgallery.co.uk/store/p379/Northern_Soul.html, and from the Ryedale Folk Museum shop and online at ryedalefolkmuseum.co.uk (for £26 plus postage and packaging if bought from the museum website).
Brimham Rocks, watercolour, by Ian Scott Massie
“This book is at once the log of a long, as yet unfinished, journey and a love letter to the North of England. It’s about the places I’ve known and painted, and what part they play in this complex, careworn, mountainous, multi-faceted, wave-tossed, warm-welcoming, wind-blown, freezing, friendly, tough-spirited, tender-hearted, rusty, rebellious, ruinous, green, golden, chilled-out, challenging, deep-rooted, dale-scattered, subtle, smoky, special land,” concludes Massie.
Ian Scott Massie: Northern Soul, Ryedale Folk Museum art gallery, May 17 to July 11 2021; open daily from 10am to 5pm. Entry to the gallery is free.
The exhibition also can be viewed on the Ryedale Folk Museum website during the same period at: ryedalefolkmuseum.co.uk/art-gallery/
Roseberry Topping, by Ian Scott Massie
Did you know?
IAN Scott Massie continues a parallel career as a musician, teaching guitar and coaching rock bands at Queen Mary’s School, Baldersby Park, near Thirsk, and performing on stage occasionally. He has been a member of several bands over the years.
He collects and plays unusual musical instruments from around the world and is a founder and events coordinator of the Masham Arts Festival and a founder of the ArtisOn arts and crafts teaching studios at High Burton House, Masham.
In 2010, he was a semi-finalist on BBC1’s Mastermind, answering questions on artist Paul Nash, one of his greatest influences.
Ian Scott Massie at work in his Masham studio. Picture: Steve Christian
Let Ian Massie take you to Another Place in his Northern Soul show at Ryedale Folk Museum, Hutton-le-Hole from May 17
NO mention of home entertainment here, as Charles Hutchinson decides to cast fears aside – albeit while acting responsibly – as he looks forward to theatres, bars, galleries, museums and music venues opening their doors once more.
Cupid, draw back your bow and let the beer flow, straight to the York Theatre Royal patio
LOVE is in the Step 2 air, and soon on the York Theatre Royal stage too for The Love Season from May 17.
Cupid’s Bar: Follow the arrow to the York Theatre Royal patio. Picture: Livy Potter
Perfect timing to launch Cupid’s Bar for five weeks on the Theatre Royal patio, where the bar will run from midday to 9.30pm every Thursday to Sunday, providing an outdoor space in the heart of the city for residents and visitors to socialise safely.
Working with regional suppliers, Cupid’s Bar will offer a range of drink options, such as draught beer from Black Sheep Brewery, Masham, and York Gin from, er, York.
Ian Scott Massie: Finding Northern Soul in his landscape watercolours and screenprints. Picture: Steve Christian
Exhibition of the month ahead outside York: Ian Scott Massie, Northern Soul, Ryedale Folk Museum, Hutton-le-Hole, North York Moors National Park, May 17 to July 11
MASHAM artist Ian Scott Massie’s Northern Soul show of 50 watercolours and screenprints represents his personal journey of living in the north for 45 years.
“The north is the truth of England, where all things are seen clearly,” he says. “The incomparable beauty of the landscape; the harsh ugliness left by industry; the great wealth of the aristocracy; the miserable housing of the poor; the civic pride of the mill towns and a people as likely to be mobilised by political oratory as by a comedian with a ukulele.”
The Waterfall Of Nikko-Zan In Shimotsuke Province, by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1853, from York Art Gallery’s show of rarely seen Japanese prints, Pictures Of The Floating World. Image courtesy of York Museums Trust
Reopening exhibition of the month ahead in York: Pictures Of The Floating World: Japanese Ukiyo-e Prints, York Art Gallery, from May 28
YORK Art Gallery’s display of rarely seen Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, complemented by much-loved paintings from the gallery collection, will go on show in a new Spotlight Series.
Marking next month’s gallery reopening with Covid-secure measures, Pictures Of The Floating World will feature prints by prominent Ukiyo-e artists such as Utagawa Hiroshige, along with works by those influenced by Japanese art, York artist Albert Moore and Walter Greaves among them.
This free-to-visit exhibition will highlight the significant impact of Japanese art on the western world and the consequential rise of the artistic movements of Aestheticism and Art Nouveau.”
Van the manoeuvre: Morrison’s York Barbican gigs put back to July
On the move: Van Morrison’s York Barbican shows
NO reopening date has yet been announced for York Barbican, but Irish veteran Van Morrison’s shows are being moved from May 25 and 26 to July 20 and 21.
“Please keep hold of your tickets as they will be valid for the new date,” says the Barbican website, where seats for Van The Man are on sale without social distancing, in line with Step 4 of the Government’s pandemic Roadmap to Recovery, whereby all legal limits on social contact are potentially to be removed from June 21.
Morrison, 75, will release his 42nd album, Latest Record Project: Volume 1, a 28-track delve into his ongoing love of blues, R&B, jazz and soul, on May 7 on Exile/BMG.
Lockdown love story: The taster poster for Alan Ayckbourn’s new play at the Stephen Joseph Theatre
New play of the summer: Alan Ayckbourn’s The Girl Next Door, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, June 4 to July 3
AFTER the 2020 world premiere of his virus play Truth Will Out lost out to the Covid pandemic restrictions, director emeritus Alan Ayckbourn returns to the Stephen Joseph Theatre to direct his 85th play, The Girl Next Door, in the summer season.
“I wrote it back in Spring 2020. I like to think of it as a lockdown love story,” says Ayckbourn, introducing his touching, tender and funny reflection on the ability of love to rise above adversity and reach across the years.
Influenced by his own experiences in two “lockdowns”, one in wartime London in childhood, the other in the on-going pandemic in Scarborough, Ayckbourn will play with time in a plot moving back and forth between 2021 and 1941. Box office: sjt.uk.com.
May and April in tandem: York Barbican date for Imelda next spring on her first tour in five years
Gig announcement of the week in York: Imelda May, York Barbican, April 6 2022
IRISH singer-songwriter Imelda May will play York Barbican next April in the only Yorkshire show of her Made To Love tour, her first in more than five years.
“I cannot wait to see you all again, to dance and sing together, to connect and feel the sparkle in a room where music makes us feel alive and elevated for a while,” says May. “Let’s go!”
Last Friday, the 46-year-old Dubliner released her sixth studio album, 11 Past The Hour. The box office opens tomorrow at 10am at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Dance like Fred Astaire…or more likely like Tim Booth as James end the summer at Scarborough Open Air Theatre
Gig announcement of the week outside York: James, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, September 9
WHERE better for James to announce a summer show in the week they release new single Beautiful Beaches than at Scarborough Open Air Theatre?
The Manchester legends will play on the East Coast in the wake of launching their new album, All The Colours Of You, on June 4. Tickets go on sale tomorrow (23/4/2021) at 9am at scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
This will be the third that James, led by Clifford-born Tim Booth, have played Scarborough OAT after shows in 2015 and 2018.
The writers, actors, directors and organisers in a Zoom gathering for Next Door But One’s Yorkshire Trios at The Gillygate pub, York
And what about?
GOOD news: Live theatre bursts into life in York for the first time since December 30 when York community arts collective Next Door But One presents Yorkshire Trios in The Gillygate pub’s new outdoor seating area tomorrow and on Saturday.
Themed around Moments Yet To Happen, trios of actors, directors and writers will bring to theatre-starved York a quintet of short stories of laughter, strength, dreams and everything in between: a neighbour with a secret; a delivery driver full of wanderlust; an optimistic carousel operator; a poet inviting us into her world and a Jane McDonald fan on a soapbox.
Bad news for tardy readers? The 7.30pm shows have sold out.
Cat On Windowsill, The Festival Of The Cock, Asakus Ricefields, by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1857. Image courtesy of York Museums Trust.
YORK Art Gallery’s display of rarely seen Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, complemented by much-loved paintings from the gallery collection, will go on show in a new Spotlight Series from May 28.
Marking next month’s reopening of the Exhibition Square gallery with Covid-secure measures and social distancing, Pictures Of The Floating World: Japanese Ukiyo-e Prints will feature prints by prominent Ukiyo-e artists such as Utagawa Hiroshige, along with works by those influenced by Japanese art, York artist Albert Moore and Walter Greaves among them.
York Art Gallery’s display will highlight the significant impact of Japanese art on the western world and the consequential rise of artistic movements such as Aestheticism and Art Nouveau.
View Of Mount Hatana In Kozuke Province, by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1853. Image courtesy of York Museums Trust
Jenny Alexander, associate collections curator at York Art Gallery, says: “We’re thrilled to introduce this new Spotlight Series at York Art Gallery. The designated space will allow us to share a variety of works from our collection, starting with a selection of beautiful Japanese Ukiyo-e prints.
“Ukiyo-e translates as “pictures of the floating world”, referring to the transitory nature of life. Visitors will see delicate prints depicting scenes celebrating everyday life, through themes such as landscape and travel, actors and courtesans and folk tales.”
Jenny continues: “Some of these works have not been displayed in more than 15 years, so we’re thrilled that many visitors will be able to enjoy them for the first time.
Evening View Of Takanawa, by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1832-1838. Image courtesy of York Museums Trust
“Featuring these exceptional prints alongside firm favourites from our collection will enable visitors to reconnect with the works and view them from a different perspective, which is really exciting.”
The free-to-visit display in the Upper North Gallery will be the first of the new Spotlight Series that will change periodically to show highlights from the gallery’s permanent collections.
Pictures Of The Floating World will delve into the history of the works, explaining why Japanese art became increasingly influential during the 18th and 19th centuries. Through the variety of artwork on display, visitors will see how western artists were inspired, in particular, by the use of line and colour, and simultaneously how Japanese artists were influenced by western artists’ use of shading and perspective.
The Waterfall Of Nikko-Zan In Shimotsuke Province, by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1853. Image courtesy of York Museums Trust
Crucifixion, in tropical hardwood, by George Hainsworth, is the undoubted conversation piece of Leeds Fine Artists’ LFA In York exhibition at Blossom Street Gallery. The price? On application only.
BLOSSOM Street Gallery, York, welcomes 24 artists from Leeds Fine Artists in its reopening exhibition under Step 2 of lockdown relaxation.
LFA member and exhibition co-organiser Tim Pearce is delighted at the chance to show work on gallery walls and floors at last, and likewise for gallery visitors to experience art close up once more.
“With so many art galleries having been closed for so much of the past 12 months, and with exhibitions largely appearing as virtual online sets of reproductions, most of us have inevitably been starved of access to original works of art for what seems like an eternity,” he says.
The poster for Leeds Fine Artists’ LFA In York exhibition
“So, it is with genuine excitement that Blossom Street Gallery, next to Micklegate Bar, is exhibiting a splendid mixed collection of work by 24 of our members.
“Such was the success of our 2019 show that Kim Oldfield, the gallery owner, invited us back to launch the reopening as we emerge from lockdown.”
Representing one of Yorkshire’s longest established art groups, the 24 artists are showing a diverse range of subject matter and media: paintings, etchings, montages, woodcarving and ceramics now shown to best effect beneath the Blossom Street gallery’s newly installed lighting.
It’s Pop Art! It’s Pop Art!, by Roger Gardner
Taking part in LFA In York are: Sharron Astbury-Petit, mixed media on wood panel; Malcolm Barton, oil on board; Julia Borodina, acrylic paintings; Jane Burgess, oils; Terry Chipp, acrylics on canvas; Michael Curvgenven, ink, carbon pencil and oil pastels; Alison Flowers, mixed media, and Roger Gardner, mixed media and oil on panel.
So too are: George Hainsworth, tropical hardwood; Lucy Hainsworth, oils; Keith Harris, oils; Inger Huddleston, screened watercolour monoprints; Nicholas Jagger, collagraph and woodblock print; Miriam Laville, acrylic and collage on canvas; Mark Murphy, pencil on paper, and Tim Pearce, glazed ceramic stoneware.
Contributing works too are: Neil Pittaway, watercolours; Trevor Pittaway, acrylics; Annie Robinson, acrylics; Liz Salter, mixed media on paper; Geraldine Thompson, oils on wood; Catherine Warburton, gelli-printed cotton with hand and machine and gelli-printed acrylic with watercolour and pastel, and Emma Whitelock, watercolour, graphite and wax resist.
Ponton de Peche – Moonlit, acrylic on canvas, by Terry Chipp
LFA IN York runs until June 21; gallery opening hours are Friday to Monday, 10am to 4pm. Covid-secure, socially distanced measures are in place under Government guidance.
What is Leeds Fine Artists?
LEEDS Fine Artists (LFA) is an association drawn from across Yorkshire, not only Leeds. Founded in Leeds in 1874, it has more than 50 exhibiting members, working in 2D and 3D, and typically the LFA holds four shows a year, including the annual exhibition at the Crossley Gallery, Dean Clough, Halifax.
The website, at leedsfineartists.co.uk, provides extensive information and gallery pages on each artist’s work and wider activities. Applications to join LFA can be made via this website.
Artworks from the LFA In York exhibition at Blossom Street Gallery, York. At the front are two glazed ceramic stoneware forms by Tim Pearce
BLUE Tree Gallery, in Bootham, York, is reopening with Covid-secure measures and temporary opening hours of 11am to 5pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
The York 2021 exhibition, marking the tenth anniversary of Gordon Giarchi and Marisa Giarchi launching the gallery on March 23 2011, began online on March 27, with the works “also displayed in the gallery and gallery window for those passing by”.
York 2021, featuring original paintings by Sarah Connell, Giuliana Lazzerini, Paolo Lazzerini and Mark Sofilas, will run until May 8, now both in person and at bluetreegallery.co.uk.
“With the support of our exhibiting artists, and especially our supportive clients, exposure in the media and grants assistance from City of York Council, we continue with the gallery and now see a light ahead through this pandemic,” say Gordon and Marisa.
Manchester mixed-media landscape artist Sarah Connell’s paintings are “primarily about light, atmosphere and colour”. “I have painted in traditional media ever since I can remember, but now also paint digitally, using a stylus and tablet at a computer or on an iPad,” she says.
“My parents are both creative and encouraged me as a child by buying me ‘grown-up’ paints, and sometimes my dad let me tag along with his night school art class. The fact he was a printer meant there was always paper by the ream for me to draw on.”
Dusk On The Ouse, acrylic on panel, by Sarah Connell
Sarah then read Art History and Archaeology at Nottingham University, followed by Clothing Design at Manchester Metropolitan University. “It was while studying clothing design that I first became interested in digital painting and wrote my dissertation on analogue versus digital fashion illustration,” she recalls.
“In a way, I am still exploring how traditional painting influences my digital work and vice versa. I went on to work in design and photography for a few companies, eventually going freelance and spending more and more time painting.”
Blue Tree Gallery artist-in-residence Giuliana Lazzerini was born in Seravezza, near the small town of Pietrasanta, in Tuscany, the daughter of a professional painter and international mosaicist.
Between 1962 and 1968, she was a student at the Istituto d’Arte Stagio Stagi in Pietrasanta, gaining a Master of Arts Diploma, and then studied painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara for four years.
In 1987, Giuliana moved to Yorkshire, where she now lives in York. The Tuscan landscape and childhood memories still bear a strong influence on her work, her first encounters with art in Italy having been in her painter father Bruno’s mosaic studio.
Both the translucency of the mosaic fragments and the vibrancy and colours evoked by the juxtaposed mosaic pieces inspired her.
These early perceptions, several years on, provide a language and a vocabulary for her pictures in terms of the colours, surfaces and scale that she uses in constructing her tapestry-like, interlocking, angular-surfaced village landscapes.
Spring Time, Clifford’s Tower, acrylic on canvas, by Giuliana Lazzerini
Architecture exists within a shallow space; structures are locked together through a medieval, narrative sort of pictorial logic.
In other works, Giuliana depicts solitary portrait images. Figures often appear with props, such as shells, cups and boats, and equestrian references sometimes appear too. Are these characters the inhabitants of Lazzerini’s interlocking Tuscan villages, or part of some ceremonial ritual?
“My work is varied and often developed from an idea encountered during a journey that takes me in an unknown territory where I grow as an artist,” says Giuliana. “I usually work in small series of paintings, where memory and imagination come to interplay. Time made me more familiar with the English northern landscape and it finally has left a mark in some of my work, as I become more intrigued by its drama and atmosphere.”
Giuliana’s brother, Paolo Lazzerini, trained at the Liceo Artistico and the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Carrara, winning numerous art prizes and being invited to exhibit in important galleries such as the Accademia of Santa Cecilia in Rome, Le Tableau Gallery in Turin, Galleria San Marco of Rome, Ponte Tresa Gallery in Switzerland and Gallery 2000 in Tokyo, Japan.
Although Paolo worked primarily as a professional graphic designer in the 1990s and 2000s, he continued to paint, presenting many solo and mixed exhibitions in Italy at Forte Dei Marmi, Turin, Edinburgh, Yorkshire, Birmingham, Monaco and Cologne. In the past few years, Paolo’s painting has become more intense, on show at many more events and exhibitions.
Mark Sofilas, originally from Western Australia, migrated to Great Britain in 2008. “I was an illustrator with more than 20 years’ experience in the advertising industry but took the opportunity, on moving to the UK, to turn to fine art, something that I had always wanted to do,” he says.
He now paints full time from his studio in Leeds, creating oil paintings of the Yorkshire countryside, particularly coastal scenes of the heritage coast, such as the fishing villages of Whitby, Staithes and Robin Hood’s Bay.
York Minster, mixed media on wood panel, by Mark Sofilas
“My paintings are very heavily guided by the emotions a particular scene or moment evokes in me. It’s this feeling that I try to convey to the viewer,” says Mark, a proud member of Leeds Fine Artists and the Association of British Naive Artists.
“It might be something as simple as smoke drifting from a chimney pot or a silhouette created by a particular light source. It may be the strength or history that emanates from an everyday object or piece of architecture.”
Over time, Mark has discovered he can best achieve emotional impact by exaggerating or characterising colour, manipulating perspective slightly and pushing shape and form to arrive, hopefully, at a “nicely balanced place”, where the image conjured has not only captured the physical qualities of the scene, but more importantly, the feeling of the occasion.
“I’m a self-taught painter; not locked into approaching my work with any particular procedure or direction in mind,” he says. “However, I take photographs of my subjects, but like to rely on memory, imagination, the ultimate goal being to recreate exactly what I’m feeling onto a flat surface.
“I don’t do preliminary drawings. Instead, I prefer to adopt a more organic approach, designing the paintings as I go. This helps the end product retain a freshness, a feeling of spontaneity. I always have an image, a mood in my mind’s eye, that I’m trying to put down, and I find that working this way allows me to be flexible; going with any happy accidents that more than likely will occur.”
Mark adds: “It’s these little surprises that I can adopt, learn from and take into my next painting. I enjoy the journey that this direct and unstructured approach takes me on, finding that it enables me to either get close to achieving what I had in mind and heart or, on occasion, arrive somewhere unexpected but just as rewarding.”
Static at work on converting a derelict Malton bus shelter into a vibrant expression of public street art. Picture: Brenna Hebrink, Art Of Protest Projects project support manager
WHAT should be done with a disused bus shelter in Malton? Food for thought in Yorkshire’s self-annointed “Food Capital”.
Step forward York arts and media company Art of Protest Projects, Malton Town Council and Static, a London artist duo with deep Scarborough roots, to administer a “public street art transformation” next to Malton Community Primary School in Highfield Road.
Static’s ex-pat North Yorkshiremen, Craig Evans and Tom Jackson, are celebrating creating their nearest painting to home after taking a derelict bus shelter and turning it into “a bright, energetic and colourful visual that completely changes the vibe of the street”.
Once an eyesore of a disused bus shelter, now “an urban art gem”, in Highfield Road, Malton
As Jeff Clark, director of Art Of Protest Projects explains: “The goal of this vibrant transformation is to uplift and bring people’s attention to a structural space that was once an eyesore, but through imagination and creativity has been turned into an urban art gem.”
You wait ages for one bus shelter transformation in Malton, then along comes…? “It’s just the first of many more facelifts the town will receive in the coming year,” promises Jeff. “Street art has a captivating way to not only visually change a landscape, but also to draw people towards certain areas and start conversations about what colour, pattern and design mean and how they amplify a background.”
Whether a town or business wants to send a message, make a space feel safe or simply elevate and beautify an eyesore, urban art is the most effective vehicle of which to do so, Jeff contends.
Art Of Protest Projects director Jeff Clark at the Coppergate Centre unveiling of The Postman’s Guardians Of York installations. He has overseen Static’s transformation of a Malton bus shelter too. Picture: Dave J Hogan
“To be given the opportunity to convert a shelter on a street that was a country road seemed like a fun and exciting way to change a landscape,” he says. “The fact that there is a school next door is what really got me excited.
“What’s better than being able to spark imagination and creativity into young people? We are so amped by the reception this shelter makeover has already received and cannot wait to continue splashing colour around Malton.”
Suitably ecstatic Static artist Craig Evans says: “It was great to take on and transform this overlooked and unassuming piece of public architecture. Being no longer in use and seemingly belonging to no-one, we hope that our intervention here will inject some colour and creativity into the area and inspire the children from Malton Community Primary School and the people of Malton to see the potential in more public places and to take a fresh look at their surroundings.”
The finishing touches: Static ready the Malton bus shelter facelift for its April 14 unveiling
Councillor Paul Emberley, Malton’s town mayor, enthuses: “This is a fantastic transformation of a once-scruffy bus shelter and brings a little more cheer to our amazing town. People love it.”
Malton town clerk Gail Cook concurs: “The shelter is a few metres away from two of our schools and we wanted to create something really special that would inspire the children too – and these talented artists, Craig and Tom, have well and truly delivered!”
Up the A64, Art Of Protest Projects have stationed a host of Guardians Of York on guard on the walls of York, combining street artworks of cultural heroes such as broadcaster and natural world activist Sir David Attenborough, newly crowned with mauve hair, on the riverside by Ouse Bridge with 11 murals to “honour and elevate pandemic key workers from York”.
York Hospital ICU anaesthetist Steve Wasowa mirrors his street art installation pose for The Postman’s Guardians Of York series. Picture: Dave J Hogan
In tandem with the York BID, Clark’s public art champions have worked with The Postman, the anonymous international street artist collective from Brighton, to create the ancient city’s first urban art installation.
The works, a kinetic fusion of the Pop Art palette and brash punk energy, celebrate the Guardians Of York, who helped to keep York moving when the city – and the world – came to a standstill during Covid-19 lockdowns.
Eleven essential workers, all of them York residents, were recorded by a professional film crew in the closed Debenhams store in Davygate, giving their account of the hardships of working through the upheaval created by the pandemic, and all had their portrait photographs taken.
Street artists The Postman with their Guardians Of York artwork of police officer Pauline Law. Picture: Dave J Hogan
Taking part were: Becky Arksy, primary school teacher; Pauline Law, police officer; Sally and Mark Waddington, York Rescue Boat; Martin Golton, street cleaner, and Steve Wasowa, ICU anaesthetist, York District Hospital.
So too were: Steve and Julia Holding, owners of the Pig and Pastry, in Bishopthorpe Road, and founders of the Supper Collective; Steven Ralph, postal worker; Gill Shaw, Boots retail worker, and Brenna Allsuch, ICU nurse, York District Hospital.
Their images have been transformed into murals by The Postman collective, whose favoured artistic medium is pop-culture paste-ups, rooted in punk iconography, wherein they express themselves in brightly coloured, edgy, urban portraits, varying from street artworks of Nelson Mandela in South Africa to pop stars in Los Angeles.
The Postman delivering a street art installation of The Pig And Pastry’s Julia Holding to Finkle Street
“As the Guardians project builds momentum, we realise more and more how important it is to tell the stories of the people behind the masks,” say the mystery duo with roots in graffiti culture. “The key workers that have carried us through the last year inspired us and made a difference to everybody’s lives.”
The Guardians Of York are on display on city-centre walls in a three-month installation from April 9 to July 9, in a show of gratitude to key workers timed to coincide with the relaxation of lockdown restrictions and the reopening of many of the city’s “non-essential” businesses from April 12.
Recalling the flour-based dissolving street art of York memorial artist Dexter, The Postman have applied their paper-based large-scale artworks to walls with wheat paste, their impermanent form of art fading and washing away over time, duly “creating a buzz as people seek them out before they disappear”.
The Postman sail their artwork of Sir David Attenborough aboard the York Rescue Boat at the Guardians Of York installation launch. Picture: Dave J Hogan
Mounting the Guardians Of York is a passion project for Jeff and The Postman. “They like to do street art that makes a difference, and my partner is an NHS frontline worker, so I’ve seen every day how Covid has worn them down, sacrificing their own health. It’s no wonder that nurses have gone down, had to stop working, because they’re frazzled,” he says.
“They’ve had to go into a war-like atmosphere, where normally you’d do a tour and then be sent home, for a break, but that’s not been the case. That’s why my heart and soul has gone into this project.” To watch a video about the project, go to: https://youtu.be/7cUpnE1M-sw
Static artists Craig Evans and Tom Jackson with their latest work, the transformed Malton bus shelter. Picture: Brenna Hebrink
Who are Static?
STATIC is the combined creative output of Scarborough-bred Craig Evans and Tom Jackson, who collided in 2006 in a derelict block of flats with a sea view and have since worked with assorted international galleries and painted murals in the UK and as far away as Japan.
The Static duo have been based in London since 2008 and are founding members of Wood Street Walls, where they spent two months renovating a disused school building to create a shared workspace, Wood Street Studios, for its opening in 2017.
One of the largest community street art projects in Britain, Wood Street Walls uses street art to drive awareness and funding for community schemes and projects involving children and education.
Static’s poster for their Born & Raised exhibition at the Art Of Protest Gallery, York, in October 2018
Static’s studio work is created using a combination of screen-printed and stencil/spray-painted techniques, and they also produce layered glass artworks that play with space and how perceived 2D visuals can shift to reveal a 3D picture. Their works are collected by the Saudi Royal family and musicians Natalie Appleton, of All Saints, and Liam Howlett, of The Prodigy, among others.
In 2018, Static held their first solo exhibition in their home county, presenting Born & Raised at the Art Of Protest Gallery’s original premises in Little Stonegate, York, from, October 19 to 31.
During their York residency, Evans and Jackson painted a floor mural in the Art Of Protest Gallery and a wall mural at Brew York, Walmgate. For more information on Static, go to: welikestatic.com.
Arabella, by Static, from their Born & Raised exhibition in York
