WHAT’S STILL ON: Pyramid Gallery launches online exhibition for these Strange Days after York Open Studios cancelled

Pyramid Gallery owner Terry Brett, on Stonegate, York, holding a work by Askrigg artist Piers Browne from the Full Sunlight exhibition

THE Coronavirus pandemic may have shut doors on next month’s York Open Studios, but Pyramid Gallery is stepping in to offer an online exhibition to York artists.

What’s more, gallery owner Terry Brett is calling this new service Strange Days, after the song of that title by The Doors. As rather more than one door closes, The Doors open new possibilities for a different form of Pyramid selling.

“This applies to artists who have sold through the gallery either recently or in the past, and we’re extending this invitation to any of 2020’s 144 York Open Studio artists,” says Terry.

“The artists will keep the work that they’re showing at their studio, and between them and the gallery, delivery will be arranged to the purchaser’s address if it is within a YO postcode.”

Terry has run Pyramid Gallery, in Stonegate, since 1994, says: “We need to survive in these Strange Days, and so do our artists. We noticed many posts on social media this week by worried artists who had heard that York Open Studios was cancelled.  We wanted to do something positive for them. It has given us an aim and lots of work to do, which is very useful for morale.”

Morale that he believes is under immediate threat from this week’s urgently announced Government financial policies in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. “I am disappointed by the ineffectiveness of government to make sensible and working decisions,” says Terry.

The brochure for the 2020 York Open Studios, adapted post-cancellation by participating York jewellery maker Jo Bagshaw

“While other European nations are protecting citizens and employees from economic crisis and worry, our Government seems unable to make the decision to support individuals and freelance workers or self-employed artists.

“These matters are being passed down to the community to resolve. It’s not a good approach. The Government should offer quickly to make payments to everyone, so that we know we can pay rents, employ people and buy essentials.”

Pyramid Gallery is reducing its normal commission to the artist for this event to 20 per cent plus VAT on each sale and is arranging the delivery free of charge to the customer.

“Some artists have already submitted work for the online show, and images are being placed on the website all the time,” says Terry. “The show will continue as long as there is a Coronavirus crisis.”

More details, and the Strange Days lyrics, can be found at https://www.pyramidgallery.com/strange-days-art-behind-the-doors-york-artists-online/.

Pyramid Gallery continues to open its doors, Monday to Saturday, between 10am and 5pm, but will be closed on Sundays. On show until April 26 is Full Sunlight, an exhibition of etchings and paintings by Piers Browne, studio ceramics by Hannah Arnup, figurative sculptures by Helen Martino and glass by Fiaz Elson.

The artwork for The Doors’ Strange Days

Oh, spoiler alert, here are Jim Morrison’s 1967 lyrics to The Doors’ Strange Days:

Strange days have found us

Strange days have tracked us down

They’re going to destroy

Our casual joys

We shall go on playing

Or find a new town

Yeah!

Strange eyes fill strange rooms

Voices will signal their tired end

The hostess is grinning

Her guests sleep from sinning

Hear me talk of sin

And you know this is it

Yeah!

Strange days have found us

And through their strange hours

We linger alone

Bodies confused

Memories misused

As we run from the day

To a strange night of stone

Let’s look forward to the day when Pyramid Gallery can host an exhibition with another of The Doors’ titles, The End, but in a good way, not an Apocalypse Now way.

Move over floods and storms, Full Sunlight spotted in Piers Browne’s Pyramid show

Dales Lambs, by Askrigg artist Piers Browne, at Pyramid Gallery, York

WENSLEYDALE artist Piers Browne bathes his travel-inspired exhibition of paintings and etchings in Full Sunlight at Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York.

Piers has put together a show that celebrates the bright light of Morocco, the South of France and the Italian Lakes, alongside landscapes in the Yorkshire Dales, where his home studio overlooks Askrigg.

“This rather special exhibition of small spontaneous acrylics and watercolour crayon works is  the result of happy, more frivolous days abroad in sunshine,” says gallery owner Terry Brett. “The flow of inspiration to paper is easy and the results are fresh and uncomplicated.

Peaceful Moment In The Sun, by Helen Martino

“Piers had great success with the show Call Of Celtic Seas in Highgate, North London, this January and regularly shows at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition. He now finds the painting of large canvasses to meet his high expectations more effort than ever before. In contrast, creating the Full Sunlight collection has been a pleasure for him.”

Piers, who has exhibited at Pyramid Gallery for 25 years, is joined in the Full Sunlight show by Holtby potter Hannah Arnup, Cambridge figurative sculptress Helen Martino and Stroud glassmaker Fiaz Elson.

Hannah Arnup has been making a new collection of sgrafitto decorated bowls and tripod vessels at her studio in Ballimorris, County Clare, southern Ireland, and at the late Mick and Sally Arnup’s former studio at Holtby, near York.

One of Hannah Arnup’s studio ceramics in her latest collection of tripod vessels and plates depicting the Yorkshire Wolds and gothic windows at Pyramid Gallery

Inherited by Hannah, the Holtby studio has been re-opened to provide studio space for a group of artists.

Terry Brett views Full Sunlight as a “new start” to the gallery year after several challenges to trading in York. 

“Although we had our best Christmas season in 38 years, there have been several challenges to the first two months of the year,” he says.

Pyramid Gallery owner Terry Brett holds one of Piers Browne’s Full Sunlight works as he stands on the newly repaved Stonegate

“I think shoppers took a break between New Year and Brexit [January 31], and then we had Stonegate being completely repaved, along with severe storms, floods and the effects of Coronavirus, which has affected tourism.

“Thankfully City of York engineers and the contractors really worked hard and finished repaving our end of the street four weeks ahead of schedule. I’m very grateful for their efforts and very pleased with the result. Stonegate looks amazing now and the slabs will be less likely to crack under the weight of delivery vehicles.”

Full Sunlight runs until April 26, open 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday, and 11am to 4.30pm on Sundays, including over Easter. More images of the work on display can be found at pyramidgallery.com.