Di Gomery in her South Bank Studios studio in York
YORK artist Di Gomery’s Floresce exhibition will be on show at Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb Road, Acomb, York, until December18.
In the wake of Di’s springtime display of paintings at York Hospital, she has created a series of colourful and uplifting artworks informed by her sketchbook drawings.
“I really hope these paintings will once again be a wall of flowing, joyful energy that sits alongside viewers as they enjoy a Rise event or visit Bluebird Bakery,” she says.
“It’s a terrific venue to show large-scale paintings and it’s been a delight to work with bakery co-owner and poet Nicky Kippax and Bluebird’s creative curator and artist Jo Walton to bring together this display of predominantly new work.”
Di Gomery’s poster for her Floresce exhibition at Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb
Co-owner Nicky says: “Our evening venue, Rise, has just celebrated its second birthday and art exhibitions are a really important element of what we offer there. It’s fantastic to work with York artists.
“The art they display is inspiring and stimulating for everyone: our customers, our team and the artists who take part.”
In recognition of the work undertaken by Médecins Sans Frontières, Di plans to donate 25 per cent of painting sales to the international organisation.
Di Gomery at the National Coal Mining Museum for England at Overton in December 2024
Di Gomery: back story
STUDIED Art and Design at Manchester Polytechnic, followed by an MA at Birmingham Polytechnic. Gained her Doctorate from UCL Institute of Education, London.
She has taught at Bretton Hall College, Batley School of Art, Huddersfield University and Loughborough University.
Now lives in York, dedicating herself full time to oil painting in her South Bank Studios studio at Southlands Methodist Church, Bishopthorpe Road, York.
Last year, she took part in the Gomery & Braganza joint exhibition with ceramicist Loretta Braganza at Pyramid Gallery, York, from January 27 to March 10. She also exhibited at Hartlaw Solicitors, St James’s Street, Wetherby, from October 7 2024 to October 1 2025.
Last December, Di had her work chosen for display at the National Coal Mining Museum for England (NCMME) at Caphouse Colliery, Overton, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, until March 2025.
Naming The Creation, by Di Gomery, on show at the National Coal Mining Museum for England
While on a visit there earlier in 2024, she was reminded of the textile artwork she had created in 1988 while living in Edinburgh, when she researched ideas of female identity and received a Scottish Arts Council Award and an exhibition.
On seeing her work Naming the Creation, the NCMME invited Di to display the artwork there and to reflect on her upbringing in a Yorkshire pit village in the museum’s general exhibition during the 40th year since the Miners’ Strike of 1984.
To her surprise, coal once again inspired her, this time to write her first-ever poem. “My inspiration for this artwork was to express the changes taking place for women at that time (1980s) as their self-confidence grew and their empowerment expanded,” she says.
For Di, coal had to be included in the journey that she and many young women like her were taking. “Coal formed me into the person I am today and was central to my upbringing,” she says.
Di’s relationship with coal goes back to her birth in a National Coal Board house in South Kirkby. As a pit deputy, her father was entitled to a substantial delivery of coal that was proudly dropped at the top of their garden for her and her sister to “get in” by shovelling it first into the wheelbarrow, then down the garden path, and then shovel by shovel into the coal house at the back of the house.
Di Gomery pictured on March 26 2025 with two of her artworks on display in a York Hospital corridor
It was this fuel that provided warmth, hot water for washing and a source of heat to cook on a coal-burning stove. “Throughout my childhood coal was everything,” says Di. “It sustained us.
“While climate change may have altered our perception of coal, and coal is not often thought of as a thing of beauty, to me, those black, blue-back, dark green and purple, irregularly shape and dusty-to-the-touch lumps were ‘jewels of fuel’.”
From April to June 2025, she exhibited a series of paintings on a main corridor at York Hospital, including some of the largest paintings by a York artist ever to be displayed there.
While on a visit to the hospital in 2024 to determine the theme, scale and range of the paintings she would create specifically for this space, Di was reminded of how important it would be to bring a boost of energy to what is essentially a thoroughfare.
Di says: “It was a delight working with the Arts Team, supported by York & Scarborough Hospitals Charity, whose mission it is to improve the experience of their hospitals for patients, visitors and staff through a programme of music and art workshops, inspiring exhibitions and artwork within wards and departments.”
A montage of Di Gomery’s paintings on display at York Hospital earlier this year
The inspiration for these paintings was gleaned from Di’s sketchbooks, including one that was created daily between December 2024 and February 2025 to celebrate the life of a dear friend who had passed away.
“Hospital staff are very busy moving from one station to the next, and therefore I decided to employ the use of vibrant colour, create a sense of growth and renewal through the subject matter, and celebrate the gestures and mark-making that oil paint makes possible,” says Di.
“Hopefully those paintings were a wall of flowing, joyful energy that metaphorically walked alongside the viewer for a short while.”
Di opened her South Bank Studios studio for North Yorkshire Open Studios on June 7, 8, 14 and 15. She will do so again for the NYOS Winter show on November 1 and 2, 11am to 4pm.
You can view her paintings at www.digomery.com and @digomery.
