CURATED by Bluebird Bakery, in Acomb, York, The Other Collective brings together the work of Lu Mason, Ric Liptrot, Rob Burton, Liz Foster and Jill Tattersall until March 13.
“These wonderful artists were all missed off the billing for York Open Studios 2025 and we felt that was a real shame,” says Bluebird boss Nicky Kippax. “So The Other Collective was born and we hope the work will get a lot of interest from our customers.”
Self-taught artist and retro DJ Lu Mason started making rugs in the early 1980s but stopped for nearly 25 years when she worked as an occupational therapist. She took up rug making again during the pandemic lockdown and has not looked back since. “I love using recycled materials and hessian and the simplicity of the materials and process,” she says.
“As an occupational therapist, some of the ‘just do it’ approach to creative activities – i.e. use what you’ve got, even if it isn’t perfect – has definitely crossed over to my own practice at home and in my studio.”
Lu applies her distinctive figurative shapes in her rag rugs, created with wool she has gathered together, and uses unusual media, from cut paper and recycled wool to Perspex and spray paint, in her towering mobiles, dramatic murals and installations and bold jewellery too.
“Be true to yourself, not what other people expect of you,” she says. “It takes time to find your own individual ‘style’, but actually every single thing you do will have your identity all over it.”
Lu made Royal Academy of Arts history in 2021 when her Magician work was the first rag rug to be displayed in the RA’s Summer Exhibition.
Ric Liptrot, whose parents ran a newsagents in Runcorn, has drawn buildings in York since moving here 15 years ago, now with a particular focus on shops, pubs and cafes in the city, not least on independent businesses on the eve of closure.
“I am a great believer in supporting the high street,” says Ric, whose original artwork is created using collage, acrylic paint, stencils and dip pen. “Limited-edition prints are available as well as greetings cards and calendars.”
Ric has just completed a residency at York Conservation Trust, where he was commissioned to paint five large plywood panels. Each panel focused on a quarter of central York with the fifth illustrating the “cultural” quarter. These panels now hang at De Grey House, in St Leonard’s Place, York.
Rob Burton is a researcher, Teesside University academic and “critical artist”, working in textile art, whose research explores themes of memory, post-memory, hauntology*, identity and space, loss and transformation.
“My textile and fibre art practice textuality develops a conceptual dialogue between the innovative use of analogue, traditional approaches to making, and contemporary, emerging techniques and digital technologies,” says Rob.
He creates colourful printed textile, fabric and mixed-media artworks that represent the stories we tell. “Inspired by literature, iconography and personal stories, my latest works celebrate colour, texture, fabric in layers of imagery,” he says.
“In symbols, colours, shapes and digitally printed photographs, the unexpected often arises and visual tales arise.”
Born in Leeds in 1971 and now based near York, Liz Foster studied Fine Art (Drawing and Painting) at the Glasgow School of Art, later undertaking an MA at the University of Hull, where she researched visual perception theory in relation to contemporary painting practice.
“My work centres around ideas of memory and the passing of time, which I explore through the application of abstract imagery, repetition and animated mark-making,” says Liz, who uses colour with a playful and intuitive approach.
“My paintings are abstract, reflecting my thoughts, feelings and memories but not illustrating them. The material quality of the paint is equally as important as the theme and colour is always central to what I do.
“Painting is a fundamental expression of who I am, it is my language. I find joy in the materials and each work is a new adventure, posing questions and challenges that are limitless and fascinating.”
Liz has exhibited widely, including at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London Art Fair, Royal Scottish Academy, Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate, Ferens Gallery , Hull, and York Art Gallery. She has work in both public and private collections, selling within Great Britain and abroad, and she has been long-listed for the John Moores Prize twice.
Jill Tattersall works from a studio just off The Mount, in York, that she calls The Wolf at the Door. “There is a Wolf, a large one,” she says.
She has done many exhibitions, projects and commissions. “My work’s all over the place, from Peru to Tasmania, even the official residence in Rwanda,” says Jill, who lived in Brighton before moving to York.
She has been part of open studio networks in various places, helping to run them too, and she will be taking part in North Yorkshire Open Studios for the first time in June, as well as holding a solo show at Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, from May 5 to the end of June.
“My main obsession is with patterns,” says Jill. “They’re all around us; we’re made up of them ourselves. Force meets counter-force and patterns emerge: coasts and weather systems, stars and galaxies, trees and blood vessels, maps and mazes. It’s where science and art intersect!
“I constantly experiment with materials and techniques, often using my own hand-made paper and water-based paints, inks, dyes and pigments to build up intense and glowing colour. Throwaway or reclaimed elements often sit side by side with gold and silver leaf. Value, price, worth…who decides.”
The Other Collective exhibition is on show at Bluebird Bakery, Acomb Road, Acomb, York, until March 13.
Exhibitions coming up at Bluebird Bakery in 2025, curated by Rogues Atelier artist, upholsterer and interior designer Jo Walton:
Printmakers, from March 13; Jill Tattersall, from May 8; Clare M Wood, from July 3; Mandi Grant, from August 28; Di Gomery, from October 23 and Donna Taylor, from December 18.
*What is hauntology?
IN the words of Wikipedia: “Hauntology is a range of ideas referring to the return or persistence of elements from the social or cultural past, as in the manner of a ghost.
“The term is a neologism, fusing ‘haunting’ and ‘ontology’, introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1930 book Spectres Of Marx.”