Joe Hartley Artist in Residence

If you haven’t found the link to Joe Hartley’s fascinating blog about his current residency at the gallery, click here! Joe is with us until Saturday so there is still time to come and see him at work.

In Safe Keeping

Beautiful new show now on featuring paintings by David Hancock (including the results of this summer’s York Theatre Royal Peter Pan residency), and ceramics by Andrea Walsh, Jenny Pope and Hannah James. Read Charles Hutchinson’s excellent article in the York Press here. Show is on until 22 October.

Gearing up for 53 Degrees…

Busy week as we gear up for 53 Degrees,  the annual showcase of degree students’ work from around the country. Fantastic quality and range of entries – would be great to show everyone, but in the end the selection panel whittled it down to 53 late on Monday night… Plus this year will see Hannah Lovett, last year’s winner, exhibit 2 new pieces.

It all kicks off officially at 2pm on Sat 30 July, though the really hard work starts on the 25th as the work comes in and the hanging begins… Judging is on Friday 29, so all entrants should be crossing their fingers/toes/alternative digits that morning as the judges decide who gets the cash, and who is invited to be artist in residence.

Thanks to Arts Council England for making this happen. And watch this space, or one very like it, as we will be setting up a blog to be kept by the exhibitors very soon…

Northern Stars exhibition

Our Northern Stars exhibition – featuring 26 members of the Northern Potters Association – is proving extremely popular. Rightly so, as the work is of a high standard and the prices ridiculously affordable. See the website for the full list of participants and get to the gallery before the show finishes on 4 June! (Better sooner than later, though, as the work is flying off the plinths…)

Alun Graves in conversation with Louisa Taylor

On Wednesday 23 March we were delighted to host an insightful and stimulating talk between AlunGraves, Curator of 20th Century Ceramics at the V&A, and Louisa Taylor. Quite rightly it was a sell-out event – it was very exciting to have such an impressively engaged audience. Many thanks to everyone who attended for making this such a memorable event, and to Joanna Petrie of the York Press for the pictures below.

 

Alun Graves, Curator of Ceramics at the V&A, with Louisa Taylor

Alun Graves and Louisa Taylor in front of a packed gallery

Alun Graves with Louisa Taylor's 'Pearlware' vase installation

Louisa Taylor’s new work

Louisa Taylor’s new show is now up and running and is a complete delight – the quality of the pieces Louisa has made is absolutely stunning. It’s great having the chance to show the new work alongside those pots from the York collections that inspired Louisa – many thanks are due to York Museums Trust for allowing us to borrow these, and for being so enthusiastic about our idea for this show.

The exhibition was officially opened on the Private View of 3 March by Janet Barnes, Chief Executive of York Museums Trust, who spoke kindly in support of our endeavours to bring contemporary work to York.

Here are some images of the work Louisa has created:

'Pearlware' Collection of Vases by Louisa Taylor, from £60; whole installation £3000

'Hurst' Supper Set by Louisa Taylor (detail), £1800

'A Fourchue' Condiment Set by Louisa Taylor, £590

Stephen Dixon and Alison Welsh

Continuing our Saturday afternoon I Am Human talks, last Saturday we welcomed Stephen Dixon and Alison Welsh, who each gave a fascinating talk about their practice. A good turn out too this week, which was great to see. We were particularly pleased to be joined by tutors and students from the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York, with whom we hope to be able to collaborate on future projects. Thanks to Steve and Alison for great talks, and to all who came for being such an engaged and interesting audience!

Art students respond to I Am Human

We’re delighted with the responses from visitors to I Am Human. In addition, thanks to our Arts Council funding, we have been offering free workshops and events to schools, colleges and universities in the area. Last Friday we were pleased to welcome Year 9 & 10 Art students from Archbishop Holgate’s School in York, who produced some great work in response to the exhibition’s themes. They did fantastically well, especially considering it was after school on a Friday evening!

I Am Human opens

Friday night was the opening night of I Am Human. It was a fantastic evening, made extra special by the attendance of Iby Knill, Trude Silman and Eugene Black, the three Holocaust survivors who helped us to create our installation, The Holocaust Survivors’ Library.

On Saturday Magdolene Dykstra, whose ceramic torsos feature in I Am Human, ran a free workshop throughout the afternoon for adults and children to learn about coil building and pinching clay structures. Here’s a snippet of her at work:

 

Last day for Hannah Lovett and Joanna Petrie

How two weeks fly by! Today is the last day of Hannah’s residency, and people’s last chance to catch Joanna’s stunning images. Unless you can get a lastminute flight to Dhaka and see them there, that is, as the Chobi Mela exhibition went live yesterday. Joanna is there (envy, envy) – a shame we don’t have one of those Oscar night big screen satellite link-ups, but – well, we don’t. What we do have now is video recording capabilities, and we will be making a short film of Hannah’s studio before she packs up, which we’ll post here shortly. We think Hannah has found the experience useful and positive – she will be in conversation with Robert later today (2pm, free, drop in, all welcome, please come, etc etc, slight twinge of desperation in the voice), so all will be revealed!