Paintings from the exhibition

13 April – 14 June 2021

This exhibition will feature paintings on stone of bothies – or mountain huts – by Horton-based artist Alex Pilkington.

Alex is a regular visitor to bothies in the UK and across Europe (see photo above). He has also recently become a maintenance organiser for Greensykes Bothy in South Scotland. Here Alex  tells the story of the bothies and the stones: “Not everyone is familiar with the word ‘Bothy’, so as a simple explanation… It is a mountain shelter that is open for people to stop over for a night, or take refuge in poor weather, or just visit for a picnic or lunch. There is much more to the bothy than this as they are all individual and have rich histories, both from the peasant farmers and shepherds that use to live in them with their families generations ago, to the mountaineers that have used them on epic and pioneering winter climbs. They are a wonderful asset to have in the UK’s wilderness areas and a night in one can enhance any visit to the mountains, as well as providing the chance to have a great social encounter with other like-minded mountain visitors that you may never have met before, nor meet again – but often the memories and stories told will never be forgotten.

“I have been visiting the bothies for a number of years using my mountain bike to bike-pack between them, sometimes doing 3-4 day trips, or sometimes just a night, sometimes with friends, sometimes with family and quite often just on my own. During the coronavirus lockdown the bothy pebble painting became a good escape for me and I found it very therapeutic. I have created some 30 images on a range of stones, most from my own photographs of bothies that I have visited. There is a wide range of landscapes from sunny coastal vistas to winter mountain-scapes, some under the crisp night sky, similarly the stones are all varied and provide a nice medium to paint on.”

Alex Pilkington – Horton- in-Ribblesdale The Bothy Stones are for sale at £25 each. A £5 donation will be made to the Mountain Bothies Association – www.mountainbothies.org.uk

Alex at a Slovenian Bothy (or Bivak as they are known in that country)

Alex’s bike outside a highland bothy

The Greensykes Bothy, in the Scottish Borders, which Alex helps maintain

To be scheduled

It really was a ‘chance encounter’ which opened the door to an opportunity to present a tribute to a great Yorkshire artist – Arthur Reginald Smith R.W.S. in Gallery on the Green.

Picture the scene of a tightrope walker preparing to cross the sky above Malham Cove – and a growing crowd eagerly anticipating the next move. The perfect place for a conversation to begin, ‘by chance’, about all things wonderful and all things Yorkshire.

Somehow a connection to Arthur Reginald found a way into a conversation which had begun between two fellow spectators of the tightrope moments and before too long Julie, of Gallery on the Green suggested that John, distant relative of Arthur, might be interested in presenting  a tribute to Arthur Reginald Smith R.W.S. in the gallery.

Arthur’s paintings, along with first edition volumes, had always been treasured by John’s family and access to new technology gave him an opportunity to reproduce and share Arthur’s work in new ways. With that in mind the challenge of presenting work in the Gallery on the Green phone box began.

One painting from Arthur’s contribution of 12 watercolours in ‘The Striding Dales’ by Halliwell Sutcliffe has been chosen to give visitors to the Gallery the experience of being part of the scene. The location for the painting is ‘Thorpe’ – the hidden village – and the entrance is easy to find. The phone box image will also have a message presented for all visitors to consider and a printed book will be available to share the 12 watercolour images taken from ‘The Striding Dales’.

It is also intended that links to other chance encounters will provide a tribute to other artists and creatives who have shared their interest and enthusiasm for the project.

Watch this space !

Suffolk artists

Not just Hockney/

Date to be determined

One of the first exhibitions staged at Gallery on the Green in 2009 featured the work of pupils at Settle Primary Schools. We have retrieved these pieces from our archives and are displaying them again. This time with an invitation for the artists, who must now be in their late teens, to return to the gallery and perhaps replace their original contribution with a new work or a photograph of themselves with the original.