Previous Exhibitions
Over the years since we opened in 2009, we have had more than 25 exhibitions. Some of these are available online. We hope you will enjoy browsing these pages. If you live far from Settle, perhaps it will whet your appetite to pay us a visit.
8 July 2018 – 8 September 2018
An installation by Aberdeenshire artist Ingrid Stephenson formed this exhibition.
Titled ARCHAOS II, the exhibition was about the evolutionary process, exploring creation and decay. It drew on Ingrid’s experience as the recording artist at archaeological digs.
The first weekend of the exhibition formed part of the Three Peaks Art Trail, featuring artists at 30 different locations across an area from Settle to Ingleton.
Ingrid Stephenson was born in the north of Scotland and is half-Dutch. Though her degree was in Fine Art she was always fascinated by archaeology, and has regularly been employed at digs all over Scotland and England.
She said –“My subject-matter tends to be bleak because my materials include dead things, bone, metals, and things in the process of decaying. Sometimes there is a dark humour in decay. I like to look forensically at a found object and identify what processes it has undergone; whether it has been hammered or worn. I like to see how things degrade.”
This exhibition followed on from a successful show, Archaos I at the renowned Bingley Gallery and formed stage two of a tour introducing Stephenson’s work to England for the first time.
Ingrid Stephenson
Ingrid opens the exhibition on July 8 as part of the Three Peaks Art Trail
26 May – 6 July 2018
Women of the world gallop through the Dales in a set of vibrant oil paintings that formed this exhibition.
The Yorkshire landscape’s beauty was joyously expressed by artist Lois Brothwell who said: “Hiking in The Yorkshire Dales is a joyous and liberating experience. The question for me as an artist is how to communicate such a heady sensation? My answer is by painting ecstatic women galloping on horseback, tossing their garments and inhibitions to the wind!”
In its final week the exhibition formed part of the Three Peaks Arts Trail that featured 16 venues between Settle, Ribblehead and Ingleton.
Lois’s exposure to art began in her late teens when she left Canada, where she grew up. After a year working in England then a tour of Europe, she returned to the UK, moving to Yorkshire where she fell under the spell of the landscape’s beauty. She took up drawing and painting, training with nationally reputed artists including Helen Peyton and Tom Wood.
Lois enjoys figurative and narrative painting “with a bit of abstract thrown in”. She loves colour and “plucks from several triads for a single canvas. I’m impulsive with colour… if I suddenly fancy some lime green or blazing-hot orange I use them. I don’t care if they upset the picture’s cohesion…I want to have fun.”
Lois Brothwell
24 March – 25 May 2018
This installation looked at stone walls, stone in the landscape, even the sound of stone. It was a starting point.
The exhibition took the Gallery as a centre of operations with forays to make drawings, paintings, photographs and recordings.
Phil Moody has an MA in Visual Art and is a former band member of the ‘British anarcho-punk’ band Chumbawamba. He works in whatever medium he sees fit and makes whatever social comments he thinks necessary. To find out more about Phil and his work visit:
To see the photographs associated with this exhibition click on the stone image on the right.
Phil Moody at work
The artist officially opens the exhibition
Part of the exhibition
Inside out – Phil’s photos of the view from outside the gallery are featured within
26 January 2018 – 23 March 2018
Artist and musician Kerry McKenna brought the magic and mystery of her slate paintings to Gallery in the spring 2018 exhibition.
Since it opened nine years ago the gallery, had featured local, national and international artists across a range of genres.
In featuring slate paintings we added to the range of artistic works on our portfolio.
Kerry McKenna was born in Wales but now lives with her family near to Avebury in Marlborough Wiltshire, the famous village that’s inside an ancient stone circle. Many people have been drawn to Avebury with its magical qualities and Kerry, being one, specifically likes to paint magical mystical scenes onto pieces of slate. Her husband Tom collects, cleans and cuts the slates into shapes ready for Kerry to paint.
In addition to the magic inspired scenes that were on show in this exhibition Kerry also paints commissions for people in many countries especially the USA and Canada. She also holds Art On Slate workshops teaching the techniques of slate painting.
The multi-talented Kerry is also a singer songwriter / musician and has written and produced four albums of music for Diviniti publishers. She has also written a play – film – musical concerning the plights of our forests.
For more about Kerry visit her website: Kerry McKenna slates
Part of the exhibition
26 November 2017 – 25 January 2018
The Gallery once again linked up with the inspiring Settle Stories group for the 2017-18 winter exhibition.
A hundred years after the death of Craven dialect poet Tom Twisleton the gallery and Settle Stories sought to bring back to life the words of a man who captured the essence of rural Craven in Victorian times. Settle stories worked with young people to look not just at the words but also the social issues that lay behind them and so give an insight into life in this area as seen through the eyes of a poet who lived from 1845 to 1917 and was a farmer and a temperance advocate as well as a fine wordsmith. For more on the Settle Stories project visit Settle Stories
