New Light Prize exhibition
Location: main gallery
Dates: every day except Monday until 5 January 2025
Price: free
One of the UK's largest and most talked about open exhibitions, the touring New Light Prize exhibition is a celebration of Northern talent.
New Light was established to showcase both well-known and emerging artists. Now in its fifteenth year of supporting and promoting Northern artists through some of the region’s best awards and opportunities. The common thread through all the work New Light does is a deep belief that the visual arts matter and the North of England deserves to be celebrated.
The exhibition features the five winning pieces, as well as work from 121 shortlisted artists who impressed the esteemed panel of judges with their unique artwork.
Light Footfalls by Chrissie Freeth. A handwoven tapestry, hand-dyed weft, cotton warp.
Adrift on a Painted Sea exhibition
Location: Mercer Gallery Studio
Dates: 16 November 2024 until 30 March 2025
Price: free
Adrift on a Painted Sea by Tim Bird is a beautiful and profound graphic novel that explores family, loss, and art through the author's relationship with his mother, Sue Bird, who painted as a hobby throughout her life. The exhibition displays a range of paintings by Sue Bird, alongside some artwork from the graphic novel, written by her son Tim after her death to celebrate her art and life. As well as paintings by Sue Bird and artwork from the novel, there will also be a display of sketches and sketchbooks.
Sue Bird was always painting: botanical art, landscapes, still lifes, and especially the sea. She took classes, kept countless sketchbooks, and filled the house with art. From their neighbourhood to their family trips to the North Yorkshire coast, all the moments of her life were memorialized in her artwork. Throughout her life, she never sold a piece - she gave art to family and friends and shared her work online, but never received wider recognition for her work. The new novel, Adrift on a Painted Sea, explores their family life and her creative explorations through a mix of her paintings and Tim's comics, depicting their relationship and her life from a teenager to her struggle with cancer at the height of the Covid pandemic.
Secrets of the Majestic exhibition
Dates: 15 November 2024 until 31 March 2025
Price: free
'Dare you enter... the toilets?'
This exhibition shows comic artwork inspired by the famous gents’ washroom of the Majestic Hotel - an opulent porcelain palace of gilded splendour.
Secrets of the Majestic is an 88-page comic book anthology of stories set in, and based around, this wondrous space and seeking to answer one burning question... Why are they like that?
The Majestic opened in 1900 as a grand new hotel for Harrogate’s affluent spa visitors. Famous for its plush décor and splendid service, the Majestic became a major landmark in the town, a by-word for classy luxury. Bizarrely, the hotel’s spacious, ground floor men’s washroom became a famous destination in its own right, with its black and white chequer-tiled floor, elegant wood panelling, Victorian brassware, and even a bench for visitors to sit and admire the magnificent surroundings.
For the past few years, artists and illustrators, too, have marvelled at these gents loos, when the Majestic has hosted the annual mid-convention party for Thought Bubble, the UK’s largest festival of comic art which draws international artists and fans to Harrogate each November.
Sheffield-based artist Chris Mole was inspired to put together a collection of short stories by comic artists, each exploring different explanations and theories for such an opulent porcelain palace, running the gamut from horror to action, to science fiction and fantasy. Secrets of the Majestic was successfully funded on Kickstarter in November 2023 and will debut at Thought Bubble Comic Art Festival 2024, accompanied by this exhibition of selected original artwork and pinups at the Mercer Art Gallery.
Supported by DoubleTree by Hilton Harrogate Majestic.
