Read below my end of year update covering my Bailiffgate Exhibition, move into my new studio at the Old Bath House, the Winter Exhibitions I am included in and finally a Studio Sale with a range of discounted paintings-perfect for last minute Christmas presents! It is also worth noting that I have just updated the gallery section of my website with all of my new work, you can visit it by clicking here.
The past few weeks have been very busy to say the least. I have been thrilled with the reaction to my exhibition at the Bailiffgate Museum and have been so pleased to hear everyone’s responses to the work on show. The exhibition is comprised of a total of 51 paintings-a number that surprised even me when we counted them all up on hanging day. I am very grateful to all of the museum staff for their help and assistance in mounting the show. The show comes to a close today for the first-half of its run as the museum closes for the winter period, if you haven’t had a chance to visit yet the museum will reopen in the new year and the exhibition will run again from January 10th-January 29th. My exhibition is the first in a series of exhibitions by artists from Amble. I am very much looking forward to seeing Nevill Wilson‘s exhibition mounted in February after my show closes. Nevill’s work is very rewarding of patient observation and engagement with the subtle and humorous internal logic of his work, comprising photo etchings, monotypes, collagraphs and paintings. It is a show that will definitely be worth seeing and spending time with.
In preparation for the exhibition I produced an illustrated catalogue of all of the paintings on display. The catalogue was previously available upon request however I am very pleased to make it available publicly for this first time here. The work that is sold is marked with a red dot, I have tried to keep it as up to date as possible however if you would like to double check the availability of any of the paintings your best option is to get in touch with the museum here.
As I posted on my social media this week, I have just recently moved into a new studio at the Old Bath House in Broomhill. After about 2 years of moving between my parents garage at home and my studio at university in Newcastle, having a more permanent and larger space to make work in comes as a great pleasure. I am in Studio 6E and if you would like to make a visit please get in touch via the contact form at the bottom of the page and arrange a time.
This year I have also sent a number of pieces out to galleries across the country, I am pleased to be included in a total of 3 winter group shows. First up is an exhibition at the Dockside Gallery in Tweedmouth, Berwick-upon-Tweed. Mary has done a brilliant job of pulling together a wide and varied range of work, all unframed and all price-capped in order to make the show accessible during the cost-of-living crisis. I have 3 5″x7″ inch postcard-sized paintings in the show which you can view on the gallery website here, available for £130 each.
Secondly is the Gallagher and Turner Winter Open Exhibition in Newcastle, I had my piece ‘Evening Landscape, Morwick’ (pictured below) accepted into their show, comprised of work from a total of 62 North East Artists. If you are interested in viewing my painting available through G&T please click here. Then finally I was very pleased to be accepted into the Spring Cheltenham Winter Small Works Show with my painting ‘Moonlight Pond’. The show had over 1000 submissions of works and only 84 artists were accepted for the final show which makes it even more of a pleasure to be included.
*Studio Sale*
Finally, given that I have done much sorting and organising whilst moving into my new studio I wanted to take this opportunity to have a little studio sale of some of the pieces that I have left that either weren’t included in the Bailiffgate Exhibition or that haven’t been sent out to galleries. The prices shown in the caption are discounted and highlighted in red. If you are interested in any of the paintings displayed please get in touch via the contact form at the bottom of the page.
So, thank you very much for taking the time to read through this post. I am very grateful for all of the support given to me over the course of the past year from family, friends, collectors and the public alike. The Bailiffgate was a huge undertaking and it has been great to see the end result and to have heard that so many people have been to see it. I am looking forward to getting stuck back into my work in my new studio over the coming months!
Luke McTaggart 