Open for Exhibitions......
Our exhibitions are open every Saturday between
Shield of Faith - Ushaw College at War
Fenwick Lawson
Ushaw benefits from a close relationship with Durham sculptor Fenwick Lawson and houses a number of significant pieces both wooden carvings and subsequent bronze castings.
Sentence: A Work in Progress - 22nd June to August 31st
The paintings displayed here are from an ongoing collaboration between artist Alan O'Cain and a British former banker who pleaded guilty to securities fraud (in 2008) and is now serving a sixteen-year prison sentence in a notorious US jail. Because the prisoner lacks US citizenship, he is forbidden from serving the sentence in a low-security institution.
The subject, in his sixties, a university graduate, family man, former art collector and high-flyer of the corporate banking world, now shares a cell with a convicted murderer and has no opportunity for parole before serving a minimum of fourteen years (2022). Alan has vowed to create a painting for every year his subject remains incarcerated. Each four-foot square work is inspired by the emotional and intellectual content of letters Alan has received and is based on a single photograph of the subject with an arm around his wife taken by a mutual friend whilst the subject was under house arrest pending trial.
Fay Pomerance: Redemption - 4th August to 24th September
Durham University and Ushaw College present Redemption, an exhibition of little seen work by British Jewish artist, Fay Pomerance (1912-2001).
Pomerance stood apart from the mainstream of post-war British art. Throughout her life the artist experienced spiritual visions, which informed her dreamlike iconography and complex narratives. Building on the work of nineteenth-century visionaries such as William Blake, her unique style foreshadowed the flowing imagery of 1960s psychedelia. Pomerance's mystical faith was central to her work, and this exhibition explores her response to questions of evil and redemption.
Chuck Close Tapestries - 30 June to 30 September 2017
Dramatic black and white portrait tapestries by American photorealist artist Chuck Close will be exhibited in a religious setting for the first time this summer when they will be hung from the historic walls of St Cuthbert’s Chapel at Ushaw in Durham.
Marking the artist’s first solo show in the North of England, Chuck Close Tapestries will be the first contemporary art installation to be displayed in the ornately designed chapel. Six 2-metre tall tapestries from Chuck Close, who is renowned for his highly inventive techniques of painting the human face, will become a part of the congregation, including a portrait of former US President Barack Obama that has never before been exhibited in the UK.
