Realism and fantasy in new shows at city art gallery

4:16pm Friday 12th September 2008

THE way in which villages can promote themselves is questioned in a new exhibition opening in Durham this weekend.

Pope and Guthrie - Titchy/Kitschy is the work of Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie at Durham Light Infantry Museum and Durham Art Gallery from tomorrow until October 12.

The artists work with different communities in this country and abroad.

Titchy/Kitschy is the result of a residency in a remote rice village in north-west Japan during 2006.

The residency was developed by Grizedale Arts, based in the Lake District, and aimed to explore how villages could adapt to new ways of living and the artists could be useful in the community.

Inspired by the Lake District company Lilliput Lane, Titchy/Kitschy questions how villages might promote themselves.

Ms Pope lives and works in London and Ms Guthrie is based in the Lake District.

They were students together at Edinburgh College of Art, then completed MA degrees in London and began their collaborative and solo careers in 1995.

Their creative organisation, Somewhere, was launched in 2001 and won the first Northern Art Prize last year.

Also on show is an exhibition about Woods, Princes and Cottages by Eleanor Moreton, Durham Cathedral artist-inresidence 2008.

Her princes come in a range of disguises, with inspiration ranging from Disney to Slovakian puppets, and are deliberately ridiculous.

She also paints buildings and homes, and cottages which can be dark and claustrophobic or be airy, illogical spaces with walls that seem to float apart. Sometimes they are seen from the outside, surrounded by woods, or derelict.

The imaginary world alludes to German Romanticism and psychoanalytic theory, but the effect is ambivalent.

The artist, who studied painting and art history at Exeter College of Art, UCE and Chelsea College of Art, will accompany a free tour of the exhibition next Friday at 6pm.

The cathedral artist-in-residency is supported by Durham Cathedral Chapter, the Chaplaincy to Arts and Recreation, the University of Sunderland's School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture and St Chad's College of Durham University.

Eating Out