Gallery visitors invited to graffiti the walls (From Darlington and Stockton Times)
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Gallery visitors invited to graffiti the walls
1:11pm Monday 4th February 2013 in News
Hannah Skyrme enjoys the open day at York Art Gallery.
GALLERY visitors were invited to draw on the walls of an historic art gallery before it closes for an ambitious £8m refurbishment.
York Art Gallery was handed over to the public at the weekend (Saturday, Feb 4) after being safely emptied of artwork ahead of the redevelopment. It will be closed until Easter 2015.
About 3,800 people took part in helping creating numerous public artworks, including the Lord Mayor of York, Coun Keith Hyman and his wife.
Visitors painted and drew on the walls of the main gallery, listened to live music, visited a craft cafe and used light technology to draw light on the wall of the South Gallery. A group called The Northern Potters created a clay version of the gallery.
Children also helped assemble a giant mosaic of the gallery and other visitors helped create crocheted designs including umbrellas and jellyfish inside the building and on Exhibition Square outside. There was even knitting to music.
The refurbishment will involve increasing the gallery’s display space by 60 per cent, creating a new first-floor mezzanine gallery and expanding into the next door rooms, formerly occupied by the City Archives.
The ground flood will be converted so it is capable of hosting major national and international exhibitions.
It will also involve a garden area created from a newly-opened up section of the Museum Gardens.
