THE ground floor rooms at the gallery are dedicated to work by Amelia Humber whose single-minded pursuit is to convey an intense momentary experience of the great outdoors – the wilder the better.

Despite the earthy-sounding title Terrain, it is the skies that have it, with the land cast as bit part player in the atmospheric drama played out overhead.

These are bold, near-abstract paintings in oils, generally composed in two strata, focusing chiefly on expressive and explosive cloud effects above slivers of ground that are often dark, as in Eston, with its massed layers of deep blues and greens highlighted by russet browns and mustard yellow.

While surface sheen catches light in the gallery and further illuminates the sky, the land beneath is layered in broad passages of matt colour, with impenetrable depths sometimes etched by tiny zigzag lines or dabs of brightness to convey perhaps a distant building or scenic feature.

Esk is almost all sky, with a narrow area at the base of the picture given to the valley with just perceptible field divisions and a sweep of soft mauve that may be moorland.

One exception to the rule is Reed, more land than sky, with dripping paint suggestive of conifer forestry beneath smudges of rolling hills. Glimpsed within the lowering hues of Gilling are spurts of off-white that may be vehicle headlights moving through the gloom.

Pictures frequently display drips and hints of splattering, like raindrops, which seem to be a signature trademark, as are the one-word titles.

There are seasonal differences, such as in the blanched tones of snow-topped Rosskeen in the Scottish Highlands, and though the painting technique is impressive, one wished for more variety in pictures chosen for this exhibition.

Terrain continues until October 14.

Pru Farrier