SCENES of Swaledale in summer glory are an antidote to winter in this exhibition of paintings, photographs, prints and ceramics in the Station's mezzanine gallery – but visitors will do well not to be distracted from the less immediately striking contents of the glass showcases.

Here one finds stoneware figurines of rough hewn shepherds by Teesdale artist Alistair Brookes, with chiselled weather-worn faces and bulky clothes, expressive of rustic fortitude.

His figures are characterised by large hands and extra long arms – all the better for hefting a ewe up on to a shoulder or cradling a newborn lamb – while somewhat off the Swaledale brief is a range depicting Durham miners in similar staunch fashion and small porcelain animals and subjects drawn from legend.

Other showcases contain delightful small raku birds and wildlife creatures by Kathy Pike, deceptively simple but meeting the technical challenges of forming different textures within each pocket-size piece.

Clare Linley's stylised images of sheep seated beneath trees are remarkable for having been produced without paint or brush, merely from coloured paper through the use of a sharp knife. Her paper cutting technique produces pictures rather like early 20th century children's storybook illustration, with areas of block colour and strong black contours, which capture the essence of the dale and its flocks.

Sue Dewhurst's paintings in bold acrylic greens and blues offer a heightened visual experience, with nicely modulated differences in textures between soft meadow growth and sold stone barns.

For John Longstaff the Dales landscape billows with seductive softness. His pen and ink drawings offer a more objective view of different seasons.

Beverley Haines is showing prints of birds, true to life in black and white, semi-abstract emerging from tinted foliage. Ian Short's photographs are notable for colour, sharpness of image and sense of place.

Amid John Degnan's landscape pictures is a single ram's head sculpted in wood, forerunner in a project leading to an exhibition in two years' time, carved to encompass the flow of the grain. The exhibition runs until January 6.

Pru Farrier