ABOUNDING in religious paintings from the past, the Bowes is an appropriate exhibition venue for work on similar themes by a living artist, Anthony Clark, who lives just down the road at Whorlton.

His last major exhibition here in 2004 acknowledged a stylistic debt to El Greco, and that flickering, flame-like brushwork and sense of devotional ecstasy is still apparent even in new secular subject matter.

Clark's path of pilgrimage takes him to cathedrals all over the Continent as well as to Durham. He is both an expressive painter, employing deep glowing colours for emotional effect, and an assured draughtsman for whom firm architectural space delineated in pen and ink is as important as the felt experience.

Impressions of the moment are pinioned within structures that have stood as places of worship for centuries. His pictures are crammed with composite elements that push up against the surface as if about to burst out and envelope the spectator.

In Bede and Cuthbert, Durham Cathedral, perspective and visual realism are altered so that all manner of things – carved saints and stained glass, illuminated manuscript lettering and doves, corbels and pillars – appear squarely within the dark lofty space.

The Midnight Vigil, capturing the essence of an Eastern Orthodox service, has a mass of heads – head-scarfed women and fur-hatted men – bathed in the heat of candelight beneath penned onion domes.

Greater openness and play of light is apparent in Moroccan street scenes, but they are still packed with painterly incident. Multi-faceted patterns and exotic colours are found in a study of the Cave of Buddha in Sri Lanka. Golden angels float joyously in Venetian cathedral interiors.

Paintings done in France play homage to Monet, Matisse and Van Gogh. Flowers in tangled undergrowth conveyed in dense muted tones like tapestry seem to be a hymn to nature. The exhibition runs until May 1.

Pru Farrier