The Original Print Show, Zillah Bell Gallery, Thirsk

ONCE again the pick of this year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition has made its way from central London to Thirsk in this veritable cue of an exhibition.

Yorkshireman and world renowned printmaker Norman Ackroyd has handpicked works for this print show which runs until October 22. This exciting exhibition is a distillation of the London show and consists of some of the finest printmaking being produced today, by both world renowned and lesser known artists from around the globe.

Spanning every genre of printmaking from etchings, engravings, lithographs and screen prints to digital prints, the exhibition is eclectic and electric in the artistic vitality that fills the walls of the upper floor gallery.

Royal Academician Norman Ackroyd chose about 70 exceptional prints from the summer show.

My own favourites include Dame Elizabeth Blackadder floral, painterly delicacy that greets visitors upon entering the gallery, and Sarah Rogers’ fanciful etchings of personified mice (the stuff that unsettling dreams are made of).

It is impossible not to adore the arresting, eye-popping colour and compositions of Barbara Rae, and equally the impossible, iridescent palette of Ian Ritchie.

The economy of marks employed by Susan Beattie to depict a couple entwined in a simple hold resonates through the gallery as does what appears to be the loving depiction of a beautifully complex mind by Alice Irwin.

Bill Jacklin commanding monotype print evokes palpable rain and all of the fizz and effervescence of a drenched journey through Times Square, then to another corner of the earth, and indeed nestled quietly in the far corner of gallery, sits Camilla Fanning’s etching entitled Kilmacurragh, a little landscape full of perfect, fresh tones that speak of a sense of space and place immeasurably greater than the picture plane the print is contained on.

The Original Print Show curated by Norman Ackroyd is another must see exhibition at Zillah Bell Gallery.

Sarah Mayhew Craddock