Clive Head: Internationally-renowned artist among Yorkshire names in latest Old Parcels Office exhibition

"With so many brilliant artists working in the North it has been quite a challenge to restrict the choice down to just 15. My final selection includes work by artists based in Scarborough, Saltburn, Hull, Leeds and North Wales and gives a flavour of the diverse, high-quality artwork being made in the region," says Rob who is exhibiting some of his own and that of his brother in the exhibition which runs from October 14 to November 5.

Among them is acclaimed artist Clive Head.

Head, who lives in the small village of Gristhorpe near Filey, always knew he was going to be an artist.

“I was slow at reading but I could always draw well, even from the age of four,” says Head who was something of a child prodigy and has gone on to show his work in the National Gallery as well as in New York.

He believes people are born artists who think differently to other people although that doesn’t always mean they will become successes.

"Art is not a meritocracy. People can sell paintings just because they are in vogue not necessarily because they are any more talented than someone who doesn’t make it.” Head’s long career has seen a dramatic evolution of his style, from early work in the tradition of Realism to more recent math-inspired works and in 2005 he was commissioned by the Museum of London to produce a painting of Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II. Around this time he was diagnosed with a neurological disease that had a devastating effect on his muscles. Despite still suffering from this condition, Head continues painting often as a way to try to block out the pain he suffers.

His studio in the tiny North Yorkshire village of Gristhorpe is stacked with many of his canvases which appear to the untrained eye to be finished paintings but Head is quick to dispel that myth.

"I describe many of my new paintings as being in their “current state” as opposed to being complete. Some may well be finished; in the past I would have not hesitated on describing them as done, moving quickly on to the next canvas, yet in recent times I have found great interest in revisiting and repainting works.”

He first gained prominence in the 1990s for his Realist urban landscapes with his paintings often being compared and even mistaken for photographs.

“Not many people were doing it at that time in this country and people loved it. Ten years on other people start to follow in your footsteps and so then evolved my work which is now much more base on my view of the world rather than other people’s.”

He also began to experiment with spatial mathematics in the 2000s, sparking his current style. He is critical of those artists who do not continue to develop and evolve, instead continue to ‘churn out’ what they know will sell.

"The idea that you arrive at making a certain kind of painting, a kind of product and then just keep churning it out seems to miss the point of being a painter in the first place. Painting is an extraordinary flexible way of thinking and making. You experience the world, you grow and then you end up in the studio and attempt to make something that resonates, that is truthful and connects with all that you are.”

In 1994 he founded and became the Chair of the Fine Art Department at the University of York's Scarborough Campus having moved to Yorkshire with his wife when she got a teaching job. He started working at Scarborough North Riding College before being asked to write a Fine Arts degree.

“They gave me four weeks to write an entire fine arts degree but that’s how it was in those days.” Head will be displaying two of his works which will hang side by side at the Old Parcels Works exhibition. He was approached by Rob Moore about exhibiting his work as part of the Obsessions exhibition.

"I was asked to out together an exhibition of 15 northern artists,” explains Moore, trustee of the Old Parcels Office. "Whilst starting to plan the exhibition back in March my longtime friend and artist Jim Orme died unexpectedly and so I am really pleased that Jim’s family have kindly allowed some of his work to be included in the show.

"I very much hope to put together a larger retrospective exhibition from Jim’s considerable body of work at some time in the future.”

He will also be exhibiting some of his own work. “I knew from an early age I wanted to be an artist so after secondary school went on to study art at Loughborough and Sheffield Art Schools.”

After leaving college Moore expected to work in the Rotherham steel works where he had done shifts while a student but he applied for and was offered the Granada Fine Art Fellowship at Manchester Polytechnic. He then went on to teach at a number of art schools in the North and Midlands before moving to York Art School. From there he moved to Hull School of Art and Design as dean of faculty.

After leaving Hull in 2013 he designed and built his own eco house and studio in North Lincolnshire which was featured in the Yorkshire Post. After meeting local artist Wendy Tate he ended up moving to Scarborough.

Head now lives in Ayton just outside Scarborough where he and Tate, now his wife, have a large studio and printmaking workshop. Tate will also exhibtion at the Old Parcels Office exhibtion.

Over the years his work has encompassed both figurative and abstract genres. Although his more recent paintings might be described as abstract he draws inspiration for his carefully crafted compositions from the Wolds and North York Moors landscape.

His work is also influenced by the environment in particular his concerns about climate change and he will be exhibition three or four of them at the Old Parcels Office.

He said that putting together the exhibition was a challenge as there were so many artists to choose from and he wanted to make sure there were representatives of a variety of medium. "Whether their work is abstract, figurative, romantic or challenging, a zealous application to their art practice has resulted in each developing their own, very distinctive style of work.”

Other artists include Kerry Baldry - an artist, filmmaker and independent curator based in North Wales; Helen Birmingham - a mixed-media and textile artist who runs Untangled Threads from her studio in Scarborough; Katie Braida – a ceramicist based in Scarborough; Kane Cunningham – a plein-air landscape painter based in Scarborough; Gordon Dalton – a painter based in Saltburn; Adele Howitt - based at Studio 11 in Hull, working with clay to create large scale works; Neil Moore – a figurative painter based in Leamington Spa; Chris Tansey – an abstract painter based in Hull; Lindsey Tyson – painter based in Scarborough; Shirley Vauvelle – ceramicist and painter based near Filey and Christopher Wood – a painter based in Leeds. Obsessions is at the the Old Parcels Office Artspace, Scarborough from October 24 to November 5. On Sunday October 29, Clive Head and Christopher Wood will talk about their work. www.oldparcelsoffice.org