Touch of magic as artist views resort through the looking glass

The Queen of the Watering Places appears as you have never seen her before in an exhibition by painter Joy Lomas, who turned to art in the twilight of her career as a Leeds estate agent.

Mrs Lomas, 65, of Newby Farm Road, Newby, Scarborough, said: "Like many artists I wanted to paint Scarborough but for me it has to be Scarborough as it had never been seen before. I love the town and it has a magical hold on me."

She contacted Max Payne, charity worker and well-known photographer. "I thought he captured Scarborough perfectly through his lens. He agreed to let me use his pictures for inspiration for my new project."

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For the past two years she has experimented, distorting the image by looking through curved glass to produce paintings of Scarborough landmarks "in a dreamlike way, reflecting the magic of the town."

Her earlier work was among a select few chosen from 10,000 paintings to feature in an exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London, where it sold for a four-figure sum.

She developed the idea into the Scarborough Project, a series of paintings linked to the regeneration of the town.

The exhibition, called The Magic of Scarborough, can be seen from 10am to 4pm at The Studio Gallery of the Yorkshire Wolds Gallery at Willerby Wold Farm, Staxton Hill, Staxton, near Scarborough, until Wednesday. Admission is free.

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