1st July - 31st August 2003

A celebration of local contemporary jewellery and a design competition inspired by the Great Yorkshire Show

GREAT YORKSHIRE TALENT

The ‘Great Yorkshire Talent’ exhibition showcases the work of thirteen top Yorkshire designers, including twelve jewellers and a textile artist. All of the designers are creating collections of new work for the exhibition and, in addition, each has been commissioned to design and produce one special competition piece. These are to be based on one of the Great Yorkshire Show's judging categories, which includes such gems as 'Pig Pairs', 'Wool on the Hoof' and the 'Housewives Choice Cattle competition'. These one-off pieces will be judged in the Gallery's Great Yorkshire Talent Show, to take place at the exhibition preview event, with a prize being awarded to the design chosen as 'Best in Show'. An exhibition of all thirteen competition entries will then tour, to be on display in the Art Pavilion at the Great Yorkshire Show, between 8th - 10th July, when a number of the designers will also be on hand to talk about their work and demonstrate some of their working techniques.In deciding what to make for their competition entries, the designers are taking their own inspiration from sources that include favourite Yorkshire landscapes, bees and their hives, characteristics of their favourite animals and a collection of vintage agricultural equipment. And, whilst some designers are taking literal references from the world of agriculture, others are adopting a more abstract, conceptual approach.For Sarah Tunstall, a young designer who has always lived amongst the sheep farming area of Calderdale, it is a chance to use the techniques she employs in her more 'mainstream' designs to create a humorous piece - the results are two delightful cartoon-like silver sheep brooches; a ewe and her lamb.Chris Philipson, a nationally known and respected jeweller and silversmith, who is head of the Jewellery and Metalwork Department at Harrogate College, has created two silver plough brooches, which are strong and elegant in their simplicity of form. Roger Barnes of Leeds, an influential contemporary jeweller, tutor and author, has created a magical, bejewelled galloping 'Dream Horse' brooch. And from Wakefield, new talent Genevieve Broughton's golden honeycomb ring is precisely executed - in keeping with the perfection of honeycomb - and uses gold to reflect dripping honey.

Kath Libbert explains: "when thinking about our summer exhibition for the gallery, we knew that, having hosted a number of European exhibitions in recent months, we wanted our next show to be firmly focused on the best of local talent. We then had the idea of forming a link with the Great Yorkshire Show, which is so well known for celebrating the county's agricultural achievements - I liked the idea of creating connections between 'art and agriculture'. From this, we developed the 'Great Yorkshire Talent' exhibition and the concept of a 'Best in Show' competition linked to the Great Yorkshire Show. The designers are all really enthusiastic about taking part and we are now eagerly awaiting the resulting entries and the judging. Showing all the competition pieces at the Great Yorkshire Show will be a great way of making sure that as many people as possible get to see the work of some of the county's strongest design talent - and bring us back to where we started with the idea for the exhibition".