Press 2024

Sunny Bank Mills’ magical Christmas Market returns on Friday 29th November to Sunday 01 December 2024. The 3-day Christmas event will take place next weekend in the Mills’ iconic 1912 building in Farsley, Leeds.

More than 100 local makers and artists from all over the UK will showcase their work during the three days of the Market. Friday and Saturday will see the same 61 makers selling their work and on Sunday it’s all change with another 61. There will be everything from hand crafted jewellery, ceramics, original artwork, textiles, prints, homeware, cards and more. The Market’s Arctic Café will be serving cakes, savoury food and hot and cold drinks.

On Friday, the Market is open from 2pm-8pm for late night shopping, and on Saturday and Sunday throughout the day from 10am-4pm. Stall holders include Tall Paul Kelly, Angela Hall, Bobbie Rae and Right Nice Stuff to name just a few. Entry to the Market is £3. Under 12s free.

On Saturday and Sunday, in addition to the Market, Christmas Playroom will be open from 10am-4pm, a wonderful festive hideaway filled with lots of activities for children and their grown-ups including Storytelling with Liv. £2 entry per person with U2s free. Recommended for children U6. There’s also festive card printing using safe print lino for ages 3+.

Natalie Kolowiecki, Arts Events Co-ordinator at Sunny Bank Mills, explained: “We’re really excited that our Christmas Market is happening next weekend! We’ve been very busy preparing for months now and we can’t wait to share it with our visitors.

This is our biggest event of the year. It will be lovely to welcome everyone back to Sunny Bank Mills for some seasonal goodness and the chance to buy unique gifts, whilst meeting and supporting artists, makers and independent businesses.”

After the Market, visit the Art Gallery’s acclaimed new exhibition, LORE, which explores contemporary folklore through the work of 14 artists from all over the UK. Entry is free.

Meet the Makers in the Mills’ Twisting and Spinning Mill where some of the resident artist community will be opening their studio doors. Buy direct from them on the day and help support local artisans.

Dive into the Mills’ heritage by visiting its Museum & Archive which will be open to drop-in on Saturday and Sunday for a suggested donation of £2.

Many of the Mills’ independent businesses will be open over this festive weekend as well as popular food and drink outlets Amity, Farsley Fire & Smoke, Grumpy’s, Mill Kitchen, Saint Jude and Test Bar.

For full event details: https://www.sunnybankmills.co.uk/arts/gallery/christmas-market-2024/

 

A major contemporary folklore exhibition has opened at Sunny Bank Mills Art Gallery in Farsley, between Leeds and Bradford. LORE is a group exhibition featuring 14 artists from all over the UK who explore contemporary folklore through their practice. It runs until December 24^th 2024.

Sunny Bank Mills Arts Director and LORE Co-Curator, Anna Turzynski said: “The aim of this exhibition is to improve access and inclusion to our arts programme here at Sunny Bank Mills. Put simply we want more people to feel welcome in the Gallery and across the site.

She continued: Folklore felt like the perfect context for this work as it is continually evolving and can be used as a tool to help us connect and make sense of personal and social landscapes that can be challenging to navigate. We have been totally overwhelmed by the positive response to the exhibition and it has been a joy to curate. However, the artworks in the Gallery are only the beginning of the conversation. We have an amazing collection of events and workshops running alongside the exhibition to help discover hidden stories and create new traditions, and we are really  looking forward to hearing about your lore as the exhibition continues. We have learnt so much whilst working on this project and I look forward to its legacy. We are grateful to Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grants Fund for an award to help us realise this important exhibition.”

Sonia Moran, Arts Engagement Co-ordinator and LORE Co-Curator said,” All of the artists exhibiting in the Gallery were chosen through an open call. We had over 500 applications and from those we selected 10 seed commissions which were offered £154.00 to enable them to make a final proposal to be in with a chance of receiving one of three larger commissions of up to £2,558.00 plus a materials budget. We invited a further 4 of the open call artists to be part of the final exhibition. For me, LORE has been a dream to bring it to life and as a team, we are so excited for everyone to explore it.

Moran continued: “Folklore is essentially stories. We create stories with creatures and characters to explain difficult and important events that happen in life, to grapple with complicated emotions and to give those feelings a narrative of their own.

The work in the exhibition was selected because it really explores the multi layered narrative of folklore platforming incredible artists who are telling stories about their personhood. Stories that have been told for hundreds of years or are brand new lore. Our hope is that people will see a part of themselves in this exhibition and be inspired as a result.

I like to think that LORE is the voice of communities artfully expressed in many forms and we hope this exhibition will help improve intercultural and intergenerational understanding. This exhibition hopes to platform untold stories of communities, captured in voices as varied as they are vivid.”

The exhibiting artists are:

Adam Hogarth

Alfred Beesley

Herfa Martina Thompson (large commission award)

Jihyun Kim

Karen Okpoti

Kit George

Libby Bove (large commission award)

Lunatraktors

Olana Light

Sally Barton

Tom Glencross

Woo Jin Joo

Yeu-Lai Mo (large commission award)

Yvadney Davis

The LORE exhibition was awarded £21,262 from Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grants Fund to improve access and inclusion to its Arts Programme through the delivery of a visual arts exhibition

To find out more information about LORE: https://www.sunnybankmills.co.uk/lore/ The Gallery is open Tuesday-Saturday 10-4, Sunday 12-4. Closed on Mondays. FREE ENTRY.

Sunny Bank Mills is one of the most exciting and respected cultural and community hubs in the Yorkshire region. It is home to a large artists’ community and with many other independent businesses on site. It’s situated in the heart of the thriving village of Farsley in West Leeds.

Sunny Bank Mills Gallery in Farsley, near Leeds, is celebrating the lifetime’s work of two Yorkshire artists, ceramicist Loretta Braganza based in York and artist Sheila El-Hassani based in Leeds.

Loretta Braganza was born in Mumbai, India and came to the UK in 1965. She began her practice as a ceramicist in 1990 via a career in dance, graphic arts, textile design and sculpture. She now works from her ceramics studio in York.

Her distinctive style comprising taut edges, clean lines and complex mark making swiftly earned her exhibitions and commissions as well as awards from the Crafts Council and Arts Council England.

Her work is grounded in her training in sculpture and consists of abstract forms which she hand builds and then decorates with coloured slips from an austere colour palette.

Loretta Braganza said: “I am delighted to be showing my ceramics with painter Sheila El-Hassani at the beautiful Sunny Bank Mills Gallery.

The exhibition has been curated with much thought and skill by its new art director Anna Turzynski . The result is a marvellous interaction of ceramics and paintings – each in their own space but adding to the visual pleasure of the whole experience.

My latest series Fruit and Bloom which has never been shown before reflects the rich inspiration that these fruit remembered from my childhood continue to provide. Real fruit embody a feeling, aroma and luminosity of tropical colour while the imagined are stretched into surreal abstraction.”

Sheila El-Hassani studied at Leeds College of Art in the 1950s where she specialised in Graphic Art, graduating from the University of Leeds in 1955. She then entered the teaching profession, first in England and later in Iraq, where she travelled extensively with her husband, Mahdi, who was working for the United Nations at that time. It was while she was living in Iraq that she began to further her interest in drawing and painting; both personally, through sketching the everyday lives of people, and also through professional practice, producing freelance graphic design work for the Iraqi Ministry for Education and also for Iraqi Industries. Sheila would sketch on location in the streets, in the souks and around the mosques, drawing individuals and groups of people amid the social landscape of everyday life in Baghdad in the 1960s.

In 1970 Sheila returned to settle in her native Yorkshire with her family and to continue her career as an educator. After her retirement she developed a vast body of artworks: drawings, gouache paintings and pen & ink wash images of the stall traders, the environment and the public as they went about their everyday business in Leeds City (Kirkgate) Market. Many of the stalls and shops that Sheila has sketched and painted through the years have since ‘gone’ and become the stuff of memories, but her paintings and drawings are alive with the characters and stallholders who inhabited them.

Sheila has exhibited her paintings and drawings locally and nationally over many decades, and notably, her artworks were selected for inclusion in the Leeds City Art Gallery Open Exhibition for ten consecutive years, from 2000 – 2010.

Asking Sheila how she chooses whom to draw from all the endless passers-by, she said: “It’s an exciting adventure going on the bus to town prepared to draw… the anticipation of what I might see, who might appear. I don’t know what or whom I’ll see to draw, or if I will see anyone at all whom I want to draw. Sometimes I see no-one.

I’m open to receive and I’m receptive to it happening when I go among people. It’s to do with shape, rhythm, movement and legs… especially legs. It’s about bodies moving in space and often my drawings are sequential… one of my personal favourite drawings is of a girl in a bowler-style hat at the bus station. She was full of movement. She paused. I drew her and she spun off into more movement and I drew her again. The moment of connection with whom I choose to draw is totally unpredictable.”

Sunny Bank Mills Arts Director, Anna Turzynski said, “This exhibition takes you on a journey through the artistic development of both makers. It is fascinating to see the changes – some apparent , others more subtle  that mark this journey through many series to the present day. You will glimpse familiar places, patterns and textures and delight in their hidden similarities. This is a unique chance to reflect on the work of these two local female artists as they exhibit together for the first time, and an opportunity to buy some gorgeous art.”

Loretta Braganza and Sheila El-Hassani. A Lifetime of Making runs until 13^th October 2024.

Opening times: Tuesday-Saturday 10-4pm, Sunday 12-4pm. Closed on Mondays. Free entry.

Sunny Bank Mills Art Gallery in Farsley, between Leeds and Bradford, has been awarded £21,262 from Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grants Fund to improve access and inclusion to its Arts Programme through the delivery of a visual arts exhibition, LORE, which will explore folklore. LORE will run from October 19^th – December 24^th 2024.

Sunny Bank Mills Arts Director and LORE Co-Curator, Anna Turzynski said about the Arts Council award: “We are thrilled to receive support from Arts Council England to further our work on access and inclusion. I was so inspired by the positive impact that small changes can make to the experience of artists and audiences whilst working at LEEDS 2023 and am excited to continue learning about best practice in this area. The whole team have thrown themselves behind the idea and I am hopeful that the project will be transformational for our approach at Sunny Bank Mills.”

Turzynski continued, “Hosting a high-quality group exhibition around the theme of folklore will enable us to commission new artwork, start new relationships with artists and learn from the sector about best practice in access and inclusion. Our aim is for the exhibition to signpost new audiences to Sunny Bank Mills. We will use this exhibition as a case study that we can benchmark from in the future, applying the knowledge gained to our work moving forward. We need the time to work with experts and to connect meaningfully with communities so that our programme feels open to all. We specifically want to work with more artists from non-white backgrounds and those who have a lived experience of a disability. This could include Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent people, or anyone with a protected characteristic.”

Sonia Moran, LORE Co-Curator said,” Folklore is a really generous theme that can be interpreted in many different ways through many different mediums. Due to the nature of folk culture, it has been historically overlooked by the elite for its inclusivity of many voices shaping and moulding the art forms. It is culture formed outside of elitist institutions by ordinary people who want to share their stories and their culture.

I’m really excited about this exhibition especially to see how artists, makers, musicians, performers, poets, designers and creatives respond to our Call Out which is now open. Artists can apply with new or existing work in any medium.

We have 10 seed commissions of £154.00 to enable the selected artists to make a final proposal to be in with a chance of receiving one of three larger commissions of up to £2,558.00 plus a materials budget.

No formal qualifications are necessary to apply for this opportunity, but we do want to see examples of their work and hear about their practice. “

The exhibition will platform artists and creatives who are telling stories of their personhood; stories that have been passed down through generations or brand-new lore. Folklore encompasses customs, tales, sayings, dances, material objects or any art forms preserved among a people, rooted in place and time, memorialising communities and celebrating the personal craft of the artist or artists. The exhibition aims to improve access and inclusion for both artists and audiences and will be used as a blueprint to inform future exhibitions and events at the Mills’ arts and heritage spaces.

To respond to the LORE Call Out, visit CuratorSpace: https://www.curatorspace.com/opportunities/detail/open-call-exhibition-opportunity-lore/8560 or https://www.sunnybankmills.co.uk/lore/.

The Call Out is open from 11^th-30^th August 2024. Information is available in a variety of formats including Easy Read, audio and video, and written translations in Polish and Urdu (Pakistani). Contact the Art Gallery by email on [email protected] or call on 0113 256 3239 for assistance in applying.

Sunny Bank Mills is one of the most exciting and respected cultural and community hubs in the Yorkshire region. It is home to a large artists’ community and with many other independent businesses on site. It’s situated in the heart of the thriving village of Farsley in West Leeds.

Sunny Bank Mills Gallery in Farsley, Leeds is hosting a pop-up supper club like you’ve never been to before during its latest exhibition, Don’t Play With Your Food.

Don’t Play With Your Food invites you to take a seat at the table and rediscover the joy of food. Artists have long used food as a stimulus for their work and to hold a mirror up to society. The exhibition creates meaning with the humble cabbage and transforms simple things such as bread and milk into timeless works of art. It sees a collection of artists, chefs and craftspeople share the Gallery to celebrate how playful, gross and delicious food can be.

Anna Turzynski, Sunny Bank Mills’ Arts Director explained: “It’s summertime and we wanted our latest exhibition to inspire visitors regardless of their age. Don’t Play With Your Food is an exhibition born out of many conversations and is an invitation to reconsider your relationship to food.

I have always been fascinated by how artists use food in their work, and how the lines between chef, designer, scientist and artist can be blurred. So, I have invited lots of different people into the Gallery to play with the idea of eating, cooking and where our food comes from. You can expect melting ice cream sculptures, surreal cutlery, noodle soup portraits and a giant sandwich. The Edible Playground Supper Club is an extension of these ideas bringing fun and play into a unique dining experience.”

Created by artist, chef and academic Helen Russell Brown, Edible Playground is a playful rejection of table manners. Diners are invited to put their elbows on the table and take a trip down memory lane to rediscover the joy and nostalgia of food.

The menu is inspired by Helen’s own personal food memories from childhood and beyond. Full of warm familiar treats as well as some surreal culinary experiments. Diners are invited to sit at a sculptural tablescape and experience a meal that sits at the intersection between food, art and playgrounds.

Helen Russell Brown expanded: “We always seem to be looking for the next adventure, experience, or undiscovered place – how nice to sink back into nostalgia and rediscover the sticky memories of our younger years as a source of comfort and delight. Join us for an edible journey inspired by memories of classroom games, building sandcastles and a healthy obsession for knickerbocker glories.

I’ve always been fascinated with breaking the rules of the dining table, perhaps starting with ‘no elbows on the table’ at family gatherings. Having fun with food was always encouraged in our household though. Dad’s pea sandwiches (didn’t go down well at the time) and blue toast (impressed guests at sleepovers), and mum’s epic birthday cake scenes (think fairy castle complete with a foil moat) are some of my favourite memories of kitchen mischief.”

Helen is a culinary artist who knows that playing with her food is half the fun. She loves to whip up playful yet reflective food projects that connect people to both their internal and external worlds. Edible Playground is a work created exclusively for Sunny Bank Mills, and is the first event of its kind from Helen and her team in the UK. Helen will be joined by her culinary wife Talita Perfect, the other half of culinary studio Imaginaria.

Arts Director Anna Turzynski continued: “Edible Playground will welcome people into the Gallery after hours to enjoy a three-act meal like no other. The menu that Helen and her team have put together is totally plant based and unlike any dining experience I have ever had. It’s going to be a great evening of mischief and finger licking!”

The Edible Playground Supper Club will be on for 2 nights only – Friday 12th July and Saturday 13th July – and is a completely plant-based menu. Don’t Play With Your Food exhibition opens on Saturday 6^th July until Sunday 1^st September.

For more information and booking for the Supper Club: https://www.sunnybankmills.co.uk/dont-play-with-your-food/

Sunny Bank Mills in Farsley is once again opening the doors of its iconic 1912 Mill for the Threads Textile Festival over the weekend of Friday 7^th – Sunday 9^th June 2024.

Threads Textile Festival which enjoyed a hugely successful launch last year, will feature a Market with over 40 independent businesses and textile makers each day for three days, selling everything from yarn to sewing materials to hand made clothing to soft furnishings and textile art. This year there’s an additional free exhibition area at the top of the 1912 Mill, with exhibitors including the Quilters’ Guild, The Northern Society of Costume and Textiles and work by Dutch textile artist Monika Loster. There is also the launch of an exciting community project ‘Spinning Tales’ which invites people to bring along a treasured piece of clothing to be photographed and written about.

Alongside the Market and the free exhibition area, a series of textile related talks and workshops are taking place across the Mills.

The Sunny Bank Mills Art Gallery, shop and tearoom will also be open where exhibition Tangled Up considers how artists use textiles as a means of exploring personal and political narratives. In the Museum & Archive, temporary exhibition Weaving Voices features work and objects from the artists, creatives and researchers inspired by its Museum & Textile Archive.

The Threads Festival talks programme roams the world covering Japanese Sashiko with Susan Briscoe, Southeast Asian Textiles with Jim Gaffney and Nima Poovaya-Smith, and African Costume and Clothing with Magie Relph. There’s politics with Tangled Up artists Vanessa Marr who uses embroidery as an act of resistance, Sarah-Joy Ford will discuss recent projects that explore the use of quilts to examine and re-imagine historical lesbian domesticities, and Saima Kaur explores the art of storytelling through embroidery.

On Saturday evening, best-selling author, presenter and clothes historian Lucy Adlington will headline the Festival as she traces lost lives, uncovering the stories clothes tell and the memories they hold. She invites the audience to explore garments and textiles from her unique collection spanning three centuries.

Throughout the weekend, there’s an extensive workshop programme with something for everyone whether you are a beginner, somewhere in the middle or at an advanced level. Learn to weave with Agnis Smallwood, embroider with nature with Elnaz Yazdani and get rag rugging with Kim Searle to name just three.

Dr Sarah Gaunt, Threads Textile Festival Director, explained: “After the success of last year’s inaugural Threads Textile Festival we have extended the event to a full 3 days this year. There will be many opportunities to experience textiles in all forms, whether in the market in our iconic 1912 Mill, with over 40 stalls each day or on one of extensive range of workshops designed to appeal to all levels of experience. The talk programme is equally varied and touches on many themes from memory, travel to sexuality. We are very excited to have author, presenter and dress historian Lucy Adlington appear at the Festival on Saturday evening.”

She continued: “You can visit our Museum & Archive which has a temporary exhibition, Weaving Voices, and the Gallery where our exciting textile focussed exhibition Tangled Up continues.

Threads promises to be a weekend overflowing with textile experiences and is an excellent reflection of the textile history of Sunny Bank Mills and its unique and very special setting.”

A thrilling new exhibition, which highlights the power of textiles to explore and explain key personal and political issues, has opened at the acclaimed Sunny Bank Mills Gallery in Farsley, near Leeds.

Tangled Up is a powerful yet playful expression of the history and flexibility of textiles ranging from the joys of sapphic love to the trauma of relationship breakdowns to the extremes of political repression. It runs until Sunday 30 June.

It is entirely appropriate that the exhibition takes place in the heart of Sunny Bank Mills, one of the most famous and historic of all the West Yorkshire textile mills.

Sunny Bank Mills’ Arts Director Anna Turzynski explained: “Like many people, I have always instinctively regarded textiles as functional. We are surrounded by textiles, from the clothes we wear to the contents of our homes, and they often go un-noticed as anything other than a practical means of covering ourselves or living our lives.

“Often associated with the home, textiles have not always been considered as art or even contemporary craft. This exhibition explodes this myth and illustrates so graphically that their rich history can be a tool for protest, for anger and for a whole host of powerful emotions. Some of this exhibition is intensely raw and honest, all of it is thought-provoking.”

Internationally renowned textile artist Celia Pym is exhibiting in Tangled Up.  She has been exploring damage and repair in textiles since 2007. Working with garments that belong to individuals as well as items in museum archives, she has extensive experience with the spectrum and stories of damage, from small moth holes to larger accidents with fire.

She explained: “Roly’s Paper Sweater and Elizabeth’s Paper Cardigan, both featured in Tangled Up, are tracings of a sweater and cardigan belonging to my Great-Uncle and Great-Aunt. They were brother and sister. The sweater and cardigan were laid on top of newspaper and traced around, then cut out and the darning marks, and texture of the knitting stitched into the paper.

“I am delighted to have work included in Tangled Up. I love seeing exhibitions that have texture and textiles in them. I love seeing the maker’s hand. I love the directness, complexity, finesse and personality of the handmade mark that can be expressed in textiles. Tangled Up is a great title for an exhibition – it makes me want to untangle what I see.”

Andi Walker is a Leeds-based artist, specialising in Constructed Textiles. Andi’s practice encompasses three key areas: materials, ink and cloth. They work with a combination of materials, both hard and soft; they draw with ink, and design contemporary garments and costumes using both. Deeply rooted across all areas is storytelling where Andi explores themes of identity, history and societal inequalities.

Andi’s piece, Anatomy of a Quilt invites viewers to immerse themselves in its layers, to examine the rhythms of the squares with their monochromatic landscape and to contemplate the stories they hold.

They commented: “Quilts have long carried stories, whether through pioneer quilts recounting tales of travel and migration, or AIDS memorial quilts commemorating those lost – a testament to community solidarity. Family quilts, often fashioned from outgrown clothing, bear their own rich histories.

“In recent years, I’ve been immersed in discussions surrounding HIV narratives. Vital to this discourse is the activism that propelled healthcare action, symbolised by the iconic pink triangle. Delving into its history – from its use in the Holocaust to its reclamation as a symbol of resilience – has been enlightening.

“Inextricably linked to LGBTQIA+ history is the struggle against persecution. The iconography of ACT UP, notably the fuchsia pink triangle and the rallying cry “SILENCE = DEATH,” epitomizes this fight. The intersection of HIV/AIDS narratives and homophobic legislation, such as Section 28, underscores ongoing challenges. The pink triangle, once a tool of Nazi oppression, has been defiantly reappropriated, its orientation reversed and colour intensified.”

Other highlights in this tremendous exhibition include York artist Lu Mason’s Riot rug; Sarah-Joy Ford’s gorgeously colourful quilt celebrating sapphic love; and Vanessa Marr’s Domestic Dusters collection of embroidered yellow dusters, with words highlighting the domestic drudgery that most women faced in the past and, indeed, too many still face now.

Anna Turzynski commented: “We would like visitors to our exhibition, once they’ve seen Vanessa’s dusters, to embroider their own domestic thoughts, feelings, complaints and celebrations as words or images onto a duster.

“So do please source a yellow duster or buy one from the Gallery and embroider your own message in red thread to add to the Domestic Duster collection. For details about how to enter, please visit our website:  https://www.sunnybankmills.co.uk/tangled-up/

The stunning exhibition has been scheduled to coincide with the popular Threads Textile Festival at Sunny Bank Mills, which is being held from Friday 7 June to Sunday 9 June.

As our Ones To Watch 2024 exhibition draws to a close, we are thrilled to announce the winners of our inaugural BLANK_ Award 2024 and annual People’s Choice Award.

This year, Sunny Bank Mills has teamed up with Leeds City College to present a new award as part of our annual Ones to Watch Exhibition. The BLANK_ Award 2024 gives three emerging artists, currently exhibiting in Ones to Watch 2024, a group show at BLANK_ Gallery in 2025.

Run by the School of Creative Arts at University Centre Leeds, BLANK_ is a gallery and accompanying publication showcasing new, contemporary creative practice in Leeds. BLANK_ gallery provides a platform for creatives to exhibit new work and the publication invites artists to respond to the work in the gallery.

Sunny Bank Mills Arts Director Anna Turzynski said: ” I am so excited to be working with the team at Leeds City College to create this opportunity for emerging artists to exhibit their work in the city centre. The whole team at Sunny Bank Mills feel a great sense of pride for the winning artists and look forward to visiting the group show next year.”

Lydia Braithwaite from University Centre Leeds said: “We’re thrilled to announce the BLANK_ at University Centre Leeds award, in collaboration with Sunny Bank Mills, honouring three emerging Yorkshire artists from their annual Ones to Watch exhibition. As advocates for emerging creatives, we’re proud to provide a platform for Khloe Baker, Maisie Shelbourne, and Rhubarbs, whose work will be showcased in a group exhibition in 2025.”

The winners of this year’s BLANK_ 2024 award are:

Khloe Baker, Maisie Shelbourne (work pictured) and Rhubarbs.

The People’s Choice Award goes to Jo Briscoe.

Over the course of the exhibition, we have been running a competition whereby visitors to the Gallery could vote for their favourite piece of art…and you voted for Jo’s gorgeous woven textile installation.

Jo’s prize is a free two-month residency at Sunny Bank Mills. We can’t wait to spend more time with Jo and see how her work with textiles develops alongside the textile heritage at the Mills.

Ones To Watch 2024 runs until 21st April so come and see the work of our Awards’ winners and other exhibiting artists while you can.

One of Yorkshire’s most prestigious annual art exhibitions has attracted a record number of entries this year.

The acclaimed Ones To Watch exhibition at the Sunny Bank Mills Art Gallery in Farsley, between Leeds and Bradford, is now open and runs until April 21. It is focused on talented emerging artists and makers with Yorkshire connections.

Ones To Watch returns to the Gallery for its eleventh year, showcasing some of the most exciting emerging talent Yorkshire has to offer. The exhibition brings together work by artists from across disciplines, from painting to sculpture, film, photography, ceramics, design and more with much of the work available to buy.

It is the first exhibition in which Sunny Banks Mills’ new Arts Director Anna Turzynski has curated since her appointment in January.

Anna commented: “This year’s Ones To Watch has been an amazing introduction to this special gallery and I have been blown away by both the quality and the quantity of the entries. It was an incredibly difficult job for the judges to whittle down the original record 204 entries to the 40 now on show. Some tremendous art missed out.

She explained: “The exhibition is for artists who either study in, or are from, Yorkshire. We have extended the scope this year to include artists who are studying at independent art colleges, such as the Feral Art School in Hull, or who are leaving alternative arts education, such as those who are self-taught.

The exhibition explores topics across politics, the environment, history, culture, social issues and sexuality and is also representative of one of the core values of the Gallery, supporting and mentoring regional artists by providing them with space to exhibit, sell and make work.

This year sees the introduction of the BLANK _ Award 2024 in partnership with University Centre Leeds, which will enable the Sunny Bank Mills Gallery to display art in the centre of Leeds for the first time, while the Visitors’ Choice Prize provides an artist with  residency space at Sunny Bank Mills in which to work. This is a valuable resource after graduation and helps to retain talent in the region.

Two of the artists taking part in Ones To Watch are Edd Jones and Hajab Zainab.

Edd, a student at the Hull-based Feral Art School, has contributed three stunning Hull-inspired works, Watching The Fishing Boat Leave At Night, Humber Bridge and View Across The Humber, all capturing the magic of the Humber and its impact on the cityscape of Hull.

He explained: “Since 2021 I have been developing my skills through classes with Feral Art School in Hull. These classes have allowed me  to explore different mediums and approaches. I am currently part of their fellowship programme, while also exhibiting at the Skulk at Brew in Bond Street in the city.  The tutors at Feral encouraged me to exhibit and I liked the fact Ones To Watch was open to students taking informal classes for the first time. This has given me a tremendous opportunity.

“Watching The Fishing Boat Leave At Night was created using acrylic paint on wooden board during a class at Feral where we had to pull a random phrase out a hat and develop a piece based on it. Humber Bridge and View Across The Humber are based on pictures I have taken in the area where I live. Both of these are oil pastel based. This is my preferred medium as I love the control and immediacy I can get from it.”

Hajab Zainab, who lives in Heckmondwike and studied at the Huddersfield College of Art and Design, having moved to the UK from Pakistan five years ago, is delighted to be part of Ones To Watch.

“The warmth and support I have received in this country for my art has been amazing. It’s something I just didn’t experience in my Pakistan homeland. Here my ideas and my way of working is properly understood and being part of this amazing exhibition just underlines this.”.

Hajab has submitted a trio of intensely personal pieces, dominated by a gorgeous image of a female in a pose of supplication, reminiscent in its grace and beauty of Anthony Gormley’s Angel Of The North. As she explained, her art is a product of a wide range of influences, including cultural, historical and technical. Her use of pixels is especially imaginative.

“In my work, I try to dissolve the boundaries separating different artistic disciplines, sparking discussions on the interconnectedness of identity and heritage. By infusing elements of my own cultural heritage, I create a dialogue to transcend geographical borders and invite viewers to question their assumptions about art and its significance in our lives.”

Anna Turzynski concluded: “Overall, this is an incredibly immersive exhibition, both in terms of the quality of the work on display and in the power of some of that work to stop you in your tracks. The talent and the potential of this year’s Ones To Watch are amazing.”

Ones To Watch is open in the Gallery, Sandsgate Building, Sunny Bank Mills, Farsley, LS28 5UJ, Tuesday-Saturday 10-4, Sunday 12-4 until April 21. Closed on Mondays. FREE ENTRY.

Anna Turzynski has been appointed as the new Arts Director at Sunny Bank Mills in Farsley.

Anna was a Senior Producer at LEEDS 2023: Year of Culture and responsible for some of the year’s most successful events, including The Awakening, The WOW Barn and The Gifting.

Anna, who was born and educated in Sussex, before moving to Yorkshire in 2011 to study Theatre and Performance at Leeds University succeeds Jane Kay who, in conjunction with co-owners William and John Gaunt, has established Sunny Bank Mills, and its acclaimed art gallery, as one of the finest independent art and making spaces in Yorkshire.

Anna commented: “It is such an honour and a privilege to take over from Jane at Sunny Bank Mills. Jane’s are big shoes to fill.

“The team have taken a cultural organisation and made it a key part of the community, creating a neighbourhood space which has the power to inspire, teach and learn from people who visit it.

“Having worked in small organisations across Leeds for the majority of my career, I recognise the care and personal effort it takes to achieve such a feat.”

“My vision for the Arts Programme at Sunny Bank Mills is to build on the fantastic reputation it already has and to strengthen its offer as a destination for local, regional and national visitors. So, I will be planning exceptional exhibitions, events and opportunities that are rooted in the local area but have international relevance and significance.”

“I am blessed with a fabulous team to work with, who share my vision and commitment. I love Leeds so much and this wonderful new job provides me with the opportunity to make a real difference to the cultural life of the city. I am so very lucky.”

William Gaunt, co-managing director of Sunny Bank Mills with his cousin John, and a passionate advocate for arts and culture, revealed: “We had a good many applications for the post but Anna was the outstanding candidate. Her vision for arts and culture at Sunny Bank Mills aligned with ours, while her valuable experience with LEEDS 2023 and her positive and vibrant character made her the best person for this important post. Her appointment reinforces our commitment to arts and culture here.”

“We appointed Anna because she has a wide skills base. Whilst the Gallery is at the core of our arts offer, we cannot wait to see what exciting developments Anna will initiate to cement our reputation as one of Leeds’ leading arts venues. She will be building on the foundations already laid and taking the arts here to a whole new level.”

“Anna is hitting the ground running, with new exhibition Ones To Watch opening on    March 2 alongside Open Studios and Printed Bound events over the same weekend. Meanwhile she is already planning a series of exciting exhibitions and events for later in the year. This is a new era for us and we are confident it is in the safest of hands.”

Ones To Watch, which runs until April 21, is the Gallery’s annual exhibition of emerging artists and makers based in, or from Yorkshire. It is now in its 11^th year.

Anna concluded: “A new challenge awaits, and I am so proud to be given this exceptional opportunity at Sunny Bank Mills.”

Printed Bound, Sunny Bank Mills’ annual Artists’ Book and Print Fair, is back over the weekend of 2^nd-3^rd March in the iconic 1912 Mill.

Leeds’ biggest Print Fair, Printed Bound returns and features over 50 printmakers, bookmakers, collectives and studios ready to sell their work as part of a weekend celebrating traditional and contemporary print and bookbinding techniques.

Expect to see screenprints, monoprints, risographs, collographs, zines, hand-bound books and more. There will be a wide range of stallholders from across the UK, including Basil & Ford, Angela Hall, West Yorkshire Print Workshop, Ploterre, Concrete Nature and Abbie Lois to name but a few.

Natalie Kolowiecki, Arts Events Co-ordinator at Sunny Bank Mills, explained: “We’re very excited that our prestigious Artists’ Book and Print Fair is back.

“There will be 100s of prints and books to see from a wide selection of artists, from early career zine makers to traditional printmakers. Visit the fair’s craft café for cakes, savoury food, and hot & cold drinks.

“If you want to learn a new skill or brush up on an existing one, we have a range of pre-bookable workshops happening throughout the weekend, including stencil screen printing with Wendy Roby, notebook binding with Concrete Nature, drypoint etching with Cath Brooke, printing cyanotypes with Short and Few, Japanese notebook binding with Ciarrai Samson  and zine making with Laura Alice. We’re also welcoming back Shaeron and the Artmakers from Henshaws Arts and Crafts Centre for an introduction to lino printing. Some of our workshops are sold out but you will be able to book on the day if there are spaces available.

“Or drop in to the fair and screenprint your own Ellie Way 1912 Mill travel postcard, from her brand-new design created for Printed Bound 2024!

“If all of this is not enough, our artist community is holding Open Studios in both the Twisting and Spinning Mill where you can meet them, find out more about what they do and buy art direct from the makers. In the Gallery, our Ones to Watch exhibition opens, showcasing the work of 40 Yorkshire-based emerging artists. On Saturday, our Museum and Archive is open to drop in where you can find out about 180 years of cloth production and the lives of our former mill workers.”

Make a day or even a weekend of it by visiting Printed Bound. All of the Mills usual retail and food and drink outlets will be open. There’s free parking and U12s have free entry into the Print Fair.

Full details are here.