A NEW exhibition of work by Settle-based artist Margaret Uttley focuses on peat moorlands and our relationship with this fragile but important environment.

Her drawings and paintings celebrate the hostile but distinctive beauty of the Yorkshire moorland landscape and will be on show at Gavagan Art, in Settle Town Hall from Saturday until July 30.

Margaret grew up in Blackshaw Head, in the valleys high above Todmorden and Hebden Bridge. "This was my playground, with wide-open spaces to run around in and explore," she said. "The dramatic, spacious environment was rich in texture and full of interest and it changed with the seasons – this stimulated me and influenced my work."

In the exhibition, Margaret uses two Grouse-Butts poems by Ted Hughes as a starting point to explore this dramatic landscape and broader issues relating to the environmental function and use of moorlands.

She wants the public to respond to her work on more than just an aesthetic level. "I want them to engage with the subject matter, with more of an understanding of the land’s function and humanity’s relationship with it," she says.

After studying an art foundation course at Percival Whitley College, Halifax, she went to study Fine Art at Bristol University. Her work has featured in many exhibitions and, in 2015, she was awarded a grant by Arts Council England for her exhibition at Dean Clough Gallery Halifax and Gallery Oldham.

Mary Gavagan, the owner and curator of Gavagan Art, said: “I am delighted to have the opportunity to show Margaret Uttley’s work. I am very familiar with moorland landscapes growing up in Darwen, East Lancashire, so I am very much look forward to having Margaret’s sensitive drawings here in Settle.”