ART exhibitions make a welcome return to Skipton’s Mill Bridge Gallery from next week with a fascinating collection of paintings inspired by the various shopfronts of the town.

Postponed from last year, selected Craven Arts artists will be showing their art in monthly changing exhibitions at the gallery at the top of the High Street from Thursday, June 3.

The first is a joint exhibition by former Craven College fine art student colleagues, Audrey Edwards and Linda Dearden.

‘Skipton Town in Reflection’ takes shop windows and mirror images as an inspiration and features the fronts of many of the town’s shops, pubs and restaurants and even the closing down Rackham’s store.

Audrey says: “The initial idea arose from Linda’s interest in the shop windows of Skipton which inspired her to create a series of 28 paintings beginning with The Frame Shop, High Corn Mill and ending with Myrtle and Webb, Victoria Square. During the work, she noticed the reflections in the windows which gave glimpses of the daily life of the town. One of the shops was the Hair Salon ‘Reflection’.

Audrey had created a series of drawings and paintings which explored the multiple mirror images inside the salon, which reflected its life and work.

Linda and Audrey, who studied together on a Fine Art Degree course at Craven College, and who graduated in 2019, were used to working together and when the opportunity for an exhibition at Mill Bridge gallery arose, they got together to produce ‘Skipton Town in Reflection’.

The exhibition challenges the viewer to explore different aspects of reflection - the visual presentation of images, the way shops reflect the life of a town, and how the viewer themself reflects on the exhibition.

A spokesperson for the gallery said: “The viewers of an exhibition are as important as the artists, if not more so, and visitors will be encouraged to chat and or leave written comments about their memories and impressions of Skipton town. “Postcards will be provided for comments and these will be displayed on a board for the duration of the exhibition.”

The exhibition will run from June 3 to June 27 and will be open on Thursdays to Saturdays, from 11am to 4pm, and at other times by appointment.