ILKLEY’S Solar Gallery at the historic Manor House has opened its latest “Fruitful” exhibition!

Although the title is seasonal, the work is anything but predictable and the artists have used it as a starting point as inspiration for their practice.

The work includes paintings, prints, ceramics, textiles, jewellery, metalwork and photography as well as a large selection of cards and sketchbooks.

New artist, Alfonsas Paulauskas joins the gallery with his disciplined representational paintings executed mainly in oil. He has recently had a one-man show at the new Craven Arts centre in Skipton.

Also new for the Solar Gallery is a collaboration with the fashion store, Jigsaw, in Brook Street, Ilkley. Artist Jackie Waring will launch this venture with a body of work called “Studio Companions” which feature colourful oil paintings of her paints.

“In the solitude of the studio, my ever-present collections of tubes of paint have become participating companions,” she explains.

Fascinated with the way humans place emotional value and special significance on ordinary things, she says: “In our minds, we breath life and character into inanimate objects”. Her work involves hours of trial and error, experimentally applying paint in different ways, scraping it off, started over, constantly evaluating and changing direction.

Jackie works from her studio in Ilkley. She studied art in education at Leeds University, gaining a B Ed hons and then an MA in Critical Studies. She taught art to students aged from 5-55 until she retired to concentrate on her own work.

This collaboration between Jigsaw and Jackie, from the Solar Gallery, will run for one month through September, opening on Saturday, September 9, when she will be in the store to talk about her paintings.

Going forward it is planned that other artists from the Gallery will show their work there.

The Jigsaw Foundation has been newly created as a charitable organisation dedicated to supporting British Arts and Culture. It recently co-sponsored Grayson Perry’s “Smash Hits” exhibition at the National Gallery of Scotland.