5 - 26 August 2026

Overview

Celebrating the diversity of creative talent in and around the Peak District the Peak District Artisans Young Emerging Artist Award aims to encourage and support a young emerging artist or maker at the start of their career.

This exhibition marks an important stage in the artist's practice, bringing together a significant new body of work created especially for the occasion.

Portraiture, Memory and Expression

Centred on portraiture and the human experience, the exhibition explores themes of identity, emotion and shared moments through a distinctive visual language that combines realism with abstraction.

The collection emerged from the artist's exploration of two contrasting approaches to painting: the gestural freedom and emotional immediacy of abstract painting, alongside the narrative qualities and observational precision of realist portraiture. Rather than viewing these traditions as separate, the artist brings them together within a single composition.

Expressive layers of colour and energetic mark-making create movement and atmosphere, while carefully rendered portraits anchor each work in a sense of character and connection. The resulting paintings invite viewers to move between abstraction and representation, revealing new details and emotional narratives with each encounter.

Colour plays a central role throughout the exhibition, not only as a formal element but as a means of conveying mood, memory and optimism. Vibrant palettes infuse the works with energy while encouraging reflection on the relationships between people, place and experience.