The fifth annual OPO Open, Scarborough’s flagship open art exhibition, opens at the Old Parcels Office Artspace on Saturday.
This year’s exhibition attracted a record number of submissions from artists across the UK.
100 artworks have been selected for exhibition, reflecting the exceptional breadth and quality of entries received.
This year's selectors are:
- Dr Kerry Harker, a curator and researcher based in Leeds who has worked at Harewood House, Impressions Gallery, Bradford, The Hepworth and Saatchi Gallery in London.
- Gordon Dalton, an international artist based in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, who is a Doctoral Researcher at Loughborough University, and a leading member of Contemporary British Painting.
- Sally Gorham, Chair of Scarborough Studios CIO, the arts charity that runs the OPO.
Sally told This Is The Coast:
"We had 685 submissions of work from across the country, Scotland, London, Norfolk, Liverpool, Newcastle, you name it. They came in from everywhere. From that we normally, we select 80, but we so many work submitted. We were struggling to get down to 80. We've got a good smattering of work by local Scarborough, quite well known artists, who work in Scarborough, but also from the sort-of wider Yorkshire area.
"But there really is something for everybody. We've got textiles, we've got kinetic sculptures, we've got paintings, drawings, print-making, ceramics. Yeah, a bit of everything and that's typical of really open art exhibitions."
The lucky artists started arriving at the end of January to hand in their work and since then OPO Trustee, Rob Moore and a dedicated team of volunteers have been busy installing the art works ready for the opening of the show on Saturday.
The winner of the OPO Open Prize and other prize winners will be announced at the opening of the exhibition, on Saturday, between 2 and 4pm. A ‘Visitors’ Choice’ prize which will be awarded to the most popular work as voted for by visitors at the end of the exhibition.
Sally says that range of works and artists is what makes open art exhibitions special:
"It allows everybody to submit what they've been working on. You have work by quite well established artists on the wall next to somebody who's really starting out at the early part of their artistic career and so the judgment's made not on who the artist is and how well they are known, it's made purely on what the work is.
"The other bit, which people are quite interested to know about is when we're making the selection, we don't actually physically see the work. It's all done online, so people apply online. So you're looking at the work on the screen, and we have, each year, different selectors and that means everybody's taste in art's different."
OPO Open Exhibition: 14th February - 8th March
There is no charge for admission and the gallery is open Thursday – Sunday 11am – 4.00pm.
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