Courtyard Stables
Wollaton Hall and Park
Wollaton
Nottingham
NG8 2AE
Tel: 0115 915 3920

The Yard Gallery is a vibrant exhibition space set within 500 acres of historic deer park. The gallery hosts a changing programme of exhibitions exploring nature, history and science.

Image: Puffa, Sue Radford

On display from 11 September:

Sue Radford: Birds, Beasts & Butterflies
11 September - 19 October

From this Thursday, an exhibition of paintings inspired by the Natural History Collection at Wollaton Hall will open at the Yard Gallery.

Descriptive, accessible and often humorous, Sue Radford’s paintings are striking and stylish. A successful Fine Artist, Sue has exhibited her work both locally and nationally. The body of work for this latest exhibition was created at home in her studio in Lambley, and unfortunately was subject to a setback, as Sue explains: “In February of this year our house and my studio caught fire which meant that some of the work I had started for this exhibition was destroyed; because of this I decided to include a series of paintings that I completed in late 2007 along with the new work.

You will see that I find birds really appealing and I became very interested in ‘bird ornaments’ as still life objects, these pictures give you a clue as to why I was interested in working from the mounted exhibits at Wollaton Hall - there is a natural progression and strong link between the two series’ and it shows the viewer how an artist’s work can evolve and change.

You’ll be in no doubt that the earlier works are definitely stylised still life paintings and that the new paintings of the natural history exhibits are more ambiguous and in some cases could be paintings of live animals. I enjoy this ambiguity and think it gives the exhibits and the paintings a greater interest and humour – I also like the idea of still life subjects being questionable.

I hope that the paintings ‘live’ and that I have managed to give the subjects character or personality. I wanted each painting to be uncomplicated - to be striking and either humorous or beautiful. I approached each piece with this in mind.”

Visitors will have the chance to buy the artworks featured in this exhibition.

Opening Periods	Opening times
November to March	11am - 4pm
April to October	11am - 5pm
Admission	FREE Every Day
Car park	£2.00 per car, per day