To mark its 30th anniversary, The Art House in Wakefield announces its new season of artistic
programming, featuring an exciting range of ambitious exhibitions and special projects
in a year-long celebration!
The Art House (TAH) presents another compelling season of vibrant and free exhibitions in the heart of Wakefield city centre. The Team cannot wait to welcome visitors in this very special year – celebrating our 30th birthday and coinciding with Wakefield’s ‘Our Year’, 366 days of activities for everyone across the Wakefield District.
We are excited to showcase a programme that aims to reflect our ethos and mission, bring exceptional art to Wakefield, and support a range of projects that use the city, its people and stories as inspiration for creating projects.
In Summer 2024, TAH will open two very special projects, welcoming internationally renowned photographer Sunil Gupta to exhibit in Yorkshire for the very first time, and presenting the first solo exhibition by artist Charan Singh.
The major exhibition will revisit Gupta’s significant project, Lovers: Ten Years On which he first began in 1984 to reframe the lives of gay couples and challenge commercial stereotypes in visual culture. Approaching a milestone 40th anniversary, the artist will present a selection of the original series, alongside brand-new large-scale photographs made for the premiere of Lovers, Revisited, with collaborator, and husband, Charan Singh.
With a career spanning 40+ years, Gupta has maintained a visionary approach to photography, producing bodies of work that are pioneering in their social and political commentary. Gupta and Singh are both recognised for their distinctive style and approach to photography. Recently their practices came together creating exciting dialogues between their work. Alongside Lovers, Revisited, TAH is proud to present Minor Figures: An Historical Exploration, the first major solo exhibition in the UK by Singh.
The season will also see major firsts for artists, including staging the first solo exhibition by Saroj Patel, whose practice explores her contrasting, and sometimes conflicting identities as a British Indian woman. Patel’s bold and colourful textile installations will take over the gallery in March, and celebrate community, Indian culture, identity and personal upbringing.
TAH is a hub for creativity, where Studio Holders are central to the community and ecosystem that thrives here. This Spring we showcase the exciting practices of Studio Holders Kirstie Williams and Stephen Gouldin.
TAH welcomes visitors to discover Mills in Colour, a bold exhibition exploring Wakefield’s rich textile mill heritage by local textile artist and printmaker Kirstie Williams. Whilst Stephen Gouldin introduces his project Last Breaths an exhibition that explores landscape reclamation in former coal mining areas and communities whose industrial heritage is beginning to pass from living memory. A series of prints and a new book will launch to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the miner’s strike.
An exhibition showcasing new work by Wakefield-based artist Bijan Amini-Alavijeh makes the wonderful centrepiece for our anniversary year, perfectly coinciding with ‘Our Year’, the annual festival celebrating talent and creativity in the city. Amini-Alavijeh will present his first major gallery exhibition showcasing his investigation into Medieval English and Persian art and architecture, referencing both cultures’ understanding of sacred geometries and their extensive lexicons of decoration.
September will bring an exciting new commission by the collective Babeworld, who seek to create a more representative art world through the creation of projects for those who are marginalised in the arts. Their combined lived experiences as disabled and neurodivergent individuals inform the inspiration for this project, which explores how neurodivergent people experience creative spaces
as artists, participants, and audiences. The artists will create an ambitious sensory installation using video and soundscapes.
TAH welcomes back our growing partnership with The Royal Society of Sculptors. Perfectly situated in Wakefield as a place with a renowned reputation as a city of sculpture, we will present the Gilbert Bayes Award Exhibition; a collaborative exhibition bringing some of the most outstanding practices of artists who work in the field of 3D production.
TAH will also once again host The Disabled Photographers’ Society (DPS) annual photography competition exhibition. Having worked closely with the organisation to design The Art House’s accessible Darkroom which opened to the public in 2021, we are delighted to once again showcase members’ winning photographers that range from breath-taking skylines to stunning nature shots.
The Art House Café and Shop is proud to champion local makers and designers. On Saturday 27 April TAH will host the Wakefield Artisan Market across the venue. The free, jam-packed day will showcase the best of Yorkshire’s independent makers and small business owners. Not only that, TAH’s talented Studio Holders will be taking part and opening their doors for Open Studios. Visitors can drop by to discover a world of creativity as Wakefield’s largest collection of creatives and creators throws open their doors to the public.
March 2024 will be the last chance to visit the group exhibition SOFT & HARD: Beyond Recognition and Queer Coding, which sees artist and Chinese drag king Whiskey Chow curate thirteen exciting emerging artists exploring what it means to be Queer through artistic practice.
Last chance to see
SOFT & HARD
Beyond Recognition and Queer Coding
Until 16 March 2024, Gallery
Kirstie Williams: Mills in Colours
Until 13 April 2024, Project Space
Saroj Patel: Interwoven
23 March-25 April 2024, Gallery
Stephen Gouldin: Last Breaths
27 April–15 June 2024, Project Space
The Royal Society of Sculptors presents:
THE GILBERT BAYES AWARD (2023 Winners Exhibition)
Gallery, 2 May–1 June 2024
. 
Charan Singh : Minor Figures – An Historical Exploration
15 June–17 August 2024, Gallery
Sunil Gupta: Lovers: Ten Years On & Lovers, Revisited
15 June–31 August 2024, Tiled Gallery
Bijan Amini-Alavijeh
31 August–26 October 2024, Gallery
The Disabled Photographers’ Society
5 September–19 October 2024, Project Space
Babeworld: No Sleep Just Clouds
14 September–26 October 2024, Tiled Gallery