This story is sponsored by Harrogate Art Fair.

More than 100 artists from all over the UK will be converging on Harrogate next month to exhibit their best work at the Harrogate Art Fair. 

The event, on October 13-15 at the Yorkshire Event Centre on the Great Yorkshire Showground, will bring together painters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors, ceramicists and selected galleries from all over the UK, offering the best in British contemporary art. Prices range from £50 to £5,000. 

The perfect place to immerse yourself in a world of art.

One of the most popular exhibitors is Jos Haigh. Jos is a painter based in Harrogate and Buckinghamshire whose vibrantly colourful pictures of African animals made her one of the best-selling artists at the inaugural Harrogate Art Fair last year. She said: 

“I’ve been showing my art all around the country for years – at Windsor, Surrey, Manchester and Edinburgh – and Harrogate Art Fair really is one of the best. It’s fantastically organised, everything’s made very easy for exhibitors, and it attracts a lot of the UK’s best artists.

“When I came last year, people were so warm, enthusiastic and interested – I didn’t have to think twice about coming again.”

Although she was born in Goa, Jos’s art is inspired and informed by her childhood in Kenya. But her trips north have provided her with new sources of inspiration. So her most recent paintings include striking images of cows, owls and other British animals.

Jos has found inspiration for some of her latest works here in Yorkshire.

 Jos’s spectacular painting of a red kite even features on this year’s general admission ticket. She said: 

“I’ve been enchanted by animals ever since I saw them roaming right next to the road in Kenya, which is why I’ve always enjoyed painting pictures of elephants, giraffes and zebra. But there are so many wonderful animals right here in the UK that it would be a shame not to paint some of them. 

“I just hope that visitors to the Harrogate Art Fair will love viewing them as much as I’ve loved painting them.” 

Harrogate Art Fair is organised by Contemporary Art Fairs. The company also hold art fairs in Windsor and Surrey. 

The fair will be open from private viewings from 6 to 9pm on Friday, October 13 (tickets: £15), and from 10am to 5pm on Saturday and Sunday, October 14-15 (£8, concessions £6). 

• Jos has have 10 complementary Harrogate Art Fair tickets to give away! She will send the code to the first 10 people to email her at joshaigh@yahoo.co.uk

Find out more:

You can book tickets for this event online at the Harrogate Art Fair website.  

For information about exhibiting at the Harrogate Art Fair, visit the website or call 01753 591892.  

You can also see more of the artworks on offer at Harrogate Art Fair on its Instagram page. 

Images of death and destruction in Ukraine remain fresh in the mind of Ripon man Lewis Edwards.

Now he is expressing his feelings through art, to help him come to terms with the terrifying turmoil of the Russian invasion that turned his life and the lives of millions of others, upside down.

Mr Edwards, a former student of Ripon Grammar School who studied contemporary art at Leeds Met (now Leeds Beckett University), has created paintings on a series of panels. They provide an insight into the impact the war has had on the people of Ukraine, as well as the Russian army.

He told the Stray Ferret:

“When I arrived back in the UK with my partner, Tanya, earlier this year, I went through the process of thinking about what happened to us and what we witnessed as we fled to the safety of Slovakia.

“I then decided to turn these thoughts into paintings, including one that I have called Still (a) Life which tells the story of our rapid departure from our home, with food left uneaten on our table.”

Minska Metro

Another canvas captures scenes from the Minska Metro in Kyiv, where Mr Edwards and his Ukrainian partner stayed on the eve of their perilous 500-kilometre journey to Slovakia.

Once they were safely over the border, they set up a shelter to help fellow refugees. The humanitarian venture was made possible through £20,000 raised in Ripon from charity events and a GoFundMe page set up by the Edwards family.

Mr Edwards is planning to exhibit his work and has already made arrangements for the paintings to go on show at the Slung Low community arts hub in Leeds.

He said:

“I would very much like to put on an exhibition in the Ripon area if I can find a suitable location.”

Mr Edwards can be contacted via his Instagram account eye.fly.art