How Art improves with Age: Yorkshire show is a landmark for life's late learners

'Navigations' by Francesca Simon at Ryedale Folk Museum, 25 July - 1 November 2015

Although she only graduated five years ago, Francesca Simon is demonstrating that at 62 years it’s never too late to follow a dream, with the success of her first solo exhibition at North Yorkshire’s Ryedale Folk Museum – now extended into autumn – proving why she’s becoming one of Britain’s top contemporary artists.

Her work is already featuring in national collections and leading UK art galleries, even though she only finished her MA degree at Central St Martins in 2010, but her current exhibition ‘Navigations’ at the Ryedale Folk Museum – free to visit until 1 November 2015 - celebrates a more personal landmark: it’s her debut show in the place that originally inspired her as an artist - the North York Moors.

Succeeding in the competitive art world takes hard work, passion and a tenacity that’s not for the faint-hearted, but Francesca believes that age shouldn’t be a barrier – quite the opposite: “I’m very lucky that I’ve got to this stage so quickly.  But I think being older has advantages, a greater sense of urgency, determination, just knowing that you have to do this now, or you never will.  Being older has also given me clarity, a perspective on life that helps when I’m working out what to do next.”

“I’d always been creative, making things, sewing, and cooking, but in the years when I was bringing up my four children, that was the extent of it,” she adds.  Over time I realised I was missing something, not realising my potential.  I enrolled in a local art class and a new world began to unfold.”  At 49, Francesca made the brave decision to go back to university.  “I was easily the oldest person in my group, but it was exhilarating to be with younger people and to be treated equally.   It shook me up – in the best possible way – to be learning with people who were only just older than my own children!”

Francesca now has a studio in London, where she is represented by the Beardsmore Gallery, but in ‘Navigations’, her debut show outside London, the painter and print-maker acknowledges the North York Moors as the original inspiration for her distinctive abstract painting.  The new exhibition, free to visit at Ryedale Folk Museum in Hutton-le-Hole until 1 November 2015, reflects the North York Moors’ muted and eloquent colours, and its layered topography and archaeology.  

“The North York Moors, which surround Ryedale Folk Museum, have been a constant presence in my life for over 30 years.  My husband’s family lived here, and now I have a home here too.  There really is something special about this country.  When I’m here, particularly when I’m walking, is when I get my best ideas or solutions to practical problems to do with my art!  Perhaps it’s the bare, open spaces – when I return here, my heart lifts – it’s terrifically strong, the pull of the place.”

“’Navigations’ came out of my life here on the edge of the Moors,” she explains.  “The labour of the navvies – the drystone wall grids which break up and punctuate the fields and delineate the moors, provided me with a starting point for this show, and also for becoming an abstract artist.  The work is an allegory on the subject of navigation, as much through life and creativity as through the landscape and its gradual changes.  The horizon and its familiar landmarks, including dry stone walls and Bronze Age burial mounds; the shadows cast in relation to the time of day; the ancient drovers’ roads – all provide tools for navigation.”

Ends

Photographs are available by following the links at the bottom of this email, or from http://news.cision.com/ryedale-folk-museum.

Notes to Editors

Ryedale Folk Museum is a small, independent museum located in the village of Hutton-le-Hole, in the North York Moors National Park.  The museum was created over 40 years ago by local people with a passion for celebrating and protecting their cultural and industrial heritage, and also works with local communities to preserve traditional craft skills that are at risk of being lost to modern progress.

The area’s rich heritage, from the Iron Age to the 1960s, is brought to life in over 20 historic buildings reconstructed across the 6-acre site, with regular costumed demonstrations, craft workshops and a lively calendar of nostalgia events, including Tractor Days and Classic Car Rallies.  The Museum also hosts regular exhibitions in its Art Gallery promoting the talents of local artists or those inspired by the beauty of the North York Moors landscape.  This year’s exhibitions include works by nationally-renowned artists such as painter Francesca Simon, in her first solo exhibition outside of London, and guest curation by Edinburgh’s Gallery 10.

For further media information or photographs, please contact:

Nicola Bexon or Jay Commins

Pyper York Limited

Tel:         01904 500698

Email:    nicola@pyperyork.co.uk or jay@pyperyork.co.uk