A new exhibition, 4 years in the making, of paintings by gallery artist Christopher P Wood, opens on Saturday 27th June 2026.
The show opens at 10am. Join us at 1pm for fizz and a light lunch, followed by Christopher P Wood and Mike Goldmark in conversation at 2pm.
After two years touring major public exhibitions at Harrogate’s Mercer Gallery and Scarborough Art Gallery, Christopher P. Wood returns for his fifth solo show at Goldmark, opening Saturday 27th June.
With over 50 oil paintings made over the last four years, Wood’s extraordinary mythical landscapes take us from the artist’s local woodlands in Gledhow Valley into a purely imaginative world entirely of his own creation.
‘I don’t know if Chris sees angels in the treetops of suburban Leeds, as Blake did in the oaks of Peckham, but their work shares an innocence…and an intensity which charge the ordinary scene with extraordinary light.’ – Reverend Richard Coles
This exhibition – aptly subtitled ‘Stages on a Long Journey’ – marks several milestones in Wood’s career: 40 years as an exhibiting artist, 20 since his introduction to the Goldmark Gallery, and his 65th year. A student at Leeds Polytechnic then Chelsea College of Art in the mid-1980s, after his post-graduate studies Wood returned to his native Leeds where he has worked ever since, honing his Rubens-style alla prima ‘wet-on-wet’ oil painting.
His working process is complex and highly demanding: paintings are completed in a single sitting, allowing the oil to dry in a single, unified surface that hovers between impressionistic brushwork and lyrical realism. Drawing on a tradition that traces back through Turner and Constable to Claude and beyond, Wood’s atmospheric landscapes are animated by a more contemporary mysticism, shaped by the visionary influence of William Blake and the psychoanalytical philosophy of Carl Jung.
‘Wood’s paintings tease with narrative possibilities and they intrigue with mysterious presences. They are the “once upon a time” of the fairy tale, yet they offer nothing more. They set the scene without telling the tale. Intriguing and mystifying, they invite us to walk in a new Eden where the world has yet to be named.’ – writer and curator Dr Richard Davey
With a broad range of inspired settings – from Blake and Palmer’s Shoreham haunts to storm scenes off the Suffolk coast – this exhibition brings together Wood’s finest work of recent years.
Date: Saturday 27th June 2026
Time: 1pm for fizz and a light lunch.
2pm Christopher P Wood in conversation.
Please RSVP by email or by telephone on 01572 821 424.
