Feature: Art & Lit in early 2016

Image from Bill Murray: A Story Of Distance, Size And Sincerety by Brian Griffiths

With 2016 fast approaching, it’s time to get excited about all the new year has in store for us. We’ll spend the build up to New Year’s Eve picking out some of the cultural highlights for you, so you can start scribbling dates and gigs into that new diary you got for Christmas.

Our final installment takes a look at all the goings on across Art & Lit in early 2016.

We’ll start with the Baltic, whose current display Bill Murray: A Story Of Distance, Size And Sincerety is an utterly fascinating look at imagining Bill Murray’s activities and pastimes. This display from artist Brian Griffiths runs until Sunday 28th February. At the same time, and until the same date, you could also see work from American artist B. Wurtz as his selected works 1970-2015 go on display, showcasing carefully designed structures and installations.

Something a bit different at The Bowes Museum is currently on display until Sunday 10th April, as textile artist  Pauline Burbidge brings her new exhibition Quiltscapes & Quiltline, a chance to see fantastically skilled and intricate quiltmaking drawing on influences from the rural Scottish borders.

Ouseburn-based art gallery The Biscuit Factory have teamed up with Craft Scotland. It’s a chance to see the creations of eight Scottish designer-makers in Newcastle, with the new partnership sewn up and running now, right through until Thursday 3rd March.

On Saturday 9th January, there’s something very special happening at Northern Gallery For Contemporary Art, Sunderland, as Joe ‘Posset’ Murray and Dook will be in residence for the day making ‘zines using Foundation Press’ Risograph machine. This is a totally unique chance to watch a new collaboration, as they create some incredible prints together.

Anti-Body willl be a fantastic showcase of art at The NewBridge Project, as the exhibition explores the mediums of photography, painting, video and print, with focus on the body as a mouthpiece for socio-political issues and wider metaphorical contexts, and you can see all of this from Thursday 14th January until Monday 18th January.

Finally, there’s an exhibition at Great North Museum looking at archaeologist, diplomat, linguist, writer, mountaineer and explorer, Gertrude Bell. It’s a wonderful chance to learn all about one of our region’s most fascinating people, and the woman who in 1921, advised Winston Churchill on the country that became Iraq, and helped to shape the Middle East after World War I.

There really is so much more scattered across the region, we’ve selected just a handful of highlights, but as ever, the North East will keep a thriving cultural scene very much alive in 2016, with displays from large to small, and showcases of all manner of talents, so there’s lots to seek out, see, immerse yourself in, and chances are, be inspired by.