A visit to The Lumber Room

In September 2015 we took a visit to Mark Hearld's curated exhibition at York Art Gallery, 'The Lumber Room - Unimagined Treasures'.

The Upper North Gallery has been transformed to reflect one artist’s vision of a Lumber Room – a room of miscellaneous stored objects and artefacts.

For the past two years, York-based artist Mark Hearld has been visiting the stores of the Yorkshire Museum and York Castle Museum as well as York Art Gallery researching the objects and artworks to include in the exhibition.

His choices include textiles, costume, oil paintings, works on paper, furniture, and taxidermy, many items of which have not been on public display before.

Alongside these are new works that Mark has created especially for the show which are inspired by the collections. The exhibition is influenced by a short story called The Lumber Room, by Saki, which was read to him in an English class when he was 15.

Mark explains…

“Since I heard Saki’s story I have always been intrigued by the idea of a locked room that contained treasures so wonderful they are beyond what your mind can imagine. In this exhibition I wanted to create the sense of excitement and wonder that you get when you discover the key to the room and see the “forbidden” objects for the first time.”

View further images from our visit or find out more about the exhibition.

You might also like to see Mark's range of fabrics and wallpapers for St Jude's.