‘Towards New Worlds’ sees fifteen artists exploring their experiences of seeing, hearing, feeling and sensing the contemporary world. You can see it at MIMA in Middlesbrough. Each of the artists involved in this show is disabled, D/deaf and/or neurodiverg…

Coinciding with ‘Mali Morris: Returning’ at the Hatton Gallery, Gallagher & Turner are showing selected works on paper by the artist, alongside sculptures by Stephen Lewis. I adore this vibrant piece from Mali Morris (‘Edge of a Portrait’ 1994, pictured) …

‘Art Cares’ at the main gallery at Bishop Auckland Town Hall, showcases work from young people that had previously been displayed at bus shelters across the region. This transformative collection of artworks were displayed at bus shelters in the north-eas…

Textile artist extraordinaire Sue Bowhay Pringle is showing her incredible work at Bailiffgate Museum & Gallery in Alnwick from October onwards. Most of the pieces in Sue Bowhay Pringle’s new show are abstract but look closely and you can sometimes find s…

‘Fixing Time’ features the work of the renowned artist and photographer Ian Macdonald who has spent his life documenting working-class communities along with the rise and fall of industry in the north. You can see one half of the exhibition at Sunderland …

Artist Deepa Mann-Kler’s now famous ‘Illuminated Sheep’ will be on Tyneside this October at three different venues including the iconic Newcastle Cathedral. I’ve seen these ‘Illuminated Sheep’ before and let me tell you, I haven’t witnessed anything else …

‘People’s Art’ at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland celebrates all manner of art that has been made by unnamed artists. Objects often referred to as “popular art” or “folk art” have always existed outside art galleries – in homes, workplaces and bey…

Want to see the late work of one of the giants of modern art? Yep? Then you need to get yourself to Ushaw in Durham where you feast on a veritable buffet of good stuff. The Irish novelist Edna O’Brien died in July, aged 93, with many of her obituarists no…

Baltic are really spoiling us at the minute with four (four!) brilliant exhibitions – all of which we can wholeheartedly recommend. One of the highlights of the my arty summer is Baltic Open Submission show. Presented in association with Fenwick, it showc…

‘People’s Art’ is an exhibition at the NGC Gallery in Sunderland that celebrates art created by unnamed artists. This image shows a late 19th Welsh quilt (collection of Jen Jones) and it’s just one of the many fascinating items you can see at this show wh…

‘Kith and Kinship’ at the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle highlights some works by Norman Cornish and LS Lowry that have often been overlooked. If you’re looking for a representation of tenderness in an artwork, then I doubt you’ll find a much better examp…

‘Fixing Time’ is a major retrospective of the work of documentary photographer Ian Macdonald, which is being held in two galleries in Sunderland. I love this image of canteen staff having a catch up at the end of their shift at a Redcar blast furnace in 1…

Jeremy Deller’s ‘The Battle of Orgreave (An Injury to One is an Injury to All)’ is coming to the NGCA in Sunderland this June. The Miners’ Strike, of course, had a profound and long-lasting effect on the north-east, and to mark the 40th anniversary of tha…

The Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art is drawing on its well-appointed collection of photographic works for a thought-provoking group show. Simon Roberts’ ‘Let This Be A Sign’ collection of pictures is the culmination of work created over the period f…

Reimagine the wonder of wetlands and nature through the eyes of the UK’s best-loved illustrator: Quentin Blake. Head to the wonderful WWT Washington Wetland Centre where you can collect an illustrated guide full of Quentin Blake’s drawings and then set of…

‘Essence of Nature’ at the Laing traces the radically different approaches to British landscape painting, from the mid-Victorian era through to the 1920s. This exhibition kicks off with a real bang with the Pre-Raphaelites’ ideal of ‘truth to nature’ – re…