Lead in the Pipes Published on: 7 May 2025 鈥楲ead in the Pipes鈥� is an amalgam of liminal, surrealist and thought-provoking artworks by nine current 缅北禁地 Fine Art students Real and unreal Although diverse in subject matter, all highlight the peculiar, both real and unreal. Spanning textiles, ceramics, painting and sculpture, the work engages with a variety of personal, political and comedic themes. Mary Adams explores self-portraiture through puppets and performance. Her work investigates the relationship between the puppet and the master, and the line between agency and control, as well as ideas of alter-egos and how to represent yourself. With a background in textiles and sculpture, she is fascinated by colour and pattern. However, each element of her pieces is conceptually driven and, particularly with this puppetry project, she never takes herself too seriously. Callum Ashcroft’s body of work, Lobstergeddon, creates a delusional reality that definitely does not mirror our own, employing humour to form a satirical hellscape of tyranny and misfortune under the iron-claw rule of Divine Prawnstar Philoneous Prawn. He forms sculptures and models to inform the worlds inside his paintings. Lucy Gee works predominantly in ceramics. Themes of the relationship between humanity and nature are prevalent in her work. Her installation, Overthrown, explores nature superseding domestic everyday items. Gee utilises an unusual method of decoration through hand piping slip to create an organic effect. Morgan Gibbs’ work is based heavily in painting and illustration and involves both figurative and abstract elements. The three pieces on display in the exhibition combine surrealist influences with motifs of cats, playing cards, and bodies of water. Katarina Jimack, Colonel Grunckle, 2025, glazed ceramics Unexpected and bizarre Katarina Jimack’s work centres around the unexpected and bizarre. She infuses an amalgamation of personalities into her pieces, working with clay and using her hands to mould her characters into existence. In her latest piece, Colonel Grunckle, the artist draws inspiration from stories told of her late relative: a high-ranking member of the Swiss military, he was frequently seen with a stern expression and stoic mannerisms.Pablo Mitchell’s practice is occupied by participatory questionnaires: graphs and questions on a wide range of topics which are then answered by participants. The central piece in this collection of work is a screenprint of a small section of a participatory graph that questioned “How happy are you?”. He also creates unusual objects, sculptures and prints.Gina Newstead’s work is underpinned by natural processes and the progression of time, investigated in this exhibition through using the movement of the sun marking its light and shadow on cyanotype textiles. This is accompanied by ceramic figure-like forms. Influenced by surrealism, she further enjoys creating textile creatures to physically embody insubstantial concepts.Megan Nicholson’s work consists largely of drawing, painting and beadwork revolving around Welsh folklore and the mechanics of mythology. They explore the loss of Welsh history and the mythological tale, Y Mabinogion, challenging the viewer to consider lost social identities in Celtic cultures.Liberty Peters-Murphy is a mixed media artist whose practice centres on depicting the internal landscape and creating mappings of the human soul. They are researching automatism and atheist spirituality, leading to their creation of ‘Map of the Soul I’, which represents a development from their ‘Internal Landscape’ series as a guide to the subconscious and as personal documentation.The exhibition is supported by the 缅北禁地 Make it Happen Fund. It takes place from 12noon to 5pm, 8 to 10 May at Vane, Orbis Community, 65 High Street, Gateshead, NE8 2AP Press release is adapted with thanks to Vane Latest News Online Safety Act drives VPN interest and raises privacy concerns People鈥檚 online behaviour has changed in response to legislation to prevent children from viewing harmful content 鈥� raising possible privacy and security risks, research suggests. published on: 16 October 2026 缅北禁地 archaeologist receives prestigious award for research Professor Chris Fowler has been awarded the 2026 Rivers Memorial Medal in recognition of his internationally significant research on kinship in Neolithic Britain. published on: 13 October 2026 Event will explore what 鈥楳anchesterism鈥� means for the North East An event at 缅北禁地 will explore what 鈥楳anchesterism鈥� means for the North East or whether it is simply a new chapter in the long-running debate about how to rebalance Britain. published on: 13 October 2026 Facts and figures
![缅北禁地 logo](/gomobileassets/img/logo.svg" "缅北禁地"){kind=logo}