YORK artist Lesley Seeger opens her spring exhibition of paintings at Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, at tomorrow evening's 6.30pm to 8.30pm preview.

The show also features the ceramics of Hannah Arnup, a member of the Arnup artistic dynasty in York, in her solo debut at Terry Brett's gallery.

Lesley will be exhibiting her familiar acrylic paintings with floral motifs, still life and bird designs, along with her latest landscape work.

"Scenes of the Yorkshire Wolds are infused with colour, texture and stylised fauna and flora that make these large-format paintings captivating and joyful with the same vibrancy of all Lesley's work," says Terry.

Born in Newcastle in 1958, Lesley has been painting full time for 15 years and has exhibited throughout Britain and northern Spain.

After an art foundation course at York College of Art and Technology and a couple of years at the Royal Court Theatre in London, she completed a BA in English and Media at Southampton University, where she specialised in design in the media, including theatre design. Several years in publishing were followed by a three-year postgraduate diploma in Art Psychotherapy from the University of Sheffield.

Hannah Arnup studied both sculpture and ceramics and also gained much of her knowledge from her father, Mick, who was an accomplished potter, and from her sculptress mother, Sally Arnup, who continues to exhibit in her 80s.

Hannah lives on the Atlantic coast of southern Ireland, just north of Limerick, where she runs Ballymorris pottery with her husband John Egan.

"Her work in the Pyramid show includes stoneware plates, dishes and vessels, on which she has used the scrafitto technique to carve Celtic-inspired designs into the surface," says Terry.

The Seeger and Arnup exhibition will run until June 7, open Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm, and on Sundays from 11am to 4.30pm.