The Bard, the artists, their dogs and their cats in Mychael Barratt show at Pyramid

Opening this evening with a 6pm to 8.30pm launch, the exhibition will run until October 17 at the Stonegate gallery, where owner Terry Brett has been selling Barratt’s Shakespeare-inspired work for 20 years. Barratt will be in attendance tonight from 7pm for a chance to Meet The Artist.

"The humour behind Mychael’s art is clever and idiosyncratic," says Terry. "He has a view of London and Shakespeare’s characters that only an outsider can have. He manages to put them into context and relate them to modern London, sometimes using the reconstructed Globe Theatre as a centrepiece."

Map of Shakespeare's London, etching by Mychael Barratt

Barratt, who was born in Toronto but moved to London in 1994, says: "I have a fascination with Shakespeare's plays and find that they provide me with endless sources of inspiration.

"All The World's A Stage depicts Shakespeare's Globe Theatre circa 1600 and the Bard himself is on the street, desperately trying to keep hold of the scripts for his two lost plays, Cardenio and Love's Labours Won."

In his In Love With Shakespeare series, Barratt makes references, "either obvious or quite cryptic", to all 37 of the Bard's existing plays. "I've included the swan for my friend Jane Arrowsmith, who told me that one flew over the rebuilt Globe Theatre during its first performance," says Mychael, who was elected president of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers in 2013.

Barratt's show includes a large selection of his celebrated etchings of imagined Artist’s Dogs, to which the Londoner owes much of his success.

Hockney's Dogs, oil painting by Mychael Barratt

"In Hockney’s Dogs, we see an oil painting that places David Hockney in the wooded setting that was the inspiration for A Bigger Picture, walking into his own picture and followed by his two dachshunds," says Terry. "This scene is one of a large series of works that often start with a painting and are then worked up into a etching, which is hand-coloured by Mychael in an edition of 100 original prints."

One new image, Yves Klein’s Cat, simplifies the concept down to a blue canvas over which the imagined cat has walked, leaving paw prints. "Such a simple idea conveys much about the art to which it alludes and also our own relationships with our beloved pets," says Terry. "While quickly reappraising our knowledge of modern art, we find ourselves also marvelling at the cleverness of the pun."

Yves Klein's Cat, etching by Mychael Barratt

Another new work uses Pop artist Bridget Riley's trademark compositions of wavy lines cleverly to hide a very minimalist dog. "Difficult to describe in words, but so simply constructed in the artwork, the idea of the artist’s dog, within the work, reminds us to admire the achievement of illusion in Riley’s work, while enjoying a simple joke about the imagined artist’s muse," says Terry. "In this case a drawn-out cartoon dog, squeezed between the composition of wavy parallel lines."

Reflecting on two decades of exhibiting Barratt's artwork, Terry concludes: "Mychael has quietly made a significant impact on the art world in London. He may not yet be a household name, but a growing collective of astute collectors ensure that his wittiest works sell out quickly."

Van Gogh's Cat, etching by Mychael Barratt

Barratt's Celebrating 400 Years Of Shakespeare exhibition may be seen online at pyramidgallery.com, along with the accompanying Pyramid exhibition of pottery and life studies in ceramic by John Jelfs and Jude Jelfs, the husband and wife team from Cotswold Pottery, who are both Fellows of the Craft Potters Association.

John, who studied at Cheltenham College of Art, focuses on pure form in his hand-thrown pots, using celadon, ochre and shino glazes, made from wood, ash and clay, each ingredient local to his studio. Decoration is kept to a minimum.

"I am excited most by the work of Bernard Leach, Hamada, Shoi and the Lastern school of pottery. The strength of their pots lies, I feel, in their quietness," says John, whose work has been exhibited in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Jude, who studied fine art, became a potter when she married John. Over the past few years, she has returned to her first love, combining pottery with painting and sculpture in bronze. Her ceramics range from flat slab-built vessels in earthenware or porcelain to three-dimensional stoneware pieces.

Mychael Barratt's In Love With Shakespeare exhibition will run at Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, from this evening until October 17.