KAY Dower used to come up with new ideas for chocolates at Nestlé. Now she has a new product to market: her first gallery in York.
Artist Kay is a protege of York art tutor Andres Jaroslavsky, and the premises where she once attended his classes in the Corner Gallery, in Scarcroft Road, has become her own hub, part working studio, part gallery, like Andres before her.
Argentinean-born Andres, in turn, is now running classes in his newly built home studio in Fulford, where his own three-year project, painting 18 huge life studies of all manner of women of York, is taking shape in oils, more of which in a feature next month.
York Rooftops, in acrylic, by Kay Dower
Out goes the Corner Gallery, in comes Corner Gallery, on the corner that leads into the all-conquering Bishopthorpe Road.
“I was one of Andres’s students for several years,” says Kay, now 41. “I’ve learned how to paint from him since starting three years ago, though I had done art before that at A-level at Ripon Grammar School.”
Her creative path led to Nestlé in York. “I went to work there on inventing chocolate bars as part of the innovation team. We’d sit on bean bags thinking up new chocolate flavours for KitKat, like cookies and cream and strawberry cheesecake, and I remember we came up with the idea of a chocolate spaghetti-making machine, but unfortunately that didn’t come to fruition.
Kay Dower with artists' work on display at Corner Gallery. Picture: David Harrison
“We worked on KitKat, Aero, Quality Street, and the job involved understanding the consumer and branding design. I can safely say that I named the Big Purple One when they were looking for a name to launch the Quality Street ‘big purple one’. I said, ‘let’s call it that because that what consumers call it’!”
Eleven years ago, Kay and a friend who also came up with chocolate bar suggestions, Liz Grierson, set up their own innovation company, Idea-licious, to “help companies think more creatively”.
Companies such as Nestlé, ASDA, Arla Foods in Leeds and McCain Foods in Scarborough have since used their services.
A Roof With A View, by Kay Dower
“Then I had children and that’s when the art bug struck me again,” says Kay, who lives in South Bank. “I started with Greg McGee, doing life drawing classes at According To McGee, and a little bit of screen-printing at Bar Lane Studios and then joined the painting and drawing classes Andres was running here.
“When Andres decided to work from a bigger studio, I offered to acquire the gallery and studio and we agreed to keep the ‘Corner’ theme, just dropping ‘the’ from the old name.”
So, Kay, please put on your creative hat to describe Corner Gallery, just as you will in the new Art Map for York, soon to go to print in the New Year: “New kid on the block, Corner Gallery, offers local, stylish, affordable art,” she says. “The exhibition space, complete with artist in residence at the easel, is located in the Bishy Road area of York. This relaxed gallery sells a handpicked selection of original paintings, prints and fine art photography; ceramics and other stylish things.”
Kay Dower: “Basically if I like it, it’s in”
Kay’s three key words for Corner Gallery are Local, Stylish and Affordable and her focus is on artists where “basically if I like it, it’s in”. As well as her own acrylic paintings of York, made with extra “magic powders” from her children’s sandpit, she has pottery by Emily Stubbs; photography by Ohio-born York resident Julie Whelan; oil paintings by Kate Pettitt; and trays, scoops, spoons and ladders made from Lake District wood by the aptly named Woody.
Look out too for Claire Morris’s witty works where she cuts out the characters from the covers of old pulp-fiction books to animate their story in glass-framed collages.
In addition to her new gallery commitments, landscape painting sessions and continuing to run Idea-licious with Liz Grierson, Kay will hold children’s Art Squad classes for two age groups, nine- to 11-year-olds from 4pm to 5pm and 11- to 14-year-olds from 5pm to 6pm, in after-school Monday sessions.
Pulp fiction book cover comes alive in Claire Morris's The End at Corner Gallery
“I’ll be running six-week courses with a mini-exhibition at the end, which I’ll start in the New Year on January 9, and I’m taking bookings now on 07973 656717,” she says.
“I ran an art club at Scarcroft School last year, teaching nine- to 11-year-olds at lunchtimes, and now I’ve taken everything Andres has taught me and simplified it for a younger age group than his classes but with the same techniques.”
Corner Gallery, in Scarcroft Road, York, is open Tuesday to Friday, 10am to 4pm, Saturday, 10am to 1pm, or by appointment on 07973 656717. For more details, go to facebook.com/CornerGalleryYO or instagram/cornergallery
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here