BEACON ART GALLERY

Located a few miles west of the English Lake District, West Cumbria’s Georgian Port, Whitehaven has been undergoing extensive economic and physical re-generation in recent years. The Beacon Museum, located on the south harbour front, opened in 1996, and provides a gallery, museum and tourist information service. Although the Beacon serves the geographically, socially and economically diverse Borough of Copeland, The Harbour Gallery has an wider importance, being the only purpose built, publicly funded, visual arts exhibition space in the whole of West Cumbria.

Whitehaven with the Beacon Museum and Art Gallery on left

Paul Scott was the Artist in Residence/Visual Arts Curator at the Beacon Museum from January 2002 to March 2003. Scott has lived and worked in West Cumbria for the past twenty years, but has an international reputation as an artist, author, curator and world authority on the graphic development of ceramic surfaces. He has organised international exhibitions and symposia, and lectured widely in North America and mainland Europe. Between Jan 2000 and Jan 2002, he was the Norma Lipman, Senior Research Fellow in the Fine Art Department of the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne.

Scott’s exhibition programme imported national and international exhibitions of exceptional quality into West Cumbria, developed shows that referenced the Beacon’s rich collection, and celebrated visual arts projects of national and international standing that had originated in Cumbria.

Exhibitions were co-ordinated with an innovative workshop programme involving artists working within the community. The exhibitions and workshops programme also involved Cumbria Arts in Education, The Lakes College and Cumbria Institute of the Arts.