A Yorkshire-based charity which supports artists across the North of England is urgently seeking a new patron to enable it to continue its work.

Established in 2010, New Light celebrates and promotes Northern art, supporting both well-known and emerging artists by offering some of the region’s best awards and opportunities. It’s run by a dedicated group who are passionate about visual arts in the North and relies entirely on donations and sponsorship for funding.

After 15 years as the charity’s patron Valeria Sykes is stepping down, and New Light is seeking a new figurehead.

New Light CEO Rebekah Tadd says: “Without ongoing financial support, New Light, the North’s leading art charity, will close. We need at least £50,000 to enable us to deliver our programme – but the benefits for our patron and sponsors are many. As well as supporting the arts, they’ll get wide exposure and will be able to host client facing events in the prestigious locations we use for our exhibitions – these have included The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle; Sunny Bank Mills 1912 Mill in Leeds

(famed as the location for the BBC’s The Great British Sewing Bee); The Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate; Bankside Gallery, London, and The Williamson Museum & Art Gallery, the Wirral.

“We’d like to express our heartfelt appreciation to Valeria, whose dedication and contributions have played a vital role in establishing us as a leading supporter of artistic talent in the North.

The 2023/24 New Light Prize Exhibition featured 121 artists and toured to four counties and to London, bringing the exhibition to new audiences in excess of 66,000 visitors.

The ‘Art for All’ programme ran an artist-made film and sketching workshop in Rheged’s IMAX Cinema, artist-led drawing workshops for primary school children, career development days for sixth form artists, art history tours and hands-on workshops.

This year, New Light held its first Summer Exhibition of the North in Leeds, extending the cultural focus on the North as nearby Bradford celebrated its status as City of Culture and hosted the Turner Prize.

Rebekah Tadd says: “You’ll be investing in the future of talented artists in the region and enabling us to fund bursaries, hold exhibitions to showcase northern talent, find new audiences, support community and school art and enhance wellbeing through access to art and creative pursuits. Our support for artists is needed now, more than ever at this time of financial instability, the visual arts are always the first to suffer cutbacks and austerity.”

New Light is discontinuing its Collection arm, which has brought art out of the gallery and into the community, to charities, community groups, hospitals and schools across the North.

“The New Light Collection has brought great pleasure to people visiting hospital and enriched the school experience,” says Rebekah. “In the last year alone, artwork has visited York and Scarborough hospitals and The Retreat, a mental health charity in York.

“It’s with great sadness that our Board has made the difficult decision to discontinue the New Light Collection. As a very small charity we’ve found it increasingly difficult to raise funds to support the rising costs of administering the Collection. We’re investigating options to sell the artworks and use the money to further our charitable aims of supporting art and artists in the North of England.

“We’re most grateful to all the artists who have donated work to enable us to take art out of the gallery and into the community, where it’s been much enjoyed.

“The charity is well established in the Northern art calendar: we are confident that with the right patron and funding there is an exciting future for both the charity and Northern Art.”

New Light Photo: Sam Toolsie©

For more information on New Light, please visit: https://newlight-art.org.uk/