The artist behind a collection of paintings, photographs and other work featuring the industrial heritage of railways, shipping and rock music from Hull and East Yorkshire will share his story this week as part of his exhibition.
Syd Young, who has created the “Relics and Rails” exhibition from artefacts which he describes as “just my stuff”, will be at Nordic House in Hull’s Danish Church on Saturday 10 June.
The Hull-based artist will talk through the inspiration behind the exhibition, which runs until Saturday 15 July.
“Relics and Rails” premiered at Goole Museum earlier this year after Syd’s watercolour “Night Fusilier” was announced as the People’s Choice Award winner of the Museum’s 2022 Open Art competition. The work – a painting of a Deltic locomotive at Doncaster station – claimed a starring role in the exhibition and also features at Nordic House.
The exhibition moved to Nordic House – a new cultural, community and corporate space within the Danish Church in Hull – in May, demonstrating the essential links between the railway and the city’s docks.
Among the exhibits is a piece which commemorates the triple trawler tragedy of 1968, in which 58 fishermen died when the St Romanus, the Kingston Peridot and the Ross Cleveland were lost in the space of less than a month.
Other examples of industrial heritage include Skidby Mill, where Syd worked for four years and which he describes as “a 200-year-old machine”.
The music element ties in because Syd’s days out as a schoolboy trainspotter also took in visits to record shops in towns and cities across the country. It brings together pictures, tickets and the iconic listings sheets from the Adelphi Club in Hull.
Syd said: “I am completely knocked out by the interest in the exhibition. It’s basically a collection of things which in the past I’ve just seen as my stuff. Even the paintings and a lot of the photography – it’s just stuff I have done, and never with the aim of putting myself out there or making anything of it.”
“Relics and Rails” is at Nordic House in the Danish Church at the corner of Ferensway and Osborne Street in Hull. Admission is free and opening hours are 10am until 2pm every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday until Saturday 15 July. Syd will be giving an artist’s talk from 11.10am until 12.30pm on Saturday 10 June.