BRIAN Pike's new exhibition at a County Durham gallery may be called Home Truths but the inspiration for the project comes from places that could be a million miles from his home town in North Yorkshire.

It was the experiences gained through travelling and working in Indonesia, Thailand and India that gave 45-year-old Mr Pike the basis for his new exhibition.

These experiences included having a parasite in his system that took him months to get rid of and taking a series of pictures of a wedding in an Indian village that was decimated by an earthquake the very next day.

"When I came back, I saw everything around me in a different light. It is exciting seeing different cultures and you see your own culture in a different way. The pictures have a certain type of Englishness about them but there is also a sense of surrealism about them," he explained.

And so there are pictures of Indian looking buildings and palm trees transposed to a colourful Yorkshire moor and a huddle of churches and English styled buildings marooned on a crowded island.

"I had never been outside Europe before and it was pretty much an eye- opener. India especially is quite a challenging environment to live in. I think it makes you realise how we live here and when you get back you notice things that you never noticed before.

"India has a population of more than one billion people and you are really aware of that.

"When I cam back everywhere seemed so empty - even rush hour in Darlington seems incredibly quiet and I think you notice that in the pieces," said Mr Pike, who lives in West Gilling, a village on the outskirts of Richmond. He says he often does not know what he is going to paint until he sits down to start work and then his ideas come from his own personal issues.

"The pictures are a little bit different and they are quite exciting because people wouldn't expect them. I think what is nice about my pieces is that there is a sense of humour about them. They are usually bought by people who are slightly quirky and people who aren't necessarily fond of modern art but they are not traditional pieces. People who buy them often have not bought an original before."

But it is also the style of the pictures that makes them so appealing to people.

"My style has been developed over the course of the last ten years or so. The techniques are unique.

"I use layer upon layer of translucent colour and the colour shifts according to the light. I put pink under blue and green under red to give subtlety. It gives a 3D effect and a slightly metallic look," he explained.

Now he uses whatever materials he has to hand - whether it is oils, pastels or watercolours - in his paintings but because of the complicated building up procedure he has adopted, it takes some time to do each picture.

"People who see the work say it doesn't look like anything else they have ever seen before. People are always staring up really close wondering how it is made and gallery owners don't understand what they are done on."

Although the style of his pieces will always remain the same, he does not know what his next step will be - like his paintings, he will wait and see what happens and incorporate whatever does happen into his art.

The Home Truths exhibition runs at Gallerina, on Duke Street, Darlington, until May 11 and features 25 original paintings and four prints which have been hand-finished by Mr Pike.

* The gallery is open from 9am until 5.30pm Monday to Saturday.