THE contemporary art of Nicky Fife goes on show in Thirsk in a new exhibition entitled Yearning for Bliss.

The artist has been living and painting in North Yorkshire for the past 12 years, having studied life drawing at the Slade school of art, London, and portraiture with Andrew Festing.

In 1998, she was awarded her BA Hons in fine art at Cleveland college of art and design.

The paintings in her degree show were selected as part of a group show, in which 20 chosen artists would represent the North of England, at the new Academcy gallery in London.

She also won the David Murray prize for landscape painting in her final year, an award given annually by the Royal Academy schools.

Of the new exhibiton of her work, she says: "The images I create illustrate my perception that the external world, that is the landscape, cannnot be separated from the internal world of self; they are about sensing a connection, an eternal conversation if you like, between our external and internal worlds.

"The visual marks I make within my landscapes attempt to conevy this interaction. The use of line, especially vertical lines, but also particular form and colour, embodies the presence of self within the landscape. Each mark, therefore, symbolises an internal thought, belief or emotion, that has been retained in the outside world. Each landscape subsequently appears as an external space which is physically imbued with the memory of the moment.

"And in all I do, and in all that I am, I register a continual yearning for bliss. This yearning is as universal as it is insuppressible and inextinguishable. And long after we have walked away, a trace of it remains or at least the memory of it, in the outside world."

Yearning for Bliss opens at the Zillah Bell gallery, Kirkgate, tomorrow and runs until May 5; tel 01845 522479.