Hannah Tsecho Pearce narrates a recent 5-day adventure to see some striking art shows in Scotland and the North of England
At the start of this year I pledged to better utilise my Queenage liberty to rekindle my travel bug, see more of the UK and shake up my London-centric gallery habit. So on Monday 20 October I caught a dawn train to go see nature sculptor Andy Goldsworthy’s 50 year retrospective at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. It (sadly) closed on 2 November.
As an orphaned empty nester who now works part-time and freelance, staying (close to) home is something like a lockdown or carer’s hangover. What finally got me off the sofa this time was the saga I went through to sort an elegant outfit for a friend’s wedding. I nearly exhausted my credit card limit buying and returning numerous ‘occasion’ dresses by mail order all of which looked dire and came with an overweight c.£300 price tag. So, in an act of Queenage defiance I picked a dress from my wardrobe, borrowed some key accessories from a beloved friend to make a classier outfit, and repurposed the dress budget to fund a 5-day cultural adventure to the dark and wild north.
By luck or some Queenage wisdom I picked the week between school half-terms either side of the Scottish border. This meant at less than a week’s notice it was still possible to get a £34.80 single ticket for the first Lumo of the week (05.46 from Kings Cross) and to reach Edinburgh just after the galleries opened at 10am. As it happens, as I live on a lovely night bus route that means ‘bed to carriage door’, I can be on a train at that time of the morning in less than 40 minutes.
While I also lucked out with a charming, affordable two night Air BnB homestay in central Edinburgh, figuring out how to get home in an affordable manner presented more of a challenge. At this point some ancient competency earned in my youth while travelling solo across several continents and all over India’s arcane railway network (in the pre-digital era) kicked in.
Using a split ticketing platform designed to outwit the misery of most UK rail fares, I bought single tickets for sequential segments of the East Coast mainline and planned an enriching itinerary. This included Hexham and its Abbey, two nights with a friend in Leeds, a full day at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and a half day visit to the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. All told I would swim off the beach at Portobello, hike for the view from Arthur’s seat, visit several public art installations, catch five major gallery shows in three different cities, walk a total of 65km, and be home for dinner on Friday. All for less than the price of one ‘occasion’ dress!
Goldsworthy more than justified my dawn raid on the Pret at Kings Cross (bless them, they serve full tilt that early). My commiserations if you missed this stunning show but you can still buy the fabulous catalogue or console yourself with the Scottish national art collection and some great food at the gallery’s Scottish Café and Restaurant.
Edinburgh’s two modern art galleries are an easy bus ride from the Mound. New displays at Modern One showcase a collection of modern and contemporary art. Having missed it earlier this year at the Turner Contemporary, I was delighted to find that Modern Two is showing Resistance until 2 January 2026. This compelling photographic exhibition, curated by Steve McQueen, illuminates how from the Suffragettes of 1903, a century of protest (much of it led by women) shaped Britain, and photography shaped protest.
Having loved Luke Jerran’s Helios last year in the Painted Hall at Greenwich, I went to Hexham Abbey to see his striking Gaia installation (pictured above). Using 120dpi NASA imagery, this 7m diameter bauble brings our planet to life in stunning detail and offers a rare opportunity to view the Earth floating in three dimensions, as if from space.
The weather obliged and Yorkshire Sculpture Park gifted a vivid day of beautiful autumn scenery and colour. A regular bus from either train station in Wakefield makes it easy to reach by public transport (though an Uber is quicker and affordable if you go with a partner or friend). The Pull of Gravity, a major retrospective by the imaginative South African artist William Kentridge offers a captivating and thought-provoking show until next April.
I also had time for contemplation in James’s Turrell’s beautiful Deer Shelter Skyspace and an hour’s walk over the lake dam and up the Nash steps past one of Andy Goldsworthy’s most eerie installations to Sean Henry’s Seated Figure (pictured above) and its fabulous view. In between, I ate another delicious lunch at the Weston (best to book) and dipped into the gallery for the fantastic creatures and imagined realms of Australian artist Jordy Kerwick which is showing until next February.
My last stop was the Hepworth in Wakefield where you can now see Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red, a rare stringed carving by Barbara Hepworth recently acquired after a public fundraising campaign. I went mainly for Mothering, a show by the Scottish figurative painter Caroline Walker (pictured above) who depicts women’s experience at home or work in oil paint and on an epic scale traditionally reserved for religious and history paintings. This partly autobiographical and often intimate show, of work made over the five years since Walker herself became a mother, homes in on the unseen and under-appreciated work of women who birth, support childbirth, and provide the early-years childcare so essential for other mothers who work. Having now closed in Wakefield, Mothering moves to the Pallant House Gallery 22 November 2025-10 May 2026. Make some Queenage memories; gather your friends and/or your daughters and plan a trip to Chichester to see this together.
Photo credit: Hannah Tsecho Pearce
