A selection of paintings and sculpture exploring two characters from West Riding folklore.
Solo exhibition by Dale Holmes in the main gallery
1st August 2025 – 5th October 2025
In West Riding folklore, Gytrash is a spectral dog that haunts liminal spaces; roads where town becomes moor, ginnels between streets, thresholds of woods. Gytrash appears in Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre and was a lifelong, unwanted companion to her troubled brother Branwell.
Beenderman is said to stalk the hills and drystone walls of the moor between Thornton and Haworth. Skeletal and ancient, he is always looking to take the hapless and the unprepared.
From 1 August, South Square will be home to these two unlikely friends.Spilling out from our Main Gallery into our outside spaces, this exciting exhibition gives us a glimpse into the encounters of these folklore characters as they navigate the modern world – and maybe become the next Asterix and Obelisk, Tintin and Snowy, or even Turner and Hooch…
About the artist
Dale Holmes’ painting practice is internationally recognised for its focus on
materiality, narrative strategies and logics of display that critique and embody modes of audience attention. The performance of cultural heritage, Mediaeval imaginaries, folklore and narrative traditions, speculative philosophy, Black Metal culture, and clubs and guilds are facets of Dale Holmes’ overarching inquiry into making, class, and communality.
Recent exhibition and performances include: Chapter, Cardiff and Serf, Leeds (both 2025); Egg, Todmorden and Steam Works, London (both 2024); Gloam, Sheffield (2023); Huddersfield Art Gallery and Temporary Contemporary, Huddersfield, and Kunstverein Nürnberg, Germany (all 2022); Editions Gallery, Bochum, Germany (2021); Galerie Sabine Knust, Munich, Germany and Xian Academy of Fine Art, China (2019). Non-conventional exhibition sites and surfaces have included a bicycle, sportswear, chain link fences around a tennis court, and stag.