Change Your Life. Picture courtesy the artist.

Julie Penfold enters a fantasy world of art at the Reg Vardy Gallery...

Daydream away at Maggie Hills’ enchanting exhibition ‘dream as if your life depends on it’ at the University of Sunderland’s Reg Vardy Gallery until 22 October 2004.

Maggie Hills is the current Artist in Residence at Durham Cathedral and has drawn on her time living in Texas as an inspiration for the big skies, flat land and dusty suburbia that are consistent throughout her ghostly landscapes.

Robert Blackson, Vardy Gallery’s curator, said: “The University of Sunderland has collaborated with Durham Cathedral for the past twenty-one years to host and financially support exhibitions for each Durham Cathedral Artist in Residence. This annual exhibition is one of the highlights of the Vardy Gallery’s calendar.”

ever and ever here...Picture courtesy the artist.

Maggie Hills’ ‘Ever and ever here’ is a beautiful painting that manages to make the ‘ever after’ seem tranquil and exquisite. Maggie’s use of subtle, soft pastel colours allows the viewer to drift into the scene. A perfect fairytale-like garden is depicted with rich rusty brown leaves, luscious green grass and a mesmerising ice-coloured pool - where the title of the piece, scribbled in fuchsia pink, is mirrored.

‘I cry once a day not because I am sad but because the universe is so big and there’s so little in it’ comically depicts a tiny battered old caravan engulfed by huge hills, steep slopes and nothingness. The fantastic title brilliantly sums up the painting.

Hills also uses video and ‘Sick of goodbyes’ is a collaborative video installation with Houston-based artist Duncan Ganley, which tracks the sun setting over three days in Europe, USA and the UK. The eight-screen installation seeks to unite eight distant friends and show how events and experiences are shared virtually via email or telephone.

untitled. Picture courtesy the artist.

‘The future is empty, easy to convince and ours’ is an innovative combining of two unlikely forms of public art – graffiti and floral text to create a sixty-foot long artwork taking place on October 1.

The unique idea is being made possible through Maggie’s collaboration with Texas-based artist Katrina Moorhead, and will see 2000 flowers planted to spell out the inspiring phrase ‘love is the only thing that can take you to heaven’ on the gallery’s pretty Backhouse Park surroundings.

Devoid of human presence, the faded pastel-coloured paintings offer a wonderful idyllic escapism from the everyday humdrum of life and show the fragile earth we sometimes take for granted in all its striking naked beauty.