Contemporary art in the North East has often been anchored by its cities. Newcastle and Gateshead have the galleries, the studios, the cultural quarters and much of the infrastructure through which artists find audiences.
But this autumn, one of those institutions is travelling further north.
The Biscuit Factory, the independent gallery that's occupied a Victorian warehouse in Newcastle’s Ouseburn for almost 25 years, is establishing a new programme at Ad Gefrin, the Anglo-Saxon museum and whisky distillery in Wooler.
It's the first time the gallery has moved beyond its Newcastle home. More importantly, it creates a new route through which people in rural Northumberland can encounter and buy contemporary art without first travelling into the city.
Beginning in October, The Biscuit Factory are going to curate exhibitions, conversations and gatherings at Ad Gefrin, bringing contemporary practice into a building already concerned with heritage, landscape, hospitality and the enduring value of making things well.
The partnership might appear unusual at first: an urban contemporary-art gallery working inside a museum and functioning distillery inspired by the seventh-century royal complex at nearby Yeavering.
The connection becomes clearer through the materials and processes each organisation values. Artworks are developed through judgement, repetition and time. Whisky is shaped by grain, water, wood, place - and patience. Neither emerges fully formed, and neither can be hurried without losing something essential.
Rachel Brown, general manager of The Biscuit Factory, describes that shared understanding as a respect for “material, process and artistry”.
“Whether in a studio or a distillery, each decision leaves its trace, shaped by experience, patience and the character of its surroundings,” she says.
The gallery currently represents more than 250 artists, exhibiting painting, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, jewellery and other forms of contemporary craft. Its arrival in Wooler will offer those artists another audience while extending Northumberland’s cultural provision beyond the established urban circuit.
The geographical shift is vitally important. Rural access to art isn't simply a matter of transporting exhibitions from one building to another. It means creating places where culture belongs within everyday regional life - and where audiences don't have to leave their own communities to experience ambitious work.
“Having a base in Northumberland means we can provide more opportunities for our artists and a programme of cultural events to a wider regional audience,” Brown says.
Ad Gefrin opened in Wooler as a £16 million museum and distillery built around the story of Northumbria’s Anglo-Saxon golden age. Its museum draws upon the archaeological discoveries made at Yeavering, the site of a royal settlement associated with the kings and queens of seventh-century Northumbria.
But the attraction has never treated heritage as something sealed behind glass.
Alongside its reconstruction of the royal Great Hall, Ad Gefrin produces spirits using Northumbrian barley and water from the Cheviot Hills. It presents distilling, design, food and hospitality as contemporary continuations of the region’s identity rather than decorative additions to its history.
The new partnership with The Biscuit Factory pushes that proposition even further. It places work made by living artists alongside the stories and processes inherited from the past.
“Whisky making is as much an art as it is a science, matured through craft and time,” says Ad Gefrin co-founder Eileen Ferguson. “We recognise the many parallels with contemporary art practice.”
The collaboration also follows Ad Gefrin’s recent work with North East artists Voirrey Taylor, Luke McTaggart and Sarah Calavera, who created bottle artwork for the distillery’s first Crǣft Series release of single-cask Northumbrian English single malt.
An open call is now in the offing to find more regional artists to create work for future releases. That matters because commissioning artists to shape the public identity of a Northumbrian product is more meaningful than borrowing the language of creativity after the product's been made.
The partnership’s opening exhibition, Modern Classics, launches at Ad Gefrin on Friday 23 October.
Featuring work by Paula Dunn, Angelo Murphy and Garry Courtnell, it will explore light, atmosphere, the everyday and the elemental through contemporary art grounded in traditional techniques.
Dunn will take part in a public conversation on the opening day, while a supper club on Thursday 22 October will include a preview of the exhibition. Further exhibitions and one-off events are expected as the partnership develops.
The first programme will begin to show whether this can become more than an attractive meeting of two established brands.
Its greater promise lies in what it might make possible: new audiences for North East artists; serious contemporary work presented in rural Northumberland; and a cultural relationship between Newcastle and Wooler that moves people, ideas and opportunities in both directions.
The North’s cultural life has never belonged only to its cities. But access, visibility and investment remain unevenly distributed.
By taking the gallery north, The Biscuit Factory and Ad Gefrin are making a modest but important intervention: bringing contemporary art into conversation with a landscape and community already rich in creativity - and recognising that tradition remains alive only when new hands are allowed to shape it.
Modern Classics opens at Ad Gefrin in Wooler on Friday 23 October 2026.
Paula Dunn’s accompanying In Conversation event takes place on the same day, with a preview supper club planned for Thursday 22 October.
Header image: Three Lemons with Pink Paper. Angelo Murphy
