Works by a Turner Prize-winning artist will go on display in Harrogate next month as part of a major national collaboration.

The Mercer Art Gallery is working with Tate and National Galleries of Scotland to put on the exhibition of artworks by Martin Creed.

The project is part of Artist Rooms, which brings the work of more than 40 international artists to galleries around the UK.

Mercer Art Gallery curator Karen Southworth said:

“Since this is the first time Creed’s work has been shown in North Yorkshire we are also hoping to attract a new cohort of visitor to the gallery, keen to learn more about contemporary and conceptual art.

“The exhibition presents an incredible opportunity for our residents and visitors to North Yorkshire to access the national collections of Tate and National Galleries of Scotland through Artist Rooms in Harrogate, and for free. It also offers a fantastic opportunity to raise awareness of the Mercer Gallery, to attract future interest from high profile art institutions and contemporary artists to our beautiful, historical and unique exhibition space.”

Ms Southworth said Creed’s work was “deliberately provocative, challenging and playful”, adding:

“Some people may be surprised or even affronted, but if you allow yourself to go with it and give the works a bit of breathing space you will start to discover some of his deeper ideas and deliberate intentions.”

Born in Yorkshire in 1968, Creed rose to fame after winning the Turner Prize in 2001. His most famous installation is perhaps Work No 227 The Lights Going On and Off, an empty room in which the lights were switched on and off at five-second intervals.

He was also commissioned to mark the opening of the 2012 London Olympics with Work No 1197 All The Bells in the Country Ringing as Quickly and Loudly as Possible for Three Minutes. It saw bells across the country, from Big Ben to bicycle bells, being rung simultaneously.

Creed’s Work No 370 Balls, from 2004, will feature in Harrogate. It will see almost 1,000 balls of different scales, weights and textures filling the main gallery.

Visitors will also be able to see Creed’s Work No 890 Don’t Worry and Work No 1340, a large-scale wall painting of diagonal stripes.

It is the first time the artworks will be exhibited in North Yorkshire, as well as the first time Balls has been shown outside London and Edinburgh.

The exhibition will run from April 1 to July 2 and admission is free.

Plumpton Rocks will reopen to the public next weekend after several years of restoration works — which were aided by 200-year-old sketches by the famous landscape painter J M W Turner.

The Grade II* listed parkland and man-made lake fell into disrepair towards the end of the last century before Historic England added it to the “Heritage at Risk Register” in 2012.

Since then Historic England has worked with the current owners and spent more than £400,000.

The visitor attraction first closed for a major programme of repairs in 2013, which included works on the parkland, the dam and on the lake. It reopened three years later in 2016.

Plumpton Rocks closed again in October 2019 to do further work on the dam and bring it up to standard for the Reservoirs Act 1975, but covid further delayed the works.

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The owner of the site, Robert de Plumpton Hunter, said it will be “lovely to get it back open again”.

He said:

“It’s a great relief to see it done. It needed a bit of a refurb.

“The lake, which was silting up, would have been lost within 10 or 15 years.”

Mr Hunter was keen to restore the site, and the lake, to how they looked in the 1750s. But with no photos available, he was fortunate to draw on art created by one of the most famous ever English painters.

Turner painted a watercolour of Plumpton Rocks in 1797 and more sketches of the site are stored at the Tate in London, which were used to inspire the refurbishment.

Mr Hunter added:

“You really got a feel of what the landscape looked like 200 years ago, and we were able to use those sketches to aid the restoration. If Turner turned up now he would absolutely recognise the landscape, that is special.”

Plumpton Rocks will be open every Saturday and Sunday from September 3 from 11am to 6pm. There are plans to open it on more days in 2023. Dates will be announced on its website.

‘Plompton Rocks’ (1797-8) JMW Turner. http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/D17202