Exhibition showcases art through virtual reality

Four groups helped create a film by using new technology to create brush strokes, with the final work being edited by Dr Alison Goodyear

The organisers of an art exhibition will draw on the influences of painters through the generations to "bring new technology and digital art to the masses".

Colour and Light, at The Higgins Bedford, will showcase artwork through the ages, from JMW Turner to pop artist Peter Blake and Chila Kumari Burman.

Dr Alison Goodyear, a Bedford-based artist, said she was able to create "innovative, ground-breaking" work with people who did not believe they were "arty".

"We're looking at historical paintings through the lens of contemporary expanding painting practice. We're not ignoring what has gone before - we're seeing it in a new light," she said.

"It shows how digital art can be all things."

Detail from the Turner piece A First Rate Taking in Stores, painted in 1818, features in the new exhibition

Dr Goodyear worked with four community groups - the Higgins volunteers, Queen's Park Youth Group, Castle Art Life Group and a team of Ukrainian artists - on the show.

She said many believed they were "not artists or arty, but I disagree with that; everyone has the potential to be an artist".

Working with a virtual reality (VR) assistant, Amina Pagliari, the groups were shown how to create VR together in an "immersive space".

What they created was edited into a 26-minute animated film which will be projected on to a wall within the exhibition.

Chila Kumari Singh Burman created Cecil and Kali in 2003 which will be back on display, its first time since 2003

Dr Goodyear said: "I felt like a virtual explorer flying around the space creating a film path to capture the content.

"The goal is to bring new technology and digital art to the masses, in a way that hasn't been done before."

The VR artwork was created by four groups, with their age ranges from 13 to 84

Victoria Partridge, keeper of fine and decorative art at the museum, said three of its nine Turner paintings would be on display, including "one of his most famous watercolours, A First Rate Taking in Stores".

The piece Cecil and Kali, painted by the renowned artist Chila Kumari Singh Burman, will also be exhibited, as it was created while Burman was artist in residence in 2003.

"It's a fascinating new way at looking at art through virtual reality," Ms Partridge added.

Dr Alison Goodyear (left) worked on the exhibition with two of its curators, Professor Christiana Payne (middle) and Dr Mary O'Neill (right)

The exhibition, supported by Arts Council England, opens on 15 February and runs until 2 November.

Schoolchildren have already enjoyed getting a preview of the new artwork at The Higgins Bedford