An exhibition has opened at the Manx Museum about an artist who inspired others to be creative.

’Crossing Open Ground - David Gilbert: A Retrospective’ runs at the Douglas museum until May 5.

The exhibition is part of a joint venture with the Sayle Gallery - an exhibition there ended on Sunday.

Yvonne Cresswell, curator of social history at MNH, said: ’David Gilbert was someone who really did change people’s lives and was a person who inspired others to be creative and to look at the world around them in different way.

’I think that is an incredibly important and valuable gift both to have and to share with others.

’For David Gilbert art and creativity wasn’t a luxury or an optional extra to life but was and could be an integral and essential part of life for everyone.’

David Gilbert was an artist who passionately believed everyone could be creative and helped many to discover their own creativity.

This was a thread that ran throughout his artistic life and in particular during the time that he lived in the island in the 1970s and 1980s.

He lived at Bishops Demesne Farm at Ballaugh with his wife Sheila, and their family, where they had their own smallholding and grew their own food.

Here, he designed the distinctive and iconic set of images around the top of the extension of the Manx Museum.

He was a Cambridge graduate of English, fascinated by philosophy and literature and a self-taught sculptor and artist who worked predominantly in wood and who rarely exhibited his work.

He dedicated an immense amount of his time to creating large works of art but also taught at Isle of Man College and on his farm, as well as working with the local Manx art community.

The ’Crossing Open Ground’ exhibition contains art spanning a lifetime of work and completes an artistic journey which began with David Gilbert’s last exhibition at the Manx Museum in 1989 ’In The Presence ofâ?¦’.

The centrepiece is the same as the 1989 exhibition, the monumental sculpture ’In The Presence ofâ?¦’ (Mountain Hares), a dramatic and fascinating work of art that is both large in scale and intricate in detail and encompasses all of the artist’s fascination with the cycles of life and death in the world around him.

The artwork ranges from the small and delicate through to the large and monumental, but whatever the scale and intricacy of the work the same immense themes of birth, love, death and the rhythms of life and the land are explored, frequently with a Manx perspective.

Yvonne added: ’Hopefully people will be inspired by what they have seen in the exhibitions at the Manx Museum and at the Sayle Gallery and will want to try their hand at being creative themselves.

’That would be the greatest legacy of all, if David Gilbert’s artwork can continue to inspire people to discover and engage with their own creativity and to look at the world around them with new eyes and insight.’

The majority of the artwork on display is on loan from the David Gilbert Art Trust and has been brought to the Isle of Man with the generous assistance of Isle of Man Steam Packet Company.

MNH thanked the Steam Packet for its support.