THE head of art and art history at Ampleforth College is one of the artists taking part in next month’s North Yorkshire Open Studios.

Stephen Guyon Bird is a painter and a visual storyteller, telling stories through the pictures he makes.

He studied fine art at Chelsea College of Art and Design and subsequently at Goldsmiths from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s.

Since the age of 20, Stephen has spent a great deal of time studying the language of drawing, making close copies of Renaissance masters such as Albrecht Durer and Andrew Mantegna and looking at the way Giotto di Bondone uses space.

These studies have formed the bedrock of Stephen’s narrative pictures, which have been created over the last 25 years. Stephen works in cycles of imagery related to literary and biblical themes, mythology and folk tale.

For example, in other works, one cycle is based on Dante’s Divine Comedy. The settings for the pictures are often south east London in the 1970s. The landscape of the North Yorkshire Moors and frequent visits to the Hebrides and the rugged coastline of the Hartland peninsula in north Devon, as well as his annual visits to Florence as an art history teacher also influence his work.

His paintings are multi-layered both in their composition and symbolism and move imaginatively between worlds, so that Noah easily resides in Deptford Creek in 1970s London and Jacob wrestles with the angel on the side of an Hebridean loch.

Stephen’s open studio will be in his home at Coram Cottage, Ampleforth.

North Yorkshire Open Studios takes place on Saturday, June 6 and Sunday, June 7, and Saturday, 13 and Sunday, June 14, from 10.30am to 5.30pm.

Visit nyos.org.uk