A KEIGHLEY coffee house is hosting the Christmas exhibition of work by Bradford Arts and Crafts Network.

Paintings and photographs feature in the display at Riris Coffee House, in the arcade on North Street, until December 14.

Exhibiting are leading lights of the network, artist Catherine Gilford, post-industrial painter Steven Spencer, photographer Jason Feather and urban photographer Simon Sugden.

Joining them will be abstract expressionist painter Neil Bell, who will be displaying his thought-provoking and visually-absorbing canvases.

Catherine and Steven formed the network in 2015 as a creative hub for the district's creative community to share information and interact with other artists, writers and photographers.

This year they have organised several exhibitions in alternative art spaces.

Steven said: "The group has explored the use of alternative artspace in their previous two exhibitions as a way to bring artwork to a wider audience, who may not visit museums and galleries.

"The last one was at the Bacaro wine bar in Sunbridge Wells, Bradford, which ran throughout October and proved to be very successful for both the arts group and the business.

Neil Bell's work is a hybrid of abstract expressionism with surrealist overtones, as he seeks to express the interior world of emotional consciousness.

He said: "I'm interested in free and spontaneous emotional communication, and I exploit various techniques and the physical properties of the paint itself to achieve intuitive direct contact with the viewer.

"My aim is to free myself from the rigidity of composition and contact the creative unconscious as a form of psychic improvisation in unstructured space. It is, in fact, the pursuit of absolute freedom."