GREEN Door artists are back on the exhibition trail with the intriguingly titled Sacred Vessels exhibition.

Running under the esteemed roof of Kendal Museum until January 31, as well as the 3D pieces you would maybe expect to see, the popular artists’ collective show includes plenty of evocative paintings, prints and textiles.

Among the creative offerings are Eileen Gledhill's summer clouds: "In these small paintings I’d like to convey the ideas of preciousness and containment inherent in the phrase Sacred Vessels,” explained Eileen. “We are ourselves about 60 per cent water and we need water to live. A cloud may hold or release this priceless commodity regardless of our will, reminding us that we are, after all, just a small and grateful part of this remarkable, complex and magnificent world.”

Works by Jessica Elleray are also featured. Since graduating from Lancaster University with a degree in fine art and creative writing, Jessica has continued her research into antiquities smuggling and sites of cultural significance. For Jessica, the artist becomes archaeologist, uncovering untold stories and bringing them to light. Reflecting on the relationships between people, places and objects, she works in a variety of media, dependant on the conceptual needs of the project.

“The busts on display explore a raw, unhealed wound in China’s history - the destruction of Yuanming Yuan (the Old Summer Palace),” said Jessica. “This event still influences 21st Century politics and relationships between Britain and China. The sculptures represent the iconic Zodiac Busts looted during the Second Opium War by British and French troops. Some have since been returned, but many are still missing. Appropriating the Wabi-Sabi philosophy of transience and embracing damage, as well as the motifs of the museum, the sculptures invite contemplation and attempt to open a dialogue about the events and stories which surround these objects.”

In Averyl Bradbrook’s The Conservatory, hieroglyphs from the Egyptian Book of the Dead are set against a background of newsprint, with the pose of the figure suggestive of an Egyptian mummy - mummification being the conservation of the sacred vessel of the human body. Averyl has also placed the word 'conservatory' above the womb, representing perhaps the most sacred vessel of all, the place where new life is nurtured and developed until the moment of birth.

The distinguished line-up of Green Door members also exhibiting in Sacred Vessels includes Mike Barlow, Roger Bell, John Davenport, Janet Graves, Ray Green, Kath Lockhart, Emma Low, Liz Lyon, Jane Mallinson, Angie Mitchell, Sam Mould, Helen Seth, Sonja Vietoris, Geraldine Walkington and Frances Winder.

Kendal Museum is open Tuesday to Thursday, 10am-4pm.