Art You Can Hear

Art You Can Hear opens at the Art of Protest Gallery on Walmgate from 18 September to 7 October, with a private view the night before on 17 September from 7pm to 9pm. It's a group show bringing together three artists — Peter Davis, Mul, and Sam Josebury — all working around the way music shapes identity, memory and culture. The exhibition opens alongside the annual global Band T-Shirt Day and the closing weeks of the Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2026 at the National Portrait Gallery, so the music theme runs through more than just this one room.

On the walls you'll find paintings, limited-edition prints and artist-designed T-shirts. Sam Josebury is the local name here, a York artist who blends the spirit of the Impressionists with the live music scene, working from rapid sketches made from within the crowd. Peter Davis, coming in from Manchester, is known for portraits and urban landscapes; he's showing six new original artworks and three silver-leaf-embellished prints that he describes as challenging perceptions around mental health, race, gender and technology addiction. And then there's Mul — the street artist name for Alex Mulholland, a Newcastle-based creative director recognised for his music-inspired, large-scale public murals and his signature 'Running Heart' character.

Between the three of them, the show covers a fair bit of ground: Josebury's sketches from the thick of a gig, Davis's more reflective portraits and prints, and Mulholland's street-art background. It's a good mix of styles — from the quick, gestural work of the crowd to the more considered pieces — all held together by that same thread of how music sticks with us. The gallery is on Walmgate, and the show runs from 18 September through to 7 October, with the private view on 17 September from 7pm to 9pm.