This summer is the 300th anniversary of the birth of the great landscape gardener Capability Brown. To mark this key event the Mercer Art Gallery has commissioned an exhibition of new work by contemporary artist Kate Whiteford OBE that looks at the way Capability Brown transformed the English landscape through the manipulation of scale and perspective. Whiteford has drawn inspiration from the oak trees originally planted in the 18th century by Brown on the Harewood Estate. The exhibition reflects Brown’s clever technique of planting trees of different scales to make the horizon seem further away, making the landscape appear to be on a grander scale. He would also place a ‘feature tree’ in the centre of a vista to divide the view and Whiteford plays with this idea within the gallery setting. Just as Brown's trees in the landscape contribute to an illusion, the trees on the walls of the Mercer Art Gallery will also play on the idea of illusion as they are printed in optical colours, which shift and shimmer when seen from different directions. Also on show, the artist’s own watercolours and her choice of works on paper from the Mercer’s collection.