COVENTRY students want you to get happy with the help of an uplifting exhibition.

New Art For A New Age: Optimism in Post-War British Abstraction is at Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum.

It has been put together as a project by 10 final year History of Art students at Warwick University.

They have had access to the Arts Council and the university’s own wonderful collections. The theme, the artists and the user-friendly little catalogue which goes with it have all been put together by the students - with their lecturers’ and the gallery’s guidance - and they’ve all done a good job.

The exhibition opens with a highly-relevant quote from Bridget Riley about how the 1960s was an “explosion of optimism and confidence.”

The show seeks to show how various artists moved away from figurative painting to new abstract work and new materials and ways of working.

Patrick Heron’s wonderful large Four Vermillions: April 1965 is a vibrant mix of oranges and reds, reflecting the shapes of the coastline near St Ives where he lived.

Another St Ives artist is Barbara Hepworth, whose bronze sculpture Spring, an ovoid sculpture recently restrung with fishing line she originally used.