A THOUGHT-PROVOKING exhibition in Hartlepool will turn the spotlight on the horrors of religious intolerance over the ages.

Called Loss of Face, it uses photographs to show how the images of saints and angels on medieval artwork were later defaced because of intolerance.

Photographs of more than 100 defaced heads are juxtaposed with electronically-created music. The images capture the aesthetic conflict between order and disorder, with each exhibit reflecting the location and social conflict surrounding the defacing of the image.

The exhibition is the result of collaboration between the Oxford's photographic artist John Goto and Michael Young, a composer and lecturer in music at Oxford Brookes University.

It was created over three years as Mr Goto visited parish churches across Norfolk, Suffolk and South Devon, collecting images of paintings and carvings which had been defaced during the Reformation and the Civil War.

The music is based on recordings of sounds from churches. The exhibition takes place at Hartlepool Art Gallery, in Church Square, from today until September 1.