"And then when everything's quiet and white and the nights are long and most people are asleep –then they appear." Tove Jansson

Winter is a time of contrast. As autumn slips through our fingers, a season of stark contrast begins. In the contrast we get to know ourselves. And look beyond this and we see the bigger picture: life that tenaciously refuses to give up, and from the fertile dark, hope grows.

'Then They Appear: Dreams in White' brings together three artists' interpretations of this procession and how it affects us, through painting, illustration and photography.

Kovanova 's work aims to investigate the complex relationships between humans and nature, searching for ways to be present and connected with the world around, breaking through the human-made barriers that she believes often numb consciousness.

As winter approaches, Kovanova invites you to consider a glimpse of Nature's pace: to slow down, stop and reflect – to connect with the beauty of the world around.

Based in Edinburgh, she is originally from Siberia in the far east of Russia – a land famed for its seasonal extremes.

Its beautiful and serene winters bring with them smothering snow and glistening sun; two metres of ice on the world's deepest lake; a pause so deep we wait, holding our breath, as if we fear the Earth's heart has missed a long beat.

This is the inspiration for her work.

Okada is fascinated by the contrasts. Just as the vibrant life, the summer of a tradition, dies with the passing of autumn, winter heralds its decay.

Rarely is the contrast between light and dark, old and new, so striking as in this dramatic seasonal change.

Yet there is life in winter, and the seeds of the old traditions lie dormant, waiting to sprout, from which something new may grow.

This provides fertile ground as Okada finds inspiration in a piece by Yukio Misima.

Clark is offering a selection of tintype photographs elegantly capturing a balance of life and death, light and dark.

He is looking at the transition from autumn to winter: a time of decay, slowing down, dormancy. Decay happens all around us, yet seems to pass us by.

We notice the before, sometimes the during, and the after, yet we rarely notice the process itself.

Around us, particularly in cities, anything decaying is removed. The process is natural and essential to the cycles in nature, yet we're becoming divorced from it, unfamiliar and unsettled by it.

There is a kind of beauty in it – of the elegance in recycling organic material, making use of it once more, and of the structures and life that are created and destroyed – that we are ignorant of or have a strange and estranged relationship with.