The best art exhibitions coming up in Bristol and the Westcountry – selected by the Friends of the RWA…
Here’s our pick of the best art exhibitions and events happening in and around Bristol and the south west in the month ahead – including a look ahead to upcoming features….
AT THE RWA
Earth: Digging Deep in British Art 1781 – 2022 – 9 July to 11 Sept 22
Friends Priority Day 8 July – book here
Earth: Digging Deep in British Art 1781-2022 is a major exhibition spanning four centuries of artwork, coming to the RWA this summer
The final instalment of the RWA’s elements series, Earth: Digging Deep in British Art 1781-2022 tackles the most expansive and urgent of subject matters, bringing together important modern, historical and contemporary artworks, co-curated by artist Emma Stibbon RA RWA, art historian Professor Emerita Christiana Payne (Oxford Brookes University) and Nathalie Levi (Head of Programme – Curator of Exhibitions, RWA). It follows The Power of the Sea: Making Waves in British Art 1790-2014 (2014), Air: Visualising the Invisible in British Art 1768-2017 (2017) and Fire: Flashes to Ashes in British Art 1692-2019 (2019).
Earth examines how attitudes towards the landscape have evolved over the centuries and how artists’ approaches have changed over time; from the pastoral idylls of the 18th century, through representations of the Romantic Sublime, to present-day confrontations of the climate emergency. Encompassing depictions of the natural world from geological, spiritual, industrial, cultural and scientific perspectives.
This exhibition goes deep beneath the earth, exposes the core materiality of its elements, explores the substance of the surface, climbs dizzying heights and perches perilously on its edges. It bears witness to the earth’s mistreatment and its magnificence, its fullness and its fragility. Earth surveys the representation of our environment across four centuries, inviting us to consider our planet in all its abundance, precarity and preciousness.
Anthony Whishaw at 92: A Force of Nature – 9 July to 11 Sept 22
Also showing in the Kenny Gallery is an exhibition exploring Anthony Whishaw RA RWA’s studies of nature, the forces of nature and climate over the past six decades. More info here.
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Compiled by Sue Quirk and Laurel Smart
1) LAUREL SMART: CONVERSATIONS WITH COLOUR
2-24 JULY (BY ARRANGEMENT), HOURS, BRISTOL
PREVIEW: FRIDAY 1ST JULY 6PM – 9PM.
OPEN WEEKEND EVENT SAT 2ND & SUN 3RD JULY 11AM TO 4PM.
Laurel’s work is colourful, dynamic and evocative, drawing out abstract themes from intuitive gesture and mark making. Her work is often a complex relationship between chaos and order, finding and losing her way, disrupting the obvious and discovering surprises. Once finished, it takes time to fully engage with the work which evolves the longer you look at it.
Laurel says, “The painting will often impose itself on me and I follow where it leads, rather than taking it something else. It is rather like a conversation, I respond to the last mark and a new dynamic is created. I never really know where it will take me.” She has an intense relationship with the paint and a mastery of colour. Her working method is unpredictable and can be frustrating and exciting in equal parts.
2) VARIOUS ARTISTS: EVOLVER PRIZE 2022
2-30 JULY, ACE ARTS, SOMERTON
Artists, photographers and designers compete annually for a cash prize of £1,000 and their work to be published on the front cover of the July/August edition of Evolver, the Wessex arts and culture guide. This exhibition will feature the winning entry alongside the 49 runners-up.
3) STITCHED: TEXTILES OPEN
4-17 JULY, SOU’-SOU’-WEST ARTS GALLERY
Sou’-Sou’-West Arts’ first dedicated textiles exhibition, providing a platform for five specially selected independent designers from Devon and Dorset. Featuring work by: Kara Chambers,
Amanda Crosby, Aline Johnson, Wendy Jump, Debby Kirby.
4) JAYNE FARLEIGH: LAYERS OF THE ESTUARY
5-16 JULY, SEAGLASS GALLERY, LYMPSTONE, DEVON
The solo show in Lympstone consists of semi abstract paintings based on an emotive response to the river Exe and particularly Lympstone.
In her landscape paintings Jayne is looking for a connection of energy between the sky, water and earth. She is exploring the energy beneath our feet. How the light and water feed this energy, which in turn keeps the life cycle going. Jane says, ‘It is important for me that I don’t just put everything I see in a painting. I also put everything I feel. When I paint, I am looking for something that I consider ordinary, that I take for granted every day. There are moments when this ordinary is at its most wonderful. There is magic every day. That is what I would like people to stop and see.’ Check opening times with gallery.
5) PETER RANDALL-PAGE: ‘RETROSPECTIVE’ MAQUETTES AND PRINTS
UNTIL 16 JULY: GALLERY PANGOLIN, CHALFORD, GLOUCS
Featuring a wide selection of Randall-Pages’ Maquettes and Prints which spans his creative practice of over forty years and includes several newly realised works.
The first Peter Randall-Page solo exhibition at Gallery Pangolin and the first ever retrospective of this Royal Academician.
6) TANOA SASRAKU: TERRATYPES
UNTIL 17 JULY, SPIKE ISLAND, BRISTOL
A major solo exhibition by Tanoa Sasraku including works on paper, photographs and bronzes that build upon the artist’s ongoing research into hostile wildlands, and personal relationship to the energy, mythology and memories stored deep within the British landscape. Made using digital and analogue techniques, and processes that shift scale, materiality and texture, the works draw connections between microchip circuitry, tartan textile fabrics and ancient rock formations.
The title of the exhibition comes from Sasraku’s series of earth photos documenting sites of personal significance: Dartmoor – a vast moorland near where she grew up, and the Scottish Highlands – the site of a recent residency, and where her partner is from. Heavily worked sheets of blank newsprint are hand-rubbed with foraged natural pigments, where they take on geological and geographical information in ochre, graphite and manganese. The sheets are then stacked, cut and stitched together to form abstract geometric compositions, before being steeped in water. Shards of paper are then gesturally torn away, revealing layers that both expose and encrypt details about the materiality of the land, like microchips storing data or a clan’s tartan cloth.
7) STEPHANIE SANDERCOCK: ALCHEMY
UNTIL 17 JULY, PENWITH STUDIO GALLERY, ST IVES
Highly textured paintings and 3D works on aluminium, rusted steel, wooden panel and canvas, using crushed limestone & marble plaster, acrylic with muscovite & biotite mica.
“I begin each new piece with a plan based on the form of the coastal rocks but sometimes other elements sneak in, like the ploughed fields, harbour wall, turning tide or shapes of the seaweed.
Creating textures with plaster is one of my favourite things and I like to layer paint and later sand it down to reveal surprising patterns. Using muscovite mica to reflect the light adds another magical element. Like a mystery unravelling before my eyes the process takes me to unimagined places. There’s an aliveness that can’t be measured and this gives me a sense of playfulness, of freedom. Art is a moving growing thing to explore and immerse myself in. I don’t know where it will lead but I am 100% engaged in the journey.”
LAST CHANCE TO SEE
- UNTIL 2 JULY: EDEN Group exhibition (Luci Coles, Monica Shanta Brown and Vicki Gardner) exploring the concept of earthly paradise. ARTIZAN GALLERY, TORQUAY https://www.art-hub.co.uk/ex/eden22
- UNTIL 3 JULY FRANCES WATTS: WHILE I STAND AND LOOK An exhibition of contemporary landscapes. HEART OF THE TRIBE, GLASTONBURY https://heartofthetribe.com/event/
WATCH OUT FOR…
- NO-THING/WATERFRONT: 16-31 JULY Work by Linda Ashe and Diana Pilcher, each exploring space, light and movement. SOU’-SOU’-WEST ARTS GALLERY https://sousouwest.co.uk/
- EXETER’S FINE ART COLLECTION: UNTIL 17 JULY This exhibition showcases the quality and diversity of the collection. RAMM, EXETER https://rammuseum.org.uk/event/exeters-fine-art-collection-funded-with-thanks/
If you would like an exhibition or artist to be listed please email laurel.smart@blueyonder.co.uk for consideration.
The Floating Circle 