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
170 Annual Open Exhibition
Until 14 Jan 2024
The RWA’s renowned Annual Open Exhibition is now in its 170th year, and – as always – offers a stunning variety of work from emerging and established artists. This dynamic, varied and uplifting exhibition includes a stunning array of painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, sculpture, installation and mixed media artworks, and is a showcase of some of the most exciting artists from across the country and beyond.
All work is for sale, making the Annual Open a perfect opportunity to discover new artists or invest in well-known names. You can browse – and buy – the artworks from your home online.
A selection panel assessed every entry and this year over 600 works made it into the final exhibition. The panel this year included Charmaine Watkiss and Meryl Ainslie together with RWA Academicians Fiona Robinson PRWA, Dallas Collins VPRWA, Lucy Austin RWA, Angela Lizon RWA and Karl Singporewala RWA.
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Compiled by Sue Quirk and Laurel Smart
1) DRIVEN TO ABSTRACTION: MIXED EXHIBITION
4 – 25 NOVEMBER, DAVID SIMON CONTEMPORARY, CASTLE CARY, SOMERSET
Exploring colour, form, texture, materials and composition. Artists: Julia Cooper, Jennifer Durrant RA, Vanessa Gardiner, Howard Hodgkin RA, Nicky Knowles RWA, Claire Packer.
George Dannatt was drawn into the St Ives artistic circle who had a significant impact on his own painting practice.
Julia Cooper lives and works in Cornwall. Her particular interest lies in painting, creating form and space using a variety of palettes but invariably prefers what she calls ‘knocked back’, faded colour.
Vanessa Gardiner: “As a landscape painter I am captivated both by the beauty of the places on which my work is based and by the processes involved during the making of the pictures.”
Nicky Knowles works intuitively, putting down colour, marks and shapes in paint and paper aiming to create an image of balance and unity. “My collages explore a dialogue between paint and paper. They reflect a process of lyrical play with cut and torn forms from new and heavily worked materials which I distress using wax and paint…”
2) CHANTAL MEZA: STATE OF DISAPPEARANCE
UNTIL 8 NOVEMBER, CENTRESPACE, BRISTOL
For two weeks during October and November 2023, an international art exhibition and a series of public talks arrived at the Centrespace Gallery in Bristol to draw attention to the problem of human disappearance. A powerful series of 75 original works by the Mexican abstract painter Chantal Meza, will be showcased, which will provide an evocative journey and testimony on the violence. Through a complimentary series of free public talks and panel discussions from renowned authorities, visitors will have the opportunity to learn and discuss a broad set of issues from enforced disappearance, the holocaust, and slavery, along with the challenges of finding the missing in natural disasters.
3) MARZIA COLONNA & FIAMMA COLONNA MONTAGU: MANY MOONS
UNTIL 11 NOVEMBER, SLADERS YARD, WEST BAY, DORSET
In a rare and special exhibition, Marzia Colonna and Fiamma Colonna Montagu, mother and daughter, will be exhibiting together at Sladers Yard. Each is an artist with her own unique voice. Each is author of large-scale projects and commissions. Many Moons is a celebration of the years, of finding their personal paths, putting forward voices and ideas that are different but intriguingly compatible, with the pleasure of seeing each other’s work develop and often live side by side.
4) YVONNE CROSSLEY RWA: OCTOGENARIAN DANCE
UNTIL 18 NOVEMBER, DRAWING PROJECTS UK, TROWBRIDGE, WILTSHIRE
The exhibition is open each Saturday from 7 October from 1pm to 4pm, by advance appointment and during events. Octogenarian Dance is a recent body of work that both celebrates the positive elements of old age and recognises the stigma inherent in the “catastrophe” of approaching the later years of life, by an artist who is unashamedly physically old and long in life-story herself.
As we age, a multiplicity of selves proliferates, over and through time. Ageing “is a multiple, ambiguous, and contradictory process, which provides us – continuously and simultaneously – with images of past, present, lost, embodied and imagined selves” (Helen Moglen, 2008 Studies in Gender and Sexuality). These possibilities result in a dislocation for the ageing self, residing in the tensions between the person in the mirror, the person in our minds at different points in time, and the body that others see. The pieces brought together in the exhibition Octogenarian Dance focus on this aspect of the ageing body in modern society, attentive to the way in which age, life, and memory intersect.
5) SPRING GALLERY: 3 EXHIBITIONS
UNTIL 21 NOVEMBER, SRING GALLERY, CHELTENHAM
Aboriginal Art UK until 7 November: Aboriginal Art UK was set up by Nadia Phillips in 2010. Originally from Sydney, Nadia’s interest in design and textiles led her to dealing initially in linen, lace and period costume, before moving on to pre-Columbian textiles. A period living in Florence and studying history of art awoke an interest in the indigenous art of Nadia’s home country, and how it was being developed. Nadia started collecting aboriginal art on one of her many visits back to Australia when an opening arose to join a trip with an art dealer visiting the outback communities, and the opportunity to source and buy paintings directly from them.
Nadine James 9-13 November: @nadine_james_artist
Steve Brockett 15-21 November: @steve_brockett
6) SIMON HITCHENS RWA: PARALLELS: SCULPTURE + DRAWING
UNTIL 2 DECEMBER, SOMERSET RURAL MUSEUM, GLASTONBURY, SOMERSET
This exhibition will be the first public display of the artworks created by Somerset-based sculptor Simon Hitchens under the banner of ‘The Parallel Project’, a creative endeavour rooted in landscape, geology and history.
For three weeks, spanning the autumn equinox of 2019, Simon travelled the length of the British Isles, from latitude 50 in Cornwall to latitude 60 in Shetland. He was looking for rocks from eleven different geological time periods and to make drawings of the shadow lines cast by each rock at each of the eleven lines of latitude. Shadows cast from a twelfth object, a discarded lump of plastic, were drawn on a landfill site near London. Shadow sculptures complement the drawings. There will also be a large concrete sculpture, Bearing Witness to Things Unseen, on display in the museum’s Abbey Barn.
“The British Isles have a rich and varied geology and include rocks which are among the oldest on the planet. Each day these rocks get a little older as we too get older. To be able to comprehend the deep time represented by the rocks is to a shine a light on our own short lifespan.”
7) REBECCA APPLEBY: MATTER
UNTIL 4 DECEMBER, BURTON AT BIDEFORD, DEVON
Rebecca Appleby is committed to exploring the creative potential of clay as a medium, this new body of work is a personal interpretation of multiple connected themes, including a holistic view of the earth, its hemispheres, and the concept of Gaia – the theory that everything on earth is connected.
In this exhibition, she works with the motif of the sphere and the hemisphere – forms which appear in nature, and which also echo the structure of our brains. We are reminded of the extent to which our human lives are intricately interwoven with the universe. They are essentially made up of the same ‘matter’ and, as such, we can trace our origins back to the stars and embark on a new understanding of our relationship with the world in which we live.
LAST CHANCE TO SEE
- UNTIL 4 NOVEMBER: MICHAEL COOPER: OUT OF THE BLOCKSculpture featuring a broad range of Michael Cooper’s acclaimed animal studies. GALLERY PANGOLIN, CHALFORD, GLOS http://www.gallery-pangolin.com/exhibitions/michael-cooper-out-of-the-block
WATCH OUT FOR
- SIMON TURNER: KIOSK: 9 NOVEMBER – 2 DECEMBER ‘Kiosk’ is an ongoing series of work Simon uses to examine and come to terms with his experience of late diagnosed autism. THAT ART GALLERY, BRISTOL https://www.thatartgallery.com/
- MARION ELMES: ARTIST’S WALL: UNTIL 25 NOVEMBER Semi-abstract paintings with gestural biomorphic images. PLOUGH ARTS CENTRE, GREAT TORRINGTON, DEVON https://www.theploughartscentre.org.uk/exhibition/artists-wall-27
- DAVID BROOKE: MYSTERIOUS ADVENTURES: UNTIL 26 NOVEMBER These paintings create a sense of mystery as people embark on unexpected adventures such as riding on the back of a large fish, or else they run across the landscape carrying a burning tree. LYME REGIS MUSEUM, DORSET https://www.lymeregismuseum.co.uk/exhibitions/
The Floating Circle 