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 – including a look ahead to upcoming features….
AT THE RWA
RWA Biennial Open 2025: Paper Works
25 Jan – 27 Apr 2025
Paper Works, the RWA’s Biennial exhibition, is all about paper. Selected from an open submission it celebrates paper as a surface for drawing and printmaking and as a sculptural material. The work in the exhibition ranges from powerful visceral charcoal drawings to hangings so delicate as they move in the still air that it almost seems as if they do not exist. There are tiny intimate paintings, exquisite fine line drawings on costly cotton rag paper and expressive vibrant works on packaging cardboard and paper animal feed sacks. If you love paper you will love this show and if you don’t know anything about it come with the RWA on a voyage of discovery.
Paule Vézelay: Living Lines
25 Jan – 27 Apr 2025
Discover the internationally important work of Paule Vézelay, a key figure of 20th-century British abstract art. Her vivid explorations of colour and line fill this retrospective exhibition at the RWA – the largest solo show of Vézelay’s work in over 40 years.
Flora
15 Jan – 09 March 2025
Flowers, plants and botanical-inspired artworks fill the Kenny Gallery in this joyous exhibition curated by Malcolm Ashman RWA and Stephen Jacobson RWA. Alongside recent works by Academicians Cynthia Lear and Charlotte Price, discover rarely-seen pieces from the RWA Collection by celebrated artists including Derek Balmer, Mary Fedden, Alastair Michie and George Tute.
Image top: Paule Vézelay – Growing Forms (1946)
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Compiled by Sue Quirk and Laurel Smart
1) LEN GREEN: RHYTHM OF COLOUR
UNTIL 15 FEBRUARY, PLOUGH ARTS CENTRE, GREAT TORRINGTON, DEVON
A dynamic and inspiring solo show by Abstract painter Len Green, whose colourful large-scale paintings reflect his musical influences, having grown up in the dancehalls of Wigan – birthplace of Northern Soul! Born in the North West of England, Green Studied Foundation Art at Wigan School of Art, moving on to a BA (Hons) Fine Art (Painting) at Manchester University. He then completed an MA in Fine Art (Painting) at Manchester. Amongst the exhibitions he was involved in during this time in the late 70s and 80s was a one-man show at the Turnpike Gallery in Leigh, Greater Manchester; a prestigious, contemporary art gallery. He has exhibited widely across the UK including at the Royal Academy in London.
2) HELEN HARDAKER: WATCHING NOT HELPING: 5 CROWS AND THE MONDRIAN TREE
20 FEBRUARY – 1 MARCH, STROUD VALLEYS ARTSPACE, STROUD
Helen Hardaker’s work explores the interfaces of lived experiences, and human lives. Exploring catastrophic global degradation, sustainable and equitable existences and real time responses from both the human and animal kingdoms, Watching Not Helping is an exhibition of all-new work. With its full title Watching Not Helping: 5 crows and the Mondrian tree, Hardaker’s forthcoming exhibition is inspired by crows or corvid families inhabiting winter trees. Engaging in familiar behaviours, like the instinct to co-habit, perform rituals of evening roosting, bedding down, chattering, watching and sleeping. The corvid family at large, represent human life, silhouetted against winter skies. Along with road networks and inhabited communal spaces, Hardaker uses pale winter hues and bright sunsets to illuminate the branches of the trees and the liminal spaces in-between, giving thought to imaginative conversations and philosophical speculation.
20th century artist Piet Mondrian described capturing the spaces in-between when manipulating the beauty of nature into abstract composition. Now in the 21st Century with nature in the spotlight and art still a vehicle to communicate beauty, Hardaker uses these same liminal and in-between spaces to play with composition and the ambiguities and paradoxes of human existence. Exhibition Opening: Friday 21st February 6-8pm
3) GEORGINA TOWLER: IN NOT KNOWING ONE, WE’RE WITHOUT AN OTHER
UNTIL 22 FEBRUARY, SOMERSET RURAL LIFE MUSEUM, GLASTONBURY, SOMERSET
Georgina Towler is a contemporary landscape artist, based at East Quay in Watchet. Her work explores the relationship between space, light and colour inspired by her exploration of the Somerset landscape. Georgina describes her paintings as ‘experienced spaces’ which comment on landscape. The forms and geometric shapes that define her work are not necessarily true to the original scene but play on the memory of line within the terrain. Her latest exhibition ‘in not knowing one, we’re without an other’ explores the duality and dynamism to be found in landscape and in life.
“My practice is the result of the intense observation of place, space and light. Through my constant gazing, wandering and contemplating, I’m driven to capture the intimacy between me and my surroundings”.
4) DARTMOOR: A RADICAL LANDSCAPE: GROUP EXHIBITION
UNTIL 23 FEBRUARY, RAMM MUSEUM, EXETER, DEVON
A major new contemporary art exhibition exploring Dartmoor’s evocative landscape through photography, film and Land Art. Showing artwork from 1969 to 2024, this exhibition demonstrates Dartmoor’s attraction to artists who, through photography, explore current issues including the interconnected ecological and climate crises and access rights.
Dartmoor includes beautiful images of bathers in the river Dart by Siân Davey; Fern Leigh Albert’s documentation of the wild camping campaign as well as Robert Darch’s black and white photographs of exhausted young people during Ten Tors; and Nicholas JR White’s atmospheric ‘Militarisation’ series.
Influential conceptual Land Art from the 1960s and 70s by artists Nancy Holt, Richard Long, and Marie Yates, provide the context for this innovative exhibition. Central to the exhibition are large-scale, experimental photography by critically acclaimed artists Susan Derges and Garry Fabian Miller. RAMM has also commissioned two major new artworks by internationally renowned artist Alex Hartley and filmmaker Ashish Ghadiali whose work is inspired by RAMM’s Dartmoor-related collections.
5) MERGE: GROUP SHOW
UNTIL 23 FEBRUARY, BLACK SWAN ARTS, FROME with EMERGE BATH SPA UNIVERSITY
Artists include: Lou Baker, Lola Bennett, Sujata Bharti, Betsy Bond, Victoria Bone, Juliet Duckworth, Amanda Hall, Alyson Minkley, Immi Murray, Elizabeth Royle, Lily Serendipity, Asha Uberoi. Twelve textile/mixed media artists in residence. Bath Spa University emerging and rising graduates making experimental collaborative work through social engagement in the Long Gallery and the Round Tower. Curated by Lucy Gundry.
6) TONI DAVEY: GOLDWORKS
UNTIL 1 MARCH, ACEARTS, SOMERTON, SOMERSET
Begin the year with a burst of brightness at GOLDWORKS, an exhibition crafted to uplift and inspire. Toni states in Morocco ‘I discovered how intense decoration and metallic pigments can transform the humble and mundane into something precious’. This journey is reflected in 60 works, including drawings, paintings, sculptures, textiles and assemblages. An exhibition that is sure to bring light and positivity to your spirit.
7) RESTLESS EARTH: GROUP EXHIBITION
UNTIL 9 MARCH, SLADERS YARD, BRIDPORT, DORSET
Paintings by Anthony Garratt and Frances Hatch ARWS; furniture by Petter Southall; ceramics by Adela Powell. Paintings, prints and ceramics by selected gallery artists in part of the gallery.
Both Anthony Garratt and Frances Hatch paint the outdoors in all weather and times of year, including natural materials in their work. Anthony Garratt explores the political and emotional evidence of the human within the landscapes he paints, alongside the nature of the paint itself. Frances Hatch invites conversation with the stuff of each place, the dynamic exchanges in light and weather she experiences on the land, allowing the rain and environment to engage with the paint and radically change her work. Adela Powell (d.2022) created beautiful ceramics inspired by waste and the magic nature works with decay, rust and weathering. Fascinated by the natural world, Adela also enjoyed the playful, skilful alchemy of clay itself. Petter Southall responds to superb natural timber in furniture designs that combine an exciting fluidity with tactile strength. Always original and surprising in his understated and brilliantly judged detailing, Petter’s pieces consistently take your breath away.
WATCH OUT FOR
- CIRCULAR ARTSPACE 12TH COMMUNITY ART EXHIBITION 1– 23 FEBRUARY Exhibition of emergent and under-represented artists in a double decker bus in Fishponds, Bristol. CIRCULAR ARTSPACE, BRISTOL https://circularartspace.co.uk/exhibition
- CHRIS SHOPLAND: INNER AND OUTER LANDSCAPES 7–12 FEBRUARY Exploration of the uniqueness of the human experience, through a distinctive visual language. CENTRESPACE STUDIOS & GALLERY, BRISTOLhttps://www.centrespace.org.uk/whats-on/
- WHAT STORIES MAKE WORLDS: GROUP EXHIBITION UNTIL 23 FEBRUARY This exhibition charts a journey from the importance of our deep oceans and shorelines, along local rivers to local hills and the gardens at Hestercombe. HESTERCOMBE GALLERY, CHEDDON FITZPAINE, SOMERSET https://www.hestercombe.com/whats-on/what-stories-make-worlds-at-hestercombe-gallery
The Floating Circle 