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 172 Annual Open Exhibition
6 September – 28 December 2025
The RWA Annual Open Exhibition is one of the UK’s most prestigious open-submission exhibitions, welcoming artists at all stages of their careers. Now in its 172nd year, this highly anticipated event provides a platform for emerging and established artists to exhibit their work in the RWA’s stunning Grade II*-listed galleries.
Collection Showcase 2025
Until 21 September – Link Gallery, free entry
This collection showcase has been co-curated by a group of our volunteers, using the RWA’s Permanent Collection.
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Compiled by Sue Quirk and Laurel Smart
1) JAMAICA STREET STUDIOS: 2 EXHIBITIONS
4- 6 SEPTEMBER SARAH-JANE MCCARTHY, FROM WHERE I STAND, KIT FORM GALLERY
19-21 SEPTEMBER OPEN STUDIOS, JAMAICA STREET STUDIOS, BRISTOL
Sarah-Jane McCarthy: a selection from the last 6 years of her practice exploring femininity, womanhood, gender, self-identity and mental health through drawing, painting, and print. She shows an appreciation for all sides of a woman’s beauty, favouring the unconventional and rejecting societal expectations of how to hold oneself. Her work is an expression of the enjoyment of process and this is held as paramount, above needing any other reason to exist. It is a journey of finding a language in a world where there is pressure to turn passion into consumer products, she instead looks for authenticity. Drawings from the life room are a big part of her practice, showing both the study of anatomy and a celebration of bodily form. She strives to push the limits of the medium and hopes to inspire others to do the same in their own line of work Preview: 4th September 7 -10pm.
Open Studios: artists at Jamaica Street Studios throw open the doors to the legendary 37 – 39 Jamaica Street. This year is extra special – it marks the first Open Studios since they bought the studios. So, come and meet the artists, explore the beautiful studios, see the group show, and join the famous fundraising auction. Launch Friday 19th September 6pm – late; Fundraising auction Sunday 21st September at 4pm.
2) FORBIDDEN TERRITORIES: 100 YEARS OF SURREAL LANDSCAPES
UNTIL 7 SEPTEMBER, THE BOX, PLYMOUTH, DEVON
Forbidden Territories, which is organised by The Hepworth Wakefield, will take you on a journey through imagined universes, dreamlike scenes and bizarre features, looking at how Surreal ideas can turn landscape into a metaphor for the unconscious, fuse the bodily with the botanical, and provide a means to express political anxieties, gender constraints and freedoms.
It brings together an array of British and international artists including members of Breton’s original 1920s circle such as Salvador Dalí, Eileen Agar, Lee Miller and Max Ernst, later Surrealists such as Leonora Carrington, Edith Rimmington and Desmond Morris, and modern and contemporary artists like Ithell Colquhoun, Wael Shawky who recently exhibited at the Venice Biennale, and Cornwall-based Ro Robertson.
3) DENIS REED: ARTWORKS
UNTIL 10 SEPTEMBER, GLENSIDE HOSPITAL MUSEUM, BRISTOL
Glenside Hospital Museum has a collection of around 80 drawings and sketches by Denis Reed. Denis was a talented and ambitious graduate from the Royal College of Art. He was a patient at Glenside Hospital in the 1950s and suffered from bouts of severe depression. His drawings are beautifully executed and provide us with a poignant and moving account of life in the hospital. These remarkable artworks provide a unique glimpse into life at the hospital during that era.
4) MEGAN THIMM & IAN PILLIDGE: CLEAR SPOT
13-28 SEPTEMBER, HOURS GALLERY, BRISTOL
Megan Thimm: ‘My work is a meditation on the miniscule and overlooked beauty in the everyday landscape around us. I like to take a magnifying glass to the world to unveil the intricacies which are often passed by in our daily lives. This requires a different pace of life, one of slowing down and observing closely and carefully, a practice which I hope the work will encourage people to take part in. I hope to ignite a reverence for the beauty which can be found in small corners of the world… This body of work considers this juxtaposition of stillness and motion in nature. When the world seems to accelerate faster than we can comprehend, we reside in the notion that things can only be dealt with moment by moment. Just like observing a body of water, it is both fast and slow, moving and still, and has a distinct body and form yet is fluid and perpetually passing through.’
Ian Pillidge: ‘On one level I am interested in the paint, in how the qualities of the different pigments and mediums behave on the paper, and in the physicality and transparency of it. On another level there has always been an attempt to find a balance between a structure and leaving space for unplanned things to happen, to follow a thread and to be guided somewhere new. I am fascinated by the fact that the same motifs reappear again and again, when I am not expecting them. I think there is also an instinct to allow mess but keep control of it somehow.
I was intrigued by Megan’s work when we briefly shared a studio. We kept in touch after being separated by Covid, and decided to reunite to look at the work side by side again.’
Launch event Friday 12th September 6-9. Open Saturday 13th & Sunday 14th 11 – 5pm. Then by arrangement until September 28th. Free.
Website. https://www.hours-space.com/2025/05/24/clear-spot/
5) INTO ABSTRACTION: MODERN BRITISH ART AND THE LANDSCAPE
UNTIL 14 SEPTEMBER, BURTON AT BIDEFORD, DEVON
This exhibition examines the intersection of abstraction and landscape in British art from the 1920s to the early 1970s. Organised in collaboration with The Hepworth Wakefield, ‘Into Abstraction’ draws on their extensive holdings of modern art while also spotlighting key works from The Burton’s collection. It explores how artists embraced abstraction during periods of social upheaval to engage with the natural world and human experience. The exhibition includes works by Henry Moore, Patrick Heron, Barbara Hepworth, Allin Braund, Gillian Ayres and L.S. Lowry.
6) TRACTORED BY BEETLES: GROUP SHOW
UNTIL 14 SEPTEMBER, SOMERSET RURAL LIFE MUSEUM, GLASTONBURY, SOMERSET
An exhibition inspired by the landscapes of the West Country. Poet Laureate Simon Armitage wrote ‘Fugitives’, a poem dedicated to the National Landscapes of the UK – over a quarter of which lie in the West Country. Drawing its title from a line in that poem, Tractored by Beetles brings together six artists whose lives and work are deeply rooted in these distinctive rural places. Each artist brings a unique perspective: Liz Gregory and Tim Martin trace repeated journeys to Glastonbury in deeply personal ways. Jon England, Fiona Hingston, and Alice Crane draw from Somerset’s rich communities. André Wallace turns his focus inward, asking what it truly means to be human.
7) BETH MUNRO: BENEATH THE SURFACE
UNTIL 27 SEPTEMBER, ARTIZAN GALLERY, TORBAY, DEVON
Beth will be exhibiting a series of Hybrid Monotypes, etchings and dry points which were begun in 2022 and have since developed into a large body of work. The Flotsam and Jetsam served up daily by the ocean became her entry into exploring the world beneath the waves.
Using man made and organic materials found on her local beach, she builds her prints layer by layer, colour by colour. The act of Printing becomes a conversation between the physical application, the reveal and one’s response. The work literally takes on a life of its own, as a narrative appears within the marks, the textures, the forms.’
The story behind the work:
‘… Each day Ottie, my dog and I explore the beach thoroughly, looking at the rock formations, the shoreline, and the flotsam and jetsam that appears anew each day. I started collecting seaweed in 2020 and learnt how to identify it, press it, and preserve it. I collected strange organic objects that revealed themselves to be cuttlefish bones, ray egg cases, bones from dolphins, sponges and holdfasts, the strange handlike structures that Kelp use to attach themselves to rocks. I began researching marine life that I found captured in the rockpools at low tide and became fascinated by the curious and often surprising lives they shared in these complex habitats brimming with biodiversity.
I also collected a lot of plastic waste, fishing detritus and general rubbish that the sea gave up each day. To begin with I brought it home and recycled it or threw it in the bin, after time I decided to keep each day’s haul and label it with the date and where I was walking. It didn’t take long before my studio was full of bags, all labelled, all slightly giving off a fishy, sea weedy odour, silently telling me to do something with them. I decided to use the contents of these bags as a starting point for a new series of work that looked at the beauty of these underwater environments and our complex relationship with them. Trying to capture the sense of a world underwater, beneath the surface, but also try and say something about the impact of our behaviours on that environment.’
LAST CHANCE TO SEE
UNTIL 7 SEPTEMBER: DONALD LOCKE: RESISTANT FORMS The first major survey exhibition of Guyanese British artist Donald Locke (1930–2010).SPIKE ISLAND, BRISTOL https://www.spikeisland.org.uk/programme/exhibitions/donald-locke/
WATCH OUT FOR
- PURELY PRINT: MIXED EXHIBITION 6-25 SEPTEMBER An exhibition that brings together nine contemporary artists working in handmade print. SANCTUARY STUDIO & GALLERY, NEWNHAM, GLOS https://www.thesanctuarygallery.com/copy-of-la-dolce-vita
- LAURENCE EDWARDS: SCULPTURE 2025 UNTIL 7 SEPTEMBER Edwards’ sculpture continues to question our position in the world which we inhabit in this new exhibition. MESSUMS WEST, TISBURY, WILTSHIRE https://www.messums.org/exhibitions/pvr-laurence-edwards-sculpture-2025/
- RECURRING INTRICACIES: GROUP SHOW UNTIL 14 SEPTEMBER This exhibition brings together photography, ceramics, papercuts and sculpture made by three female artists: Helen Sear, Charlotte Hodes and Amanda Benson. THE SHERBORNE, SHERBORNE, DORSET
https://thesherborne.uk/exhibition/recurring-intricacies/ - THE WARTIME PHOTOGRAPHY OF VÕ AN KHÁNH UNTIL 21 SEPTEMBER Throughout the Vietnam War, Võ An Khánh (1936-2023) documented the hidden lives of communist guerrilla fighters and their communities, living throughout the country’s mangrove forests. This is the first solo exhibition in Europe. MANGROVE THEATRE, BRISTOL https://icvl.co.uk/
The Floating Circle 