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
Cosmos: The Art of Observing Space
until 19 April 2026
A major art and science exhibition celebrating our enduring fascination with space. Bringing together contemporary and historic artists, the exhibition features an extraordinary range of work inspired by the cosmos.
Friends of the RWA Exhibition
until 17 May 2026, Lower Ground Floor
The Friends’ Exhibition returns to the RWA, showcasing the very best of their art; including painting, printmaking and three-dimensional works.
Twilight – The Blue Hour
10 March – 26 April 2026 – Kenny Gallery
The artworks in this exhibition examine and capture the elusive and fleeting atmosphere of twilight. The transitional ‘blue hour’ inspires magical and ambiguous narratives, within spaces that are intriguing, fascinating, and sometimes disconcerting.
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Compiled by Sue Quirk and Laurel Smart
1) ALICE KETTLE: BALANCING ACT
UNTIL 11 APRIL, BO LEE GALLERY, BRUTON, SOMERSET
Alice Kettle uses thread to describe the tensions between stability and precarity; articulating the contradictions between what is fixed and what is in flux. Through stitched and layered surfaces, her works materialise everyday human sensations, interweaving the archetypal and personal with contemporary experience. Through the connection between one thread with another, Kettle explores the relationship between catastrophe and hope. “We are part of the material world as physical and emotional beings, …where in between suffering and joy, power and powerlessness, we search for equilibrium.”
Within this new body of textiles, figures appear in the act of catching and throwing, of pushing and pulling. The threads in places are taut, tangled, and drifting, at times grounded and at others lifted—twisted with one another in lines of colour and form. They act as a metaphor for stillness and movement and the continual negotiation between opposing forces. In this dynamic interplay of thread, Kettle explores lived experience where rupture and renewal are in a perpetual balancing act
2) FORGET ME NOT: GROUP SHOW
UNTIL 11 APRIL, CLOSE LTD, HATCH BEAUCHAMP, SOMERSET
FORGET ME NOT is a dynamic and forceful photographic exhibition that responds to a world in flux – a world marked by displacement, the erosion of nuance, and the quiet vanishing of shared values. It brings together the work of Andrew Cross, Anna Mossman, Philip Sinden, Mariano Vivanco, and Denise Webber. The exhibition takes its name from the fragile flower that serves as both symbol and warning. Forget Me Not speaks to memory, responsibility, and the danger of forgetting – forgetting people, places, justice, and the delicate complexities that hold society together.
An underlying sense of displacement runs throughout the exhibition, not only geographical, but emotional, social, and moral. Yet Forget Me Not is not without hope. Woven through its images is a collective call for peace and harmony, articulated with subtlety rather than noise, conviction rather than spectacle. Every image is the result of investigation, observation, and thoughtful execution; nothing is accidental. Each artist engages with the world as it is, and as it might be, asking viewers to question what they see, what they believe, and what they choose to remember.
3) FLIGHT: GROUP SHOW
UNTIL 11 APRIL, ACEARTS, SOMERTON, SOMERSET
Art Textiles: Made in Britain – Louise Baldwin, Jessica Grady, Cas Holmes, Christine Howell, Rosie James, Edwina Mackinnon, Sandra Meech, Sylvia Paul, Stephanie Redfern, Christine Restall & Sarah Waters. Flight presents new and vibrant works by members of Art Textiles: Made in Britain, a group dedicated to promoting contemporary British textile artists. This exhibition takes inspiration from the natural world — from the delicate hum of a bumblebee to the sweeping arc of migration — exploring the many meanings of flight as movement, freedom, and imagination.
Across a diverse range of disciplines, artists interpret the theme through colour, texture, and form. Wings, journeys, and flights of fancy become metaphors for creative transformation — of ideas, materials, and states of mind. Together, these works reveal the power of textiles to capture motion and stillness, change and continuity, within a single stitched line.
MEET THE ARTISTS: Saturday 11th April from 11am – 1pm
4) KINETIC: GROUP SHOW
UNTIL 18 APRIL, MAKE SOUTHWEST, JUBILEE GALLERY, RIVERSIDE MILL, BOVEY TRACEY, DEVON
Where craft meets engineering. A large-scale exhibition showing the possibilities of movement and making.
KINETIC celebrates the ingenuity of artists, makers, and designers who bring objects to life through movement. From Victoria Walker’s jewellery that transforms, to Jan Zalud’s playful automata, and Pi Manson’s bespoke bicycles, the exhibition spans the simple and the complex, the decorative and the everyday. Works are made from a wide range of materials – from precious and rare to scrap and recycled -showing that creativity can begin anywhere, with anything. This mix of approaches offers both sustainable and accessible inspiration for all visitors.
Contemporary makers push the story further: Lewis Brown’s digital drawing machines turn code into expressive mark-making; Matt Gilbert uses digital methods to achieve extraordinary precision in craft; and Anam Hasan combines 3D printing and laser cutting to create ingenious working trains.
5) SALLY MACLAREN: RETROSPECTIVE – THE PASSION OF PRINTMAKING 1959-2026
UNTIL 2 MAY, SLADERS YARD, BRIDPORT, DORSET
A celebration of the remarkable printmaking of Sally McLaren in a solo show that fills the timber-framed galleries at Sladers Yard Gallery with glorious selling works from throughout her long career right up to this her 90th year. She is still producing large joyous youthful carborundum prints, Sally’s unique artistic voice sings out even from the first prints she made while studying at the Central School of Art, London, in the late 1950s. This includes her first ever untitled black and white etching, which showed in that year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, and all the key works which marked turning points in her career since then.
6) GRAYSON PERRY: ASPECTS OF MYSELF
UNTIL 3 MAY, RAMM, EXETER, DEVON
From textiles and pots to etchings and woodcuts, Grayson Perry: Aspects of Myself explores a sense of self through a range of media and storytelling techniques. As an astute observer and chronicler of life in Britain, Perry tackles subjects that are universally human: identity, gender, social status, sexuality, religion and politics. He uses his own experiences to reflect wider narratives about our place in society. Perry says, “I investigate our slippery sense of who we feel we are… the ongoing process of ‘being ourselves’.”
Works such as ‘A Map of Days’ explore how the interests, habits and psychological traits that make up a sense of ‘self’ can be mapped onto towns, reflecting an emotional geography of contemporary society. Other works such as the ceramics, ‘Aspects of Myself’ and ‘Mad Kid’s Bedroom Wall’ show how Perry incorporates autobiographical elements that reflect his own childhood experiences.
The exhibition also features elements from Perry’s ‘A House for Essex’, a secular chapel dedicated to the fictional Essex woman Julie Cope. Rarely are all four large tapestries shown together, so this is a unique opportunity to see them without visiting the house. Through these works and tile moulds from the house’s construction, Perry tells the story of place and belonging.
7) PINKIE MACLURE: EARTHLY SPIRITS
UNTIL 4 MAY, EAST QUAY, WATCHET, SOMERSET
Pinkie Maclure’s Earthly Spirits explores the space between the sacred and the earthly, the spiritual and the natural. Inspired by a visit to the Church of the Holy Ghost in Crowcombe, Somerset, Maclure was struck by the presence of pagan imagery within a Christian setting—particularly the Green Man, a symbol of nature’s omnipotence. This interplay of belief systems raises fundamental questions: What is sacred? Is the Earth itself sacred?
Through stained glass, sound, and film, Earthly Spirits creates an immersive space for contemplation. Here, Pinkie recalls a poignant memory of a young boy learning to play the piano in the church—his music accompanied by the circling flight of a swallow—adding a deeply personal yet otherworldly element to the exhibition’s themes of reverence, loss, and transformation. The exhibition will continue with new and existing stained glassworks, some suspended in front of the gallery windows, emphasising the themes of landscape, memory, transformation, and an alternative future.
WATCH OUT FOR
- WHAT BRINGS ME JOY: GROUP SHOW UNTIL 30 APRIL This exhibition features work from 25 artists who responded to explore the theme of joy: what brings it, how it feels, and where it can be found. GLENSIDE HOSPITAL MUSEUM, BRISTOL https://glensidemuseum.org.uk/introducing-our-pow-protect-our-wellbeing-initiative-971/
- DON MCCULLIN: BROKEN BEAUTY UNTIL 4 MAY A rich selection of images drawn from across McCullin’s career. HOLBURNE MUSEUM, BATH https://holburne.org/events/don-mccullin-broken-beauty/
The Floating Circle 