 3–25 June, Private View Friday 2 June, 6–9pm
Our First Friday event falls early in the month this time, and it gives me great pleasure to invite you this Friday 2 June to a Private View of Michael Munday’s new collection Abstracted. Since his last exhibition, Through Still Life, Michael has spent time travelling in Kerala in Southern India, and Abstracted encompasses a shift in style to express his fascination with the colours, symbols and motifs he encountered there, as well as featuring paintings in his signature style and palette. We will be serving drinks and Indian snacks in the gallery and courtyard from 6pm for this first unveiling of his exciting new work, and Abstracted then continues until Sunday 25 June (Thursdays to Sundays, 12–5pm) with a couple of special events for your diary. Firstly, on Saturday 17 June at 2pm, Michael will be offering a walk-and-talk guide to his collection. No booking is required for this event, but we expect it to be popular, so prompt arrival is advised in case we need to limit numbers. The following weekend, on Sunday 25 June, writer-in-residence Holly Dawson will be leading an immersive creative writing workshop in response to Michael’s work between 10.30am and 12 noon in the gallery. Numbers for this are strictly limited and booking is essential, so email us at info@martyrs.gallery to reserve a place (£5, concessions available, refreshments included). Star Brewery • between Fisher Street and Castle Ditch Lane • Lewes • BN7 1YJ info@martyrs.gallery • 01273 479155 •
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Article by Richard Morgan-Jones A Social Dreaming Event inspired by “A Certain Kind of Light”, Exhibition at the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne; Hosted by Angela Eden, Richard Morgan-Jones and Robert Snell. 10 am-2.30 pm on Saturday 22nd April 2017  Lightshaft - Angela Eden A Social Dreaming Event Inspired by “A Certain Kind of Light”
“A Certain Kind of Light explores how artists have responded to light, its materiality, transience and effect. The exhibition brings together artworks that reflect the relationship between light and a wide range of themes from brightness, colour and perception to transformation, energy and the passage of time.” (From Towner publicity) You are invited to join a group of people who will share dreams in relation to this exhibition. This experience is called ‘Social Dreaming’, where a “matrix” forges a space for people to bring dreams, associations and images as they come into shape and are shaped by each other. This opens infinite possibilities of dreaming beyond your self with new dream thoughts. The morning will conclude with a Dream Reflection, which is an opportunity to link the dreams given in the matrix, to our wider social context. The aim of social dreaming is to create a meeting of minds through speaking dreaming experiences. In an era drawn back towards totalitarian politics, we seek a system that respects individual responses in building shared experience and meaning. Collected meanings throw new light on social experience we all share. This is also what an exhibition does, notably one focussed around /around light. The impact of light on the senses evokes elicits /elicits? a range of perceiving experiences, each one calling out different moods, different emotions. Each one reflects other senses: sounds, smells, tastes, touch and movement. These are the roots of feeling states. Transformation of sensing into imagery and feeling is at the heart of the dreaming experience that neuro-science is teaching us about anew [or: about which neuro-science is teaching us anew], belongs to primitive right-brained and intuitive experience upon which our attempted rationality depends. Through sharing dreams, connecting them and their imagery to the exhibition, while elaborating our associations to them, this event seeks to open up deeper realms of both artistic and dreaming experience. It is the gallery visitor who sees the image and the people who hear the dream, that [or: The gallery visitor who sees the image and the people who hear the dream] are key to unlocking deeper and wider truths about our common social world. You are encouraged to visit the Towner in the days before the social dreaming event, and re-visit it during a coffee break and afterwards. The event will be facilitated and hosted by three people: Angela Eden Angela Eden works with organisations as a consultant and uses Social Dreaming in a range of different settings. She holds the ‘Training' role in the Gordon Lawrence Foundation for Social Dreaming, as well as being a practicing artist. Richard Morgan-Jones is an organisational consultant and a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Robert Snell is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, a published art critic and author. Details of the exhibition and opening times can be found at: http://www.townereastbourne.org.uk/exhibition/a-certain-kind-of-light/ Tickets: can be purchased for £25 (£15 for students and those unwaged). Write to Richard Morgan-Jones (Richardmj25@gmail.com) or telephone: 01323-509112, giving your contact details, and he will send you a form and details of how to pay. He will also be pleased to answer any questions about the event. Do please circulate this publicity and bring friends and colleagues. There will be a break during the morning for refreshments and snacks in the Towner café. For more information about Social dreaming, see the Gordon Lawrence Foundation for social dreaming at http://www.socialdreaming.com A new exhibition of paintings and drawings from Eastbourne Artists Ann Johnson and Julian Sutherland-Beatson. March 25 - April 30 2017.  This exhibition brings together the work of two Eastbourne-based artists who exhibit both locally and nationally. Julian Sutherland-Beatson and Ann Johnson will show their recent work based on our urban and wild environments.
Each painter demonstrates a shared appreciation of fine, sometimes complex draftsmanship and the power of simplicity and space, using a robust visual language of marks. This is then interpreted into two highly distinctive but totally contrasting styles. Julian's paintings, whether depicting a simple glass jar of pencils, a crowded cityscape or a barren industrial space, turn the everyday into the magical through the alchemy of colour and composition in veils of paint. His work is in a number of private and public collections around the world including The House of Lords. For the past six years he has created and exhibited paintings at Glyndebourne Opera House during the Glyndebourne Festival. Ann is guided by imagination based on close observation of uncultivated landscapes and the flora and fauna inhabitants. Drawing is an integral part of her work and her favourite medium is charcoal. Rhythmic arrangement of marks become tangled wayside hedges, bleak winter gardens, vases of jumbled together stalks and seedheads. Ann works closely with poets and her drawings and paintings are regularly published in poetry collections. In recent years, both painters have had a number of works accepted and hung at Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions. town & country runs from 25 March - 30 April 2017 at The Birley Centre, Carlisle Road, Eastbourne, BN21 4EF. Open Saturdays and Sundays only 10am - 4pm. FREE ENTRY.
Spectrum is the latest solo exhibition from contemporary painter David Armitage. One of the Uk’s leading exponents of painterly abstraction, he has been described as a ‘supreme colourist’, and garnered respect from fellow artists and critics, as well as enjoying successful exhibitions both nationally and internationally.
Over several decades Armitage’s work has shifted, grown and developed. Fine tuning his technique through a combination of experimentation, planning, and practice, has led him to be described as ‘one of the UK’s leading colourists.’ As with many of the Abstract Expressionists before him inspiration and subject matter are as wide as the human condition. Life, death, passion, and tragedy are all here glowing through the washes or struck across ambiguous backgrounds in fervent brush strokes of searing colour. Spectrum runs from 25 February - 19 March 2017 at The Birley Centre, Carlisle Road, Eastbourne, BN21 1RW. Open Saturdays and Sundays only 10am - 4pm. (1pm-4pm Sat 4 March)  OK, so we're halfway through January 2017 already. WOW. How did that happen eh? Christmas is just a distant memory wrapped in a hazy mist of drizzle... literally! BUT there's soooo much to look forward to. Eastbourne will not be sleepy this year I think, get your calendars out, because there are lots of exhibitions that you will not want to miss. Firstly, opening this week is the new exhibition at our beloved Towner, A Certain Kind Of Light, pictured left. I'm looking forward to the PV on Friday night, for once the man is not working so I get to go with my date! Also there's the art... After the past few outstanding exhibitions they've got a tough reputation to keep up now, but I think this one will pull it out of the bag; Anish Kapoor [gasp], David Batchelor [oooh], Katie Paterson [aaaah]. Can't wait! THEN comes the long awaited opening of DC1 at the Devonshire Collective. Building works have held up the opening of the cafe and gallery space, but I think it will be worth the wait. The first exhibition, COLLECTIVE, is curated by one of the key figures in Eastbourne's arts scene, Judith Alder (Blue Monkey Net). Including work by artists working across a range of disciplines with a special interest in collaboration, collections or collecting, it's the perfect opener for DC1.  Also opening this month, just up the road at the De La Warr Paviliion, Hayward Touring Exhibition, In A Dream You Saw A Way To Survive And You Were Full Of Joy. Curated by Turner Prize-winner Elizabeth Price, this looks to be an amazing immersive exhibition including sculptures, drawings, photographs, films and videos, that will be arranged in four loosely threaded sections: Sleeping, Working, Mourning and Dancing. Continuing throughout January is Pocess at the Birley Centre. Local artists Paul Bartholomew and JFK Turner display their work side by side in this visually rich and well curated exhibition.The works are for sale and the standard is very high; many have already sold (one of those red dots is mine!) so don't delay if you are hoping to add some impressive work to your collection! For more information see our home page, open until Jan 30th weekends only 11am to 4pm.  Looking ahead to February, there's The Museum of Art at Towner, David Hockney at Tate Britain (I know that's a little way out of Eastbourne, but well worth braving Southern Rail for Hockney I reckon!) and look out for further details on the next Birley exhibition; a solo show featuring large abstract works from local favourite and international artist David Armitage. Phew! More to come... and if we've missed anything out, please remember to send us your info and press releases to contact@andarts.co.uk.
Just to make you aware, David and I have both received an email which we suspect to be a bit of a scam. It can be hard to tell what is a scam and what is genuine, so I have included a couple of links to other artists blogs on this topic further down. This is the email we received:
Dear Abigail I have contacted you in the past about inclusion in our publication but I have not heard back from you. Have you received my message? I am pasting it below again. I would appreciate if you let me know. I came across your art though Eastbourne Artists and I liked it so I would like to invite you to submit your portfolio for inclusion in Current Masters, International Contemporary Masters and Important World Artists three leading juried annual art publications presenting noteworthy artists and photographers from all over the world. [Oh wow! How very exciting and flattering, but clearly I'm not a master, except of facebook obvs.] We have a large distribution and the purpose of the book is to promote the artists in it. Besides delivering it for free to galleries, art collectors, museums, etc. we distribute free copies to all visitors and exhibitors in art shows that we participate, such as Spectrum-Red Dot in Miami, Art Expo New York. Only artists who are up to the standards of our art committee are selected. As a result, the artists in our books are approached by many galleries to exhibit their art.[Attractive?] Please note that inclusion in the books is not free. [Ding-a-ling those alarm bells should be ringing now!] Approved artists must pay a participation fee which varies according to the number of pages of the artist’s presentation. Galleries, agencies and groups of 2 or more artists receive special discounts.... and so it goes on If you have also received this message we suggest that you ignore and delete it. Obviously we need to give out our email addresses so that people who are genuinely interested in our work can get in touch, but it is a good idea to be cautious and always research any gallery or company who emails you. Some emails can seem personalised on first read, but may actually be a mass mail out where just one or two details are changed. Think carefully 'does this really apply to me?' If in doubt do your research, ask friends and fellow artists, and look at online forums. This post is a few years old, but has a long list of websites and galleries to watch out for: blackartinamerica.com/profiles/blogs/artist-beware-list This is a lengthy but informative article covering a variety of possible scams targeted at artists: artbusiness.com/osoqutscawas.html Of course you do not want to treat any genuine inquiry with outward suspition, but a little research can help you to spot spammers and scammers quickly. Here are a few key points:
Remember there are lots of genuine buyers, collectors, websites and galleries out there, who will be happy to answer your questions, put you at ease, and won't pressure you in any way. If you have received any suspect messages or scams, please comment below, so that we can keep each other informed. It may seem a long way off, but don't let it creep up on you! And anyone thinking of participating in this year's Christmas Open Houses will be able to book online soon. The popular Open Houses return this year for the 3-4th and 10-11th December, perfect timing for christmas shoppers, so watch this space... 
This video gives an insight into the working artistic practice of one of Eastbourne's most talented artists, Lisa Joffe, who's solo exhibition opens this week at Art Under Ground.
Joffe's stunning paintings are a physical act producing energetic interpretations of our local landscapes. The exhibition opens Friday 1 July, if you would like to attend the Private View please contact art@undergroundtheatre.co.uk, or you can also view the exhibition Fridays and Saturdays 1 - 30 July 10am-4pm, or when the Under Ground Theatre is open for other events.
I would have liked to give a balanced and unbiased view, but I couldn't find any artists backing a Brexit... sorry! Here's a gallery of artists work urging voters to remain, on Dazed Digital  |
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