Exhibitions & Events

Selected Artists: Melanie Berman

2019 RA summer show exhibitor

Berman's fictional landscapes and scenes depict near recognisable objects and natural forms into lush paintings. Nature's biodiversity and the seasons can be encapsulated in movement or stillness suggesting the passing of time. The flatness of shapes and design reflect modern values and concerns that are present in our environments.

Rye College G.C.S.E Show

03 August – 31 August

Gallery 4

This annual exhibition by the pupils of Rye College allows us access to the work produced for the G.C.S.E examinations.
Year on year we witness a terrific output from this dynamic College art department. ..’ fantastically talented, what a joy…!’

Postcard of Rye

10th august - september 22nd

The Permanent Collection - Stormont Studio. FREE Exhibition

Rye has always been a tourist destination allowing travellers to come and view the cobbled streets and the hill top views from the citadel.

Commenting on the exhibition, Julian Day Curator said, 'Because Rye has always been a tourist attraction many artists have depicted the town and its' surrounding areas, not only picking up on picturesque scenes and viewpoints but the working life of Rye’.

The exhibition includes historic artworks from our permanent collections and pictures from 'The Stormont Photographic Archives'. Alongside this we show the work of contemporary artists living and working in Rye now, such as Louis Turpin and Richard Adams.

Caroline Fraser Photography

10 August - 8 September

Gallery 3

Caroline Fraser - Conversations with nature - intimate landscape photography.

Take a seat in light filled gallery 3 and experience the meditative quality of Caroline’s sublimely beautiful and sensitive photographic study’s. Caroline exhibits 5 series of photography.
Sea wall Stories, Findings, Fire on Water, Unbearable Lightness, Arborescence and For The Love of Trees.

Tom Hammick

14 – 30 SEPTEMBER

Gallery

Tom Hammick has made this series of woodcuts to illustrate Adam Nicolson’s new book ‘The Making of Poetry’, a celebration to mark the 250th anniversary of Wordsworth and the specific period of time Wordsworth, his sister, Dorothy and Samuel Taylor Coleridge spent together.
They are created from the fallen timber in the park at Alfoxden where the Wordsworths lived. The troubled nature of our connections to each other and to the natural world have long been the artist’s concern. Here in the visions of the poets,
in the luminous shadowed trees, in Coleridge’s dream worlds and Wordsworth’s sense of winter loneliness and springtime gaiety, Hammick summons a visual vocabulary that reconnects the present
to these foundations of modern sensibility.

Fiona Graham Mackay - Famous Faces & Places

14 September - 30

Gallery 4

See Fiona’s source of inspiration from a year of travelling through Asia, North Africa, down to the mud pools of Dorset fishing villages, along rickety passages and back streets, into Italian courtyards and picking a way through smelly boat yards. Then contrast the images captured by such varied experiences with the glamour and luxury of painting the famous where they work.

For example, Edward Watson, the principal male dancer at the Royal Ballet in his rehearsal room, Danielle de Niece off- stage at Glyndebourne, Sir Andrew Motion cramped into his Poet Laureate’s Camden bolt hole, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston on a harbour edge, 50 years after he became the first man to sail single handed, non-stop around the world, or the lively portrait of actor Juliet Stevenson. All sit still as the purest portrait emerges from Fiona’s talented hand, It’s been a magical year. Come see for yourself.

Flowers Reunited. Still Life season

3rd October - 17th November

The Permanent Collection

Throughout art history, flowers have been one of the most adored subject of painters.

Through them it is possible to track the History of Art in the stories they tell providing the inspiration from what nature can offer us. Mary Stormont who lived and worked in the building that now is the Rye Art Gallery, was an artist and an art collector. Many of the paintings in Rye Art Gallery permanent collection depict flowers in various stages of life.
Mary Stormont’s flower paintings will provide a central focus for this exhibition but other artist’s work will be displayed including: Diana Low, Eileen Margaret Easton, and Kenneth Townsend.

During the exhibition we will recreate some of the original drawings with real flower displays from local specialists.

Triptych - Exploring the diversity of art form

16 November - 21 December

Galleries

All Three of these well established artists are masters of their medium from the exquisite chiaroscuro oil paintings of Dani Humberstone, the playful figurative carnival sculptures of Marie Prett to the charismatic Large scale charcoals of Will Taylor. Triptych, a show that brilliantly explores the diversity of art form.

The Embarrassment of Riches

21st November - 12th January 2020

The Permanent Collection FREE Exhibition Stormont Studio

Still life scenes have been a common feature of art since the classical age but became a distinct genre during the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th Century.

The popularity was due in part to the combination of opportunity to display skill in painting textures and surfaces in great detail and with realistic light effects. The more somber scenes are read symbolically through the religiousens of Christian religious traditions, often underscoring life’s transience.

The more elaborate scenes with exotic luxuries are offering a darker history as they are linked to trading and colonial expansions of both the Dutch and English. Among the trappings of wealth and indulgence, familiar omens of impermanence and ultimately death linger in the picture, where still life’s original meanings are not lost.