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Denise Franklin

Stargazing, chalk gesso pencil drawing and spirit stain on wooden panel - £2,250

Jane Beecham

Lunt, (Scottish for Path), oil based ink, crayon, graphite pencil and gold pigment on paper - £895

Sally Cole

West, oil on canvas paper - £675

Fred Cuming RA (1930-2022)

Calais Beach, oil on board, 27x73cm inc. frame - £5,500

Keith Purser

Debris, Windswept, mixed media - £5,500

Melvyn Evans

Lost Land with Boat Form - oil and graphite laid on gesso board - £900

Rye Art Gallery 

'Timely Connections with David Crew and Tony Bennett' has been extended until Sunday 10th November.

This exhibition showcases the exceptional talents of local artists David Crew and Tony Bennett. With their distinctive styles, both artists deliver unique perspectives and offer up fantastic artistic narratives in their work for us to enjoy and be entertained.

Although they work in different mediums they are both essentially story-tellers who enjoy a collaging painterly process to express, in a kind of visual shorthand, complicated ideas and narratives fundamentally linked to the struggles of being human.

David, uses a more regular order to his subject, formed from within and visualised as an account based on real events. Tony on the other hand, is concerned more with an on-going dialogue with specific themes that have been constant throughout his life. Each piece represents a single story even though they too form a part of a broader narrative.
 

Please check our 'Exhibitions & Events' section for more details.

Please click here to view our 'Exhibitions & Events' page and 'Gallery News' to find further details of what's on

Rye Art Gallery

Step through our door in the High Street and you will be on a journey of discovery. Inside the Gallery, you will find large, interlinked spaces and changing displays of contemporary art to browse and buy.  With an exciting annual programme of exhibitions, you can also treat yourself to a view of some of our Permanent Collection including works by Edward Burra, Fred Cuming RA, Gus Cummins RA, Jacob Epstein, Ivon Hitchens, Paul Nash, John Piper, Mick Rooney RA, Graham Sutherland and Diana Low.

The unique layout is because the Gallery has been created from two domestic houses on two different Rye streets, now combined via a short staircase link. Artists Howard Gull Stormont (1859-1935) and Mary Elizabeth Stormont (1871—1962) lived in Ypres Studio, an Arts and Crafts house on Ockman Lane, and artist Eileen Easton lived at 107 High Street. The houses now make one premise.  

Mary created the Rye Art Gallery Trust in 1957 and bequeathed the Ypres Studio to the Trust at her death in 1962. One of the couple’s many artist friends, the painter Eileen Easton, became one of the original trustees and she later bequeathed her High Street house to the Trust as well.

The domestic history of the buildings has left its mark. There are stunning views down to the Rother estuary, especially from Howard and Mary’s old studio (the Stormont Room) at the top of the building. Through an unmarked door, there is just about enough additional room for our administrative work, some of it taking place under the eaves in the original bedrooms.

The Gallery’s Contemporary Artists and Makers

We sell paintings, prints, drawings, jewellery, ceramics, metalwork, textiles, glassware, wood, and mixed media pieces. Also available are cards, gift ideas and books. We operate a special scheme for those who fall in love with a piece and prefer to spread out their payments over a two-month period.  We are happy to respond to queries and enquiries about the work we show.  Our staff are well qualified with degrees in Fine Art and Design.

To view visit: http://www.ryeartgallery.co.uk/art-for-sale

The Permanent Collection

To view the Collection, click here: https://www.ryeartgallery.co.uk/collection-artists 

They include many works by artists of national and international importance as well as regional favourites.  We have uploaded most of our Catalogue and future plans are to provide you with an image for every work along with its descriptive entry.  

If you would like to join our Mailing List (data-protected) please sign up by clicking here or on the 'Subscribe' link on the left or contact us via the 'Get in Touch' page.

GALLERY HOURS

Mon - Sat: 11.00am - 5.00pm

Sundays: 11.00am - 4.00pm

Closed: Tuesdays

Bank Holiday Mondays: 11.00am - 4.00pm

For Individual Appointments: To view any of our works for sale or to make an appoinment to see items held in our Permanent Collection please email the gallery director Dr. Julian Day ryeartgallery@gmail.com

Art for Sale: Please follow the link below to view works currently available in the gallery

https://www.ryeartgallery.co.uk/art-for-sale

Instagram: Please follow this link for our instagram account https://www.instagram.com/ryeartgallery/

Artists in Focus: A full selection from each artist is available to view on our 'Art for Sale' section.

Bernard McGuigan

Scuplture

Bernard is a quiet modest man but full of determination and energy, which is often reflected in his work. If you take for example, 'Just the Two of Us', the movement of the piece is full of vitality, the two-figures joined not only by physical attributes but also by an emotional energy too.

More recently Bernard’s work has moved towards abstraction, where marks of the artists tools are more evident, 'Autumn Days' bears this evidence where rough stone sits symmetrically next to the smooth polished stone.

Another abstract piece in place at the gallery is 'Riding the Wave', which is completely smooth and polished made from limestone which depicts a large kidney form with two smaller geometric shapes inside where the subtractive process is manifest. A piece that most visitors of the gallery cannot help but stroke, the tactile nature of this artwork makes something so hard and inanimate become more lifelike offering a special kind of sensory experience.

Sally Cole

Paintings

Sally’s paintings are a means of expressing what she feels to be the essence of the land.

She spends many hours working outside in all weathers, simply looking and making marks in her countless sketchbooks. Though she does not work directly from these visual notes, they are a necessary means of storing and holding ideas.

Going back through these sketchbooks she remembers the weather, the sounds and energy of the place, she will call on these sometimes-tenuous threads to help inform the work created in her studio.

Located in Hastings Country Park, her studio again gives her immediate access to a beautifully diverse landscape. She will often spend many hours sitting and contemplating the feel of the natural park right on her doorstep.

She also spends a great deal of time travelling and painting in Pembrokeshire, Wales, and New Zealand.

The quality of light, the scale and the sense of mystery and majesty in both Pembrokeshire and New Zealand continues to inform and excite her.

Melvyn Evans

Paintings and linocuts

Melvyn Evans the artist, illustrator and printmaker's bold lino-cut prints and paintings, feature seascapes and landscapes. Melvyn takes inspiration from the ancient natural elements of the British landscape specifically the Hitchen Stone boundary between Yorkshire and Lancashire.

A series of works including Stone Forest (2019) and Lost Land With Boat Form (2020) reimagine the fossilised ruins of a vast submerged area called Doggerland, where in around 6,500BC, rising sea levels flooded the area which originally connected Britain to continental Europe. Remnants can still be seen today at low tide in some areas particularly at Redcar beach.

If there’s one thing the work of Melvyn Evans conveys it’s his love for the British countryside. In both the representation of land and the sea, through a considered use of colour and shape, his paintings and lino prints embody a historic sense of place. They explore the bonds that exist between human endeavour and the landscape as a dramatic, natural backdrop.