News

Along with the newly opened up promenade there’s another great reason to head down to Southsea seafront. At the start of April some beautiful artwork by Sarah Muwanga and Hollie Foskett was installed at The Windbreaks to be displayed for the next four months.

The Windbreaks is a permanent art display of ten A0 panels which changes over 3 times a year. It is a great exhibition space that is open primarily to local artists to display their work.

Following an open call at the beginning of the year the work of two fantastic local artists really stood out and we are thrilled to show the paintings of Sarah Muwanga and the illustrations of Hollie Foskett.

Sarah Muwanga said:

Having my work displayed on the seafront through the Windbreaks feels incredibly special. There’s something powerful about placing art in a space that people move through in their everyday lives. It creates an opportunity for unexpected moments of connection, where someone might pause, reflect, or feel seen. That kind of interaction is what motivates me to share my art so I am very grateful for this opportunity. 

See below for a preview and even better head down to the seafront to check out the pieces up close.

Sarah Muwanga is a self-taught contemporary figurative painter. Working primarily in oil on canvas, her practice explores identity, intimacy, and the quiet psychology of everyday life within domestic interiors. Through layered colour, expressive mark-making and patterned space, she captures moments of stillness that suggest connection, memory and belonging. Developing her practice outside formal art school structures, and shaped by her experience of being mixed-race, she has cultivated a distinctly personal visual language grounded in questions of duality and identity. Her work has been exhibited in London at Mall Galleries, Fitzrovia Gallery, and GPS Gallery.

Hollie Foskett creates playful drawings of the home, family life and gardening under the name ‘Bitsifind’. Hollie is neurodiverse and her work celebrates themes of softness, femininity and mental health. As the artist settled into Southsea life she experienced lots of difficult emotions, healing herself through ecotherapy, skating and spending time with her dog and ‘Bitsifind’ became a space for healing, reflection and ‘bits the artist found out about life’. Hollie is a mature student studying at University of Portsmouth, and has exhibited with Hotwalls Studios, led workshops with Aspex for Women In Art and has been in several publications including Sketch Appeal The Art of Self Love by Dulcie Ball.

To find out more about The Windbreaks: The Windbreaks – Hotwalls Studios

Sarah Muwanga: Sarah Muwanga artist – SarahMuwanga

Hollie Foskett: Instagram

Some wonderful news for Hotwalls Studios 1 artist Karen Gorman whose work ‘American Staple’ has been shortlisted for the prestigious 2026 Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy, London.

For over 200 years the Summer Exhibition has been one of the most respected and contested open calls in the contemporary art world. Each year a theme is selected by the curator and for this year it is ‘Interconnectedness’. The message from the gallery was:

‘It (Interconnectedness) will aim to explore ideas of entanglement, as well as unexpected and fortuitous connections and associations between disparate things, no matter how abstract or illogical. Proof that, as humans, our outputs hold more commonality than separation, without us intentionally seeking it.’

Gorman’s work depicts her familiar and favourite sheep characters and places them within a reinterpretation of Grant Wood’s American Gothic. In her words:

“It’s such an honour to have had my work shortlisted from a group of around 16,000 entries. American Staple will be travelling to the Royal Academy at the beginning of May, for the final round of selection.”

We’ll be keeping our fingers crossed that the piece makes the final selection and in the meantime are supremely proud of Karen for having this piece shortlisted.