Elementor Support News Page - Hotwalls Studios

Hotwalls announces its annual group show: Circles, Cycles and Cylinders

Circles, Cycles and Cylinders
The Round Tower, Hotwalls Studios, PO1 2FS
23-25 June, 10am to 4pm

Free entry

This year’s annual group exhibition by the resident artists of Hotwalls Studios.

Artists and makers from across the 13 studios will collaborate to create pieces inspired by the phrase Circles, Cycles, and Cylinders, on display in the city’s unique circular exhibition space, The Round Tower. The title is open to a wide range of interpretation and will be applied in a variety of media, including print, paint, jewellery, ceramic, and textile art.

3rd May 2023

A fantastic start to the year at Hotwalls Studios

The start of 2023 launched a year of events, exhibitions and markets to Hotwalls Studios, and saw the introduction of our guest artist programme.

Over the past four months, Hotwalls Studios has seen 4 talented artists take over the Round Tower on their monthly Open Studios. These artists have ranged from printmakers to large scale abstract painters, and have attracted over 1000 people into the 600 year-old building.

The feedback Hotwalls has had has been incredible, artists have found the days exiting and the public have found them intriguing and full of new things to try.

The Hotwalls Studios Team are proud to carry on the guest artist programme over the course of 2023, and announce each artist on the first of each month. Alongside each guest artist, all 13 studios will open their doors and two free drop in sessions/demonstrations will be available to the public each month.

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Harrison Jones, Hotwalls Studios guest artist

Nusye McCornish, Hotwalls Studios guest artist

Jayne Sandys-Renton, Hotwalls Studios guest artist

21st April 2023

Jayne-Sandys Renton is our third Open Studios Guest Artist

For every Open Studios of 2023, we have invited a Guest Artist to use our Round Tower for the day, as their own studio.

This fantastic opportunity allows us to give upcoming or developed artists the chance to work in a grade 1 listed building, associate themselves with the excellent cultural sector of Portsmouth and surround themselves with Hotwalls Studios finest artists.

The third artist we have invited to the Guest Artist Programme is painter Jayne Sandys-Renton.

Jayne is an artist and painter from Chichester, West Sussex. She explains that work is inspired by nature and women’s stories.

‘Living in the Sussex landscape I am surrounded by nature. Figures sometimes enter the work or nature itself becomes a metaphor for female experience. I look a lot at contemporary female painters and I am also very inspired by old master paintings; a Rubens’ figure or a Jan van Huysum still-life might be a starting point for a painting, as might my garden or magazine cutting. In lock down, when my daughters were around, I would often use them in my work. I have recently been reading about Jaynie Morris, a pre-Raphaelite muse; she recently entered the work indirectly as a still life called weeping beauty. Mythology is another starting point for me, with many paintings about Echo and Narcissus. My work is bold and expressive, and the colour is vibrant.’

Jayne will be painting in the Round Tower, exhibiting work and inviting the public to watch her process.

The guest artist programme runs alongside our monthly Open Studios, where you will find all of our studios and the Round Tower accessible from 11am – 4pm on the third Sunday of each month – FREE EVENT.

Find Jayne at – JAYNE SANDYS RENTON

28th February 2023

Studio applications now open

Five studios will become available to rent from this July and applications are now open!

Hotwalls Studios is home to 13 spaces for artists and makers to develop and grow their businesses and practices. We are looking for some new artists to join our creative community. It is important to us that there is a balanced mix of artists and makers in our studios working across a range of disciplines.

Two of these studios will be allocated as shared studios, each with a pair of tenants splitting the rent and minimum opening hours 50/50. This provides a vital opportunity for artists/makers who can’t yet commit to the opening hours or full rent of a studio, allowing tenants grow their businesses and eventually will move on to occupying a studio on their own, as and when one becomes available.

Maximum tenancies are five years. Tenants must commit to opening their studios at least 30 hours per week, or 15 hours per week if sharing. To be considered for the vacancies in July, applications must be received by 12 March 2023. For more information, to read our information pack and to apply through our online form, follow the link- Rent a Studio – Hotwalls Studios

24th February 2023

Your Voice 2 coming to the Round Tower

Your Voice 2 is a collaborative community arts and heritage project with the charity Motiv8 South and the arts organisation
Project Caboodle. The project gives a voice to young people in support, and provides new creative experiences along with the
tools needed to help develop valuable and transferable job skills within the creative industry.

The key long-term outcomes for this project are to empower and inspire young people by helping them work towards their
career goals across the various creative industries. The opportunities Motiv8 and Project Caboodle provide have helped develop new interests in arts and heritage through learning, documenting, archiving and re-appropriating unheard stories whilst working on a unique heritage project that contributes to the community.

During 2022, a series of creative workshops, a podcast of audio recordings , an artist residency programme, and pop-up exhibitions were commissioned. The project was funded by Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England.

The first stage involved commissioning a team of professional artists to deliver workshops that provided transferable creative job skills. The young people involved then produced oral recordings about their own life experiences, and what its like to be young in today’s society. To help develop connections between the young people and other members of the community, they also interviewed mature and elderly people about their lived experiences of historical events taking place during the Queen’s jubilee, and the Falklands War.

The work that will be exhibited in the Round Tower is from the second stage of the project where 6 artists were commisioned to make new work inspired by the oral recordings during a residency programme at ArtSpace Portsmouth. During 12 week residency period, the young people from Motiv8 attended artist-led workshops to learn new skills, and made new work.

The dates of the exhibition are to be confirmed. For more information – www.motiv8.org.uk

Artist 1 – Michael Whelan www.michaelwhelan.org
Artist 2 – Tony Spencer www.axisweb.org/p/tonyspencer
Artist 3 – Rachel Johnson www.racheljohnstonart.com
Artist 4 – Ashley John www.ashleyjohn.bigcartel.com
Artist 5 – Tom Boulton www.typetom.com
Artist 6 – Lauren Fry www. www.studiowren.co.uk

Featured image by textile artist Rachel Johnston

21st February 2023

Sky and Earth returns this May

Last year Hollie Thornley (Studio 3) and Alice Hume (Studio 9) collaborated to create the beautiful exhibition ‘Sky and Earth. The two residents will now collaborate again to explore the elements through weaving and clay.

The exhibition will be held in the Historic Round Tower, showing a new collection of work, demonstrations, meditation classes, macrame pot hanger and pinch pot workshops

Friday 12 to Sunday 14 May 2023

For more information – sky and earth — Alice Hume (vanderhume.co.uk)