‘Speak’

A visual metaphor

Fri 1 December, 2023 Mon 15 January, 2024

Fri 1st December – Mon 15th January 2024

‘Speak’ is a collaboration between Quay Arts, Graffiti Artist Steve Miles, Cut Laser Cut and students from the Island Learning Centre.

A Fusion of graffiti, typography, fine art and sculpture.

Students at the Island Learning Centre (ILC) have collaborated with Graffiti artist Steve Miles to produce a multi-layered and hand-painted high-relief wall work at Quay Arts, which explores graffiti, typography, fine art and sculpture.  

Creative writing 

The Art department at the ILC run an annual creative writing project to promote students’ engagement with literacy.  

During ‘Speak’ art sessions, students explored the aesthetic qualities of typography, letter formation and graffiti, developing a kinaesthetic understanding of the physical form of lettering, line, form, shape and space.

Creative Industries 

Students worked with Graffiti artist Steve Miles to experiment with line, layering, pattern and colour transforming 2D name plates into multi-dimensional / sculptural forms. Taking inspiration from the students work Steve Miles presented digital concept art to ILC art department and Quay Arts Arts team, who selected a design which was fabricated by Island design manufacturer Cut Lazer Cut. 

The cut low relief sculpture was returned to ILC for students to hand finish with paint and aerosol for installation at Quay Arts. Through working with Steve students have created ‘Speak’ as symbolic of words or messages that may not have been seen or heard or may have become lost.  

“Working with creative professionals offers real life experience and gives an insight into creative industries.” ILC Art Department 

“’Speak’ is a well-formed real-world project / collab between young people, educators, artists and designers with a variety of outcomes that include, for Quay Arts, a wonderful wall work.’ Quay Arts, Arts Team 

Many Thanks to design manufacturer Cut Laser Cut for their generous support. 

This project is supported by the Arts Council of England through Quay Arts’ Schools and Education outreach programme. 

www.stevemiles.co.uk

www.islandlearning.co.uk

www.cutlasercut.com

FREE

Cafe Wall
Monday – Sunday

9am to 5pm

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Family Craft Drop-In

Sun 17 December @ Sun 17 December

Family Craft Drop-In: with artist Caroline Underwood
Sunday 17th December – in the Seminar Room
10am – 1pm

FREE

Craft your own cards and paper decorations – design an original Christmas card and create a festive garland, wreath or table decoration using paint, collage and basic paper construction techniques.  Caroline Underwood will demonstrate a short activity every half hour.  Materials will be provided.

This is a drop-in activity so you can come along anytime between 10am and 1pm.

All children must be accompanied by a supporting adult, this activity is suitable for all ages!

Portfolio Group Show

Exhibition by the Portfolio Preparation Group of 2023

Fri 15 December, 2023 Sun 14 January, 2024

Fri 15th December – Sun 14th January 2023

Portfolio Group Show

A group exhibition of work created by students from Quay Arts 2023 Portfolio Preparation course. Artworks being selected and curated by the course students and lead tutor Nick Martin. Quay Arts Portfolio preparation course provides a foundation style experience led by Nick and guest artists working across diverse artforms including paint, print, textiles, sculpture and more.

We are now recruiting for our 2024 course, for more details please visit the Portfolio Preparation Course page on our website. Or contact artsteam@quayarts.org and a member of the Arts Team will get back to you!

FREE ENTRY

Clayden Gallery
Monday – Sunday

9am to 5pm

Launch:
16th December, 1-3pm
All Welcome

Silent Book Club

Mon 18 March, 2024 Mon 18 March, 2024

March 18th ’24

6:30 – 7:30pm – People arrive, order drinks/food, share what they’re reading.
7:30 – 8:30pm – Quiet reading hour.
8:30 – 9:30pm – Optional socializing, or just keep reading
.

Silent Book Club is a global community of readers and introverts, with more than 500 chapters in 50 countries around the world led by local volunteers. SBC members gather in person and online to read together in quiet camaraderie.

Silent Book Club started in 2012 with a couple of friends—Guinevere de la Mare and Laura Gluhanich—reading in companionable silence at their neighbourhood bar in San Francisco. They loved books, and reading with friends, but most of their previous attempts at book clubs had fizzled out.

Often with traditional book clubs there’s the scramble to finish the assigned book, and the pressure to have something smart to say. Wouldn’t it be great to have a book club where you could just enjoy books, friends, and drinks—without any homework?

At Silent Book Club, there’s no assigned reading.

www.silentbook.club

TICKETS*

FREE!

RSVP HERE!

*Our booking fees explained:
Our goal is to provide an excellent personal service to our customers and to do this requires a lot of resource. The booking fee we levy contributes to the cost of running the Quay Arts Centre, its Box Office and Box Office systems. As a charitable not for profit organisation all income is used to support the delivery of arts and cultural activities to our local community.

Silent Book Club

Mon 19 February, 2024 Mon 19 February, 2024

February 19th ’24

6:30 – 7:30pm – People arrive, order drinks/food, share what they’re reading.
7:30 – 8:30pm – Quiet reading hour.
8:30 – 9:30pm – Optional socializing, or just keep reading
.

Silent Book Club is a global community of readers and introverts, with more than 500 chapters in 50 countries around the world led by local volunteers. SBC members gather in person and online to read together in quiet camaraderie.

Silent Book Club started in 2012 with a couple of friends—Guinevere de la Mare and Laura Gluhanich—reading in companionable silence at their neighbourhood bar in San Francisco. They loved books, and reading with friends, but most of their previous attempts at book clubs had fizzled out.

Often with traditional book clubs there’s the scramble to finish the assigned book, and the pressure to have something smart to say. Wouldn’t it be great to have a book club where you could just enjoy books, friends, and drinks—without any homework?

At Silent Book Club, there’s no assigned reading.

www.silentbook.club

TICKETS*

FREE!

RSVP HERE!

*Our booking fees explained:
Our goal is to provide an excellent personal service to our customers and to do this requires a lot of resource. The booking fee we levy contributes to the cost of running the Quay Arts Centre, its Box Office and Box Office systems. As a charitable not for profit organisation all income is used to support the delivery of arts and cultural activities to our local community.

Silent Book Club

Mon 15 January, 2024 Mon 15 January, 2024

January 15th ’24

6:30 – 7:30pm – People arrive, order drinks/food, share what they’re reading.
7:30 – 8:30pm – Quiet reading hour.
8:30 – 9:30pm – Optional socializing, or just keep reading
.

Silent Book Club is a global community of readers and introverts, with more than 500 chapters in 50 countries around the world led by local volunteers. SBC members gather in person and online to read together in quiet camaraderie.

Silent Book Club started in 2012 with a couple of friends—Guinevere de la Mare and Laura Gluhanich—reading in companionable silence at their neighbourhood bar in San Francisco. They loved books, and reading with friends, but most of their previous attempts at book clubs had fizzled out.

Often with traditional book clubs there’s the scramble to finish the assigned book, and the pressure to have something smart to say. Wouldn’t it be great to have a book club where you could just enjoy books, friends, and drinks—without any homework?

At Silent Book Club, there’s no assigned reading.

www.silentbook.club

TICKETS*

FREE!

RSVP HERE!

*Our booking fees explained:
Our goal is to provide an excellent personal service to our customers and to do this requires a lot of resource. The booking fee we levy contributes to the cost of running the Quay Arts Centre, its Box Office and Box Office systems. As a charitable not for profit organisation all income is used to support the delivery of arts and cultural activities to our local community.

FREE Family Portrait Workshops

With illustrator Katie Stone

Tue 24 October @ Tue 24 October

BOOKING CLOSED


FREE Family Portrait Workshops at Quay Art

Illustrator Katie Stone is delivering portrait workshops inspired by the work of our next West Gallery exhibiting artist Sandy Kendall and her exhibition Manifestations, with this exhibition being free to visit too and opening on Oct 21st so you can gather inspiration for the workshop!

DETAILS

In this quick-fire 45 minute workshop, you’ll learn how to make your own vibrant portrait! This is a free family workshop, please dress for mess! This activity is for everyone to have a go at and get stuck in!

The workshops will be held in our Seminar Room on Tues 24th, and there will be three separate sessions available that day. Sessions will last approximately 45-minutes and run at 10am, 11am and 12pm. 

These workshops are kindly funded by the Daisie Rich Trust. 

TICKETS
Book your session (one only please) via the button below which will take you to an Eventbrite page. Choose the time of the session you would like to attend.
You will need to book for a ticket for each member of your group, both children and adults.

*Children under 16 must be accompanied by a responsible adult who has also booked a place.*

AD ASTRA

Exhibition by the carnival group Shademakers UK

Sat 9 December, 2023 Sun 18 February, 2024

Sat 9th December – Sun 18th February 2023

AD ASTRA (To the Stars)

Exhibition by the carnival group Shademakers UK

“When you look to the stars, be careful what you tread in” 

Shademakers UK display their stunning carnival costumes at the Quay this winter with a focus on flight, wings and the skies.  

Back in 2022, Shademakers UK led the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Pageant through the streets of London. A once-in-a-lifetime experience that saw over 200 performers from the Island parade as a menagerie of beasts.

Following on from that incredible project, Shademakers are exploring the theme of Ad Astra in a new presentation at Island Carnivals next summer, a Theatrical Spectacle at Shanklin Theatre and this exhibition at Quay Arts.

Ad Astra sees this Island based Carnival Company take to the skies in an ambitious project celebrating all things with wings.

Artistic Director, Paul McLaren’s stunning kinetic costumes will take flight in the West Gallery from Dec-Feb in an exhibition that intricately explores the theme of flight through the enchanting world above our heads. The costumes are a symphony of colours and textures, featuring elaborate wing designs that evoke a sense of graceful movement and freedom. Each piece is a visual ode to the beauty and majesty of avian creatures, celebrating the wonder of flight in a truly mesmerising fashion.

www.shademakersuk.org

FREE ENTRY

West Gallery
Monday – Sunday

9am to 5pm

Preview:
TBC

FIGURES

Cafe exhibition by artist Rita Brown

Fri 13 October Tue 21 November

Friday 13 October – Tuesday 21 November 2023

FIGURES: cafe exhibition by artist Rita Brown

Working as artist in residence to contemporary dance companies, Rita’s paintings and mixed media works take the form of non-literal / emotionally expressed responses to the visual experience. Observing the collaborative creation of ideas, improvisations, rehearsals and final performances of dancers. With a knowledge of anatomy and use of layering of paint and glazes the works slowly build, capturing fleeting moments. 

ARTIST STATEMENT

‘This small body of work is a taster exhibition from a series of artist residencies with contemporary dance and performance companies. I have drawn the dancers while they have been creating new, cutting-edge choreography either for performance or when companies have been refining and restructuring current pieces on tour. Connection with the performers is essential both emotionally and professionally, in their journey through the creative process of developing a new idea expressed in movement.

I have found myself engaged by the human condition as expressed by dance observing the way dancers portray the human emotions of love, separation, anger, loss, unity and playfulness to name but a few.

As an observing artist I am exposed to the light, emotion, movement, expression and sound in fleeting moments that are challenging to capture. I must fix my gaze upon the dancers instead of on the surface, allowing the media to flow across the paper following the dancers in motion. Quick sketches and notes in the form of marks are then developed into more considered paintings. Relying on memory and the emotional engagement with the performers I search through my mark making and iterations of paint to find an image will emerge.

My aim has been to capture the spirit and essence of the performers in a moment of time as they move through space’.

My work has won many awards in a long, professional career in art; living, painting and teaching art in London, Hong Kong and Singapore having exhibited extensively in the UK and abroad.

www.ritabrownartist.co.uk

I have worked as resident artist with the following contemporary dance companies from 2011-2021:

Fleur Darkin  |  Lila Dance  |  White Light  |  Atma Mayuri Boonham   |  Vicky Hearne |  Khamalane Halsakda   |  Jonzi D  |   Blanca Li Elektrokif   |  Acid Dance  |  Elodie Escarmelle  | Probe   |  Laura Vanhulle   |  Chora   |  Vicky Malin   |  James Wilton

FREE ENTRY

Café Wall
Monday – Sunday

9am to 5pm

Manifestations

Solo exhibition by artist Sandy Kendall

Sat 21 October Sun 26 November

Sat 21st October – Sun 26th November 2023

Manifestations: solo exhibition by artist Sandy Kendall

A solo exhibition by Sandy Kendall featuring drawings and paintings inspired by classical art and a life-long interest in the human body.

‘Manifestations’ presents works on canvas, board and large-scale pieces on cloth, depicting a morphic mass of denuded bodies that strive to breach the frame. 

As quoted from the artist:

“It began with a single sheet of raw canvas stapled to a wall three years ago, with the strong influence of classical painting in mind, and some self-imposed limitations in terms of colour and media, I expanded the concept to encompass the textures and patterns of simple curtaining fabrics (with a subconscious nod to tapestries of the same era).

Alongside these “hangings” I also began work on a series of largescale paintings in colour and mixed media, perhaps as an antidote to the restrained monochromatic hangings. The paintings all contain a narrative of sorts, some with roots in Greek mythology, and explore filling the surface with the human figure.

Completion of the collection (MAINFESTATIONS) came with a flourish of small Michelangelo inspired canvases, still crowded with figures but balanced with flat areas of simple colour.

Outside of the gallery you will notice some energetic figures on wood panels attempting to leave the scene of the crime, I do hope you won’t follow their example but linger a while and please do leave your comments in the visitor book as they are highly valued.”

Sandy Kendall, 2023

*PREVIEW* Oct 21st 6pm – 7:30pm

Our Cafe will be open and available for food and drinks during the preview, however please make table bookings in advance if you wish to place dinner orders with our Cafe.

FREE ENTRY

West Gallery
Monday – Sunday

9am to 5pm

Preview:
Oct 21st 6pm – 7:30pm

Transience

Group exhibition by artists Amanda Seale, Melanie Swan and Sylvia Radford.

Sat 4 November @ Sat 4 November Wed 29 November @ Wed 29 November

Sat 4th Nov – Wed 29th Nov

Transience: Group exhibition by artists Amanda Seale, Melanie Swan and Sylvia Radford.

Transience presents the work of three artists who explore their experiences of impermanence and changeability through different mediums. Which includes textile installations by Amanda Seale and Melanie Swan, together with paintings by Sylvia Radford who, earlier this year, was selected for the Contemporary Art Collectors Emerging Artist Programme and awarded an Honourable Mention in the Contemporary Expressions Award 2023.  

The artists have worked together since they met in 2018 and exhibited together at Quay Arts in 2021 with their show ‘A Place to Call Home’.   

ARTIST STATEMENTS:

AMANDA SEALE


Process and textured making are intertwined within
Amanda Seale’s compositions as a textile, mixed-media
practitioner. Artistic and personal development is critical for the exploratory nature of her work. Amanda’s practice
combines rug tufting, art embroidery, weaving, and the
use of paint; leading her to continue to source, learn
and develop unique styles and techniques, whether
they be historic or nouveau. The breath of her interest in various mediums pushes Amanda to consistently refine her skills as a textile artist, helping shape individualistic and lasting quality in her finished pieces.


Amanda worked with Selfridges Oxford Street on their
Christmas Window 14 Commission, in collaboration
with Hillary Burns MBE August 2022. This consisted of
15 pieces of work, some of which feature hand
stitched detailed, applied direct to the willow along
side other gun and hand tufted panels. Amanda previously displayed at Quay Arts in our Clayden Gallery in 2021. The exhibition ‘A place to call Home’ explored her experience of place and culture through different materials.


Website: www.amandaseale.uk
Instagram: amanda_seale

MELANIE SWAN

Melanie works with historical and traditional mediums,
including making natural dyes, inks and painting with
egg tempera on wood and gesso panels.
The charcoal and pastel drawings she made for this
exhibition grew from half remembered places she’s
passed through; exploring the feelings they evoke
when visited in her dreams. In fleeting moments between sleep and awakening, memories rise, shift and change. The installation started from thinking about those moments and how to express them. She’s built experiences of the exhibition through line and colour, words spoken (thought or
overheard), which embed themselves in memory.
Melanie is recording each day in the Clayden Gallery,
using techniques of ‘off-loom’ weaving including
twining and wrapping, to mark the passage of time.


Website: www.studioswan.co.uk
Instagram: melanie.swan

SYLVIA RADFORD

Sylvia Radford is a figurative oil and mixed media
painter who captures the fleeting strangeness and
unreliability of childhood memory. Her work combines
disjointed imagery in an interplay between naturalism
and abstraction to explore themes of family
relationships, time, and memory, investigating her
shifting sense of identity. She assembles her work
deconstructing and reframing personal family
photographs to question how such images are seen and
interpreted. In her work, the bright and pastel
tonalities of her palette belie a disconnection in the
relationships between the figures, often presented as
ambivalent, theatrical enigmas. Partly autobiographical, the results are open to responses that are both personal and universal, inviting the viewers’ speculation. Her work reflects an archive, through which a hybrid identity is created revealing the complexity of contemporary experience. Her paintings evolve in series and become distanced from their source imagery, forging a new
comprehension of the surreal experience of
remembrance.


Born in Thailand, Sylvia, a British-Singaporean, grew
up and subsequently worked between South-East Asia
and the UK, and now lives in Chichester, West Sussex.
She has been selected for numerous awards in 2023,
including Contemporary Art Collectors’ Emerging
Artist Programme, Jackson’s Painting Prize and the
Women in Art Fair at the Mall Galleries; also with an
honourable mention in the Contemporary Expressions
Award, and longlisted for the British Contemporary
Painting Prize.


Website: www.sylviaradford.co.uk
Instagram: sylvia.radford

FREE ENTRY

Clayden Gallery

Monday – Sunday 9am to 5pm

Quay Folk Club

Sun 17 December All day

Sunday 17th December 2023

In the cafe 19:00 – 23.00

The best in folk music on the island on the third Sunday of each month, with several floor spots sandwiched between two showcase performances.

Please see Facebook for details: www.facebook.com/quayfolkclub

More dates:



TICKETS

FREE

DONATE TO QUAY ARTS

Even a little money can make a big difference at Quay Arts

Did you realise that when you buy a cup of freshly ground barista coffee in our Café Bar, you are helping to support the cultural life of the Isle of Wight?

However, the generosity of our supporters goes beyond sales of food, drink and theatre tickets. Gifts of money, time, and even specific items make a huge difference to the amount of work we can do. Together, we can continue to enrich the lives of islanders and visitors with our fantastic programme of events.

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