Gallery Sketch Family Drop In Wednesday April 16th | 2 – 4pm | West Gallery Free | Suitable for all 8+ yrs * All children must be accompanied by a responsible adult *
Join us for a free observational drawing session in the galleries, inspired by our West & Clayden Gallery exhibitions. Let your creativity flow as you sketch, get inspired, and improve your drawing skills. Hints and tips for observational drawing will be provided throughout the session.
Whether you’re a regular sketcher or just looking to have fun, this is a great opportunity to experience the joys of observational drawing.
Some basic art materials will be provided, please bring your own sketchbook and dry drawing materials (not wet materials like paint). Supplies available to buy in our Quay Arts Shop.
Gallery Sketch Family Drop In Wednesday April 9th | 2 – 4pm | West Gallery Free | Suitable for all 8+ yrs * All children must be accompanied by a responsible adult *
Join us for a free observational drawing session in the galleries, inspired by our West & Clayden Gallery exhibitions. Let your creativity flow as you sketch, get inspired, and improve your drawing skills. Hints and tips for observational drawing will be provided throughout the session.
Whether you’re a regular sketcher or just looking to have fun, this is a great opportunity to experience the joys of observational drawing.
Some basic art materials will be provided, please bring your own sketchbook and dry drawing materials (not wet materials like paint). Supplies available to buy in our Quay Arts Shop.
Experimental Mark Making Monday 7th April – in the Seminar Room | FREE 10am – 1pm* All Children must be accompanied by a responsible adult *
Create your own painting tools using found natural materials like sticks, feathers, seed heads, and leaves. Experiment with mark-making as you test your different tools with inks to create unique textures, shapes and abstract effects. Discover how each tool can create interesting marks and patterns, and take home your handmade tools and experimental artworks to inspire future creations!
Abstract Inks Monday 14th April – in the Seminar Room | FREE 10am – 1pm* All Children must be accompanied by a responsible adult *
Create vibrant abstract patterned papers and designs using water and inks. Explore how the water interacts with inks to form unique textures, gradients, and shapes. Experiment with techniques such as dripping, layering and blending to create organic patterns and shapes. The results are beautifully unpredictable and perfect for use in collages or as standalone pieces of abstract art.
LEAN | TO features artist Steve Baxter’s background thinking and making processes in preparation for LIVING | ROOM.
Sat 11 January
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Sun 16 February
Sat 11th Jan – Sun 16th Feb
This exhibition gives insight into the background makings and thinking behind LIVING | ROOM on display in our West Gallery from Dec 7th – Jan 25th. Steve previously featured sculptural work at Quay Arts Biennial OPEN 2023 Exhibition: The Art of Sculpture, from which he was awarded this solo West Gallery exhibition.
LEAN | TO features Steve’s background thinking and making processes in preparation for LIVING | ROOM.
The LEAN | TO is a set of images, forms and writing that are installed together to make sense of and give insight into the process of my making art. This is the squad of players from which a first team is chosen from. No less important, crucial for underpinning success and each bringing individual contributions.” – Steve Baxter
Showcasing a rich diversity of artists participating in Isle of Wight Open Studios 2025.
Photo credit / artwork: Steve Miles
Thu 3 April
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Sat 31 May
Thu 3rd Apr – Sat 31st May
Isle of Wight Open Studios is back for 2025! Artists Island-wide will be opening their studios from Fri 16th May to Mon 26th May. In the lead-up, during April and May, a selection of work by participating artists will be brought together in the West Gallery at Quay Arts, showcasing the rich diversity of art and craft practices across the Island.
To find out more about Isle of Wight Open Studio’s 2025 click HERE.
A collaboration between IW College students, Project Seagrass, and Marine Photographer Theo Vickers.
Sat 1 March
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Sun 30 March
Sat 1st Mar – Sun 30th Mar
A collaboration between Isle of Wight College students Btec Art and Design Practice Level 3 Year 1, Project Seagrass and Marine Photographer Theo Vickers exploring the Isle of Wights Sea Grass beds through photography and 3D installations documenting the fauna that lives within this globally rare and important habitat.
Project Seagrass Project Seagrass is a marine conservation organisation working to save the world’s seagrass. Their mission is to lead societal change to enable the recognition, recovery, and resilience of seagrass ecosystems globally. By turning cutting-edge research into effective conservation, education, and action, Project Seagrass are working towards a world where seagrass meadows are thriving, abundant, and well managed for people and planet.
Seagrass on the Isle of Wight Seagrass is a marine flowering plant that forms lush meadows and can be found here in the Solent and Isle of Wight.
Unlike seaweed, seagrass has roots, flowers and leaves. Individual seagrass plants spread through the seabed to create a seagrass meadow creating a productive habitat with many benefits to people and planet. Seagrass stores atmospheric carbon, provides a nursery ground for many fish species, promotes biodiversity, helps to improve water quality, and provides protection against storms by helping to stabilise our coastlines.
Seagrass meadows can be found along the North coast of the Isle of Wight, including at Yarmouth, Seaview, and Ryde. There are two main species of seagrass found in the Solent. These are Common Eelgrass (Zostera marina), that grows sub-tidally and is exposed when the tide goes out, and Dwarf Eelgrass (Nanozostera noltei), a smaller seagrass species that grows intertidally where the tide goes in and out.
Seagrass Restoration Maintaining the health of seagrass meadows is important for healthy marine life and healthy people. However, over the last 100 years the UK has lost up to 92% of seagrass habitat predominately a result of poor water quality caused by urban, agricultural, and industrial run-off, coastal development, direct physical damage, and the worsening impacts of climate change.
Project Seagrass is working to restore seagrass across the Isle of Wight by undertaking planting trials and active restoration to re-establish and help marine habitats thrive.
Support seagrass on the Isle of Wight
SeagrassSpotter Despite the many benefits that seagrass brings to people and planet, seagrass data around the world is incomplete.
You can help to map and conserve seagrass on the Isle of Wight and become a citizen scientist by uploading photographs of your seagrass sightings to SeagrassSpotter. SeagrassSpotter is a free app and website where you can contribute towards a growing resource mapping the world’s seagrass.
Seagrass Safe Sailing One way to reduce pressure on sensitive seagrass habitats is to remove the opportunity for physical damage caused by recreational boating activities such as anchoring and mooring.
Advanced Mooring Systems (AMS) are a simple solution to prevent and alleviate physical seabed damage, disturbance, and seagrass scarring caused from traditional anchorage. This ensures that a bustling boating community can thrive alongside seagrass meadows.
Advanced Mooring Systems (AMS) are being installed across the island to reduce physical damage to seagrass meadows. This will protect newly planted seagrass restoration sites on the Isle of Wight and allow them to have time to germinate, grow, and thrive with as little disturbance as possible. On occasions where Advanced Mooring Systems aren’t available and anchoring is necessary. The Green Blue and Royal Yachting Association have a range of resources including best practices for anchoring and how to avoid further damage to sensitive marine habitats.
A range of resources of the Project Seagrass website provide further information on how you can be a Seagrass Safe Sailor and become part of the sustainable boating community.
Fragment Walks
One of the methods that Project Seagrass are trialing to restore seagrass around the Isle of Wight is to collect and replant seagrass fragments. During winter storms, strong winds and waves dislodge fragments of seagrass which then wash up along local shores.
During Fragment Walks, healthy green plants are collected and replanted in local seagrass meadows and at restoration sites with the help of volunteers.
Upcoming Fragment Walks 27th March, 1:30pm – 4:30pm | Priory Bay
Use your imagination to find The Secret Library during IW Story Festival, a magical place full of tales and wonder, where you can ignite the story inside you.
Thu 20 February
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Sat 22 February
Thu 20th Feb – Sat 22nd Feb
Ever wondered where those little knick-knacks come from and what their real purpose is? Here’s your chance to write your own story about the teeny-tiny washing drying on a line, or the antique microscope or the man in the hot air balloon dangling from the ceiling.
Allergy advice: natural materials used in this setting, including nut shells.
This exhibition is part of the IW Story Festival, which will have a workshop taking place in the exhibition on Friday 21st February. But the Secret Library exhibition will be free entry and open to all during the afternoons, where you might bump into a Story Festival author who is telling a story. You can use the space to sit and write or draw too.
The IW Story Festival is taking place at Quay Arts from February 20th – 22nd, find out more HERE.
An exhibition to celebrate 20 years of LGBT History Month in the UK, presented by StoneCrabs’ Out On An Island Project.
Sat 15 February
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Sun 16 March
Sat 15th Feb – Sun 16th Mar
‘Out On An Island: Pride In Self, Pride In Place’is an exhibition to celebrate 20 years of LGBT History Month in the UK, presented by StoneCrabs’ Out On An Island Project.
Highlights include: the striking LGBT Memorial Quilt inspired by the AIDS Memorial Quilt, created by the Isle of Wight community; the IW LGBT+ Trail Map highlighting everyday lives and notable figures who shaped our community, a historical timeline of significant LGBTQ+ events and curated oral history interviews from the Island’s LGBTQ+ community in audio and film.
There will be workshops, including LGBT History Clubs and badge-making activities for all ages, participants are invited to participate in a badge design competition – 3 badge designs will be selected which will be reproduced to raise awareness and funds to support ongoing LGBTQ+ initiatives.
The ethos of ‘Pride In Self, Pride In Place’ encompasses standing confidently in your own story to cultivate community pride. LGBT+ History Month serves as a reminder of a history often ignored, it is a dedicated space to celebrate our rich and diverse history, herstory, theirstory.
Join us in honouring the struggles and triumphs that shape our present and future generations.
An exhibition by year 5 students from Barton Primary School, as part of Artswork’s Young Cultural Changemaker programme.
Tue 28 January
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Mon 24 February
Tues 28th Jan – Mon 24th Feb
To coincide with the Isle of Wight Story Festival, this exhibition of work by year 5 children at Barton Primary School, is about giving children the platform to advocate for the issues they care about, whether this be safe places to play, caring for the environment, being kind to others – or just giving children a say in decisions that affect them.
The exhibition represents the first phase of a larger project focusing on literacy, oracy and advocacy where the children are working with creatives Jess Ong and Adam Gaterell to get their message across through performance poetry, cartooning, songwriting and visual arts.
It is part of Artswork’s Young Cultural Changemaker programme on the Isle of Wight, which empowers young people to make a difference to their communities through creativity, and is supported by Government funding through Arts Council England.
An Isle of Wight School’s exhibition organised by IOW Council’s PEACH.
Sat 5 April
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Sat 3 May
Sat 5th April – Sat 3rd May
We are pleased to announce the return of our Isle of Wight’s Schools exhibition organised by IOW Council’s PEACH (Partnership for Education, Attainment and Children’s Health), with the theme this year being ‘Change’.
FREE ENTRY
Clayden Gallery Monday – Sunday 9am to 5pm
If you are an Isle of Wight School who would like to apply, please view the below links:
In order to take part in our exhibition, please complete the below Submission Form by Friday 14th March 2025 midnight: Exhibition Submission Form
The below Developing Exhibitions Guide is a short guide to the Clayden Gallery space, display ideas, and advice from the Arts Team at Quay Arts: Developing Exhibitions Guide
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.