Art creeps into the Rye Arts Festival programme (in the Fringe section) with an Open Studios day and three talks at the School Creative Centre, a new exhibition at the Rye Art Gallery, and a competition, two other exhibitions, and a reminder of the number of galleries that there are in Rye – and follows on closely from last month’s two major exhibitions by the Rye Society of Arts and the Tuesday Painters.
Rye and its surroundings have inspired artists like the 17th century Flemish painter Sir Anthony Van Dyck , JMW Turner and the American born painter James Whistler. Others artists who have lived in Rye or nearby more recently include water colourist John Piper, Edward Burra who produced some striking and popular paintings of cafe life, and First World War artist Paul Nash. And the husband and wife partnerships in Rye of Howard Gull Stormont and Mary Sapworth, and Robert Sang MacKechnie and Margaret Barnard, also helped include Rye in the history and development of art.
In the present day the School Creative Centre in New Road is home to over 30 professional artists from across a wide spectrum of disciplines including painters, sculptors, photographers, illustrators and textile artists and Saturday September 20 is an Open Studios day from 10am to 5pm, with a private view the previous evening; and there is an exhibition of new works by resident artists from Monday September 15th to Friday September 26th between 11am and 2pm Monday -Friday.
Painter Paula MacArthur is talking about “Technique & Abstraction – the value of technical skills to abstract painting” on Saturday September 13th at 2pm at the centre, followed by Conservation Consultant Chris Cleere on “Preserving the past for the future” on Saturday September 20th at 2pm, and by photographers Caroline Fraser and Jonathan Hills on “Abstracting the landscape” and “Drawing on photography” on Saturday September 27th at 2pm.
Rye Art Gallery features a new exhibition “The Celebration of Light” (see article), Rye Academy Trust artists feature in an exhibition in the Milligan Theatre entrance, while the Studio School concourse features their Rwanda Photographic Exhibition. Plaristo at 55 The Mint gives you an opportunity to vote in their Glowing Glass Competition and the Avocet Art Gallery at Rye Harbour has a “Seaside Special” exhibition featuring art inspired by Rye Bay and local artists including Annie Soudain, Robert and Peter Greenhalf, Ruth Praill and Anna Wilson-Patterson.
Other galleries include the Clive Sawyer Photographic Gallery, the Purdie Gallery and the Roche Gallery in the High Street, and the Swann Gallery on the corner of Mermaid Street and West Street. Also Rye Camera Club are holding their Annual Exhibition in St Mary’s Centre on Saturday September 13th between 10am and 5.30pm.
The image is a School Creative Centre advertisement